Penguins try to put best lines forward for the playoffs
Mike Sullivan on Monday, while publicly reiterating his approach to constructing a forward lineup, identified the four tandems he would like to keep intact.
Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel are his starting point. He feels good about Evgeni Malkin and Kasperi Kapanen. Ditto for Teddy Blueger and Zach Aston-Reese. And he sees that Jeff Carter and Jared McCann have developed chemistry.
“We feel like we have the makings of four real solid lines that have an identity to each line in how they’re going to help us win,” the coach said in Philadelphia. “And now we’ll figure out what those combinations look like based on that.”
His toughest decision for the Penguins heading into the postseason is presumably finding the right spot for Jason Zucker. Honestly, there’s no easy answer, unless he clicks with Malkin and Kapanen in the final two regular season games.
One of the last big bets made by Jim Rutherford was the 2020 trade that brought the veteran winger here from Minnesota. Zucker, who had four 20-goal seasons with the Wild, initially skated with Crosby as Guentzel was out after shoulder surgery. But the Penguins figured he could also fit in fine alongside Malkin.
That sure appeared to be the case in their brief stay in the Toronto playoff bubble. The Penguins did not score when Malkin and Zucker were out on the ice together at 5-on-5. But that was not for a lack of opportunities. Those two generated 29 scoring chances in about 52 minutes of action, per Natural Stat Trick.
This season, with a much larger sample size, has been another story. Their expected 5-on-5 goals percentage together dropped from a strong 63.9 in the bubble to 44.0. And their share of high-danger chances plummeted from 64.7% to 36.1.
All of this spreadsheet fodder probably confirms what you have seen if you’re able to watch the games: Malkin and Zucker have been out of sync all season.
And it might not be a coincidence that Malkin finally shook himself out of his sleepy start immediately after Zucker left the lineup on Feb. 23 in Washington.
With Zucker, Malkin and Kapanen all finally healthy and off injured reserve, Sullivan reunited them in Philadelphia. Their expected goals percentage was 43.1.
“We’ve got to just get with it and just get playing together again. It’s tough when you don’t have any practice to be out there as a line,” Zucker said Monday.
There was a rare occurrence during the third period of Tuesday’s 7- 3 victory against the Flyers when the skill sets of all three players meshed perfectly.
Kapanen was first in the zone on the forecheck and got the Flyers discombobulated, giving Malkin and Zucker time to join him. Their initial foray was denied and the Flyers tried to exit the zone. Kapanen got the puck back with a sneaky stick lift on Claude Giroux. His puck pursuit was exceptional on that shift.
Malkin saw that the Flyers were scrambling and slipped a pass through to Zucker, who was alone in front of goalie Brian Elliott. Zucker, who has put just 63 shots on goal in his 36 games, had no choice but to try to score it himself there.
He buried it for just their sixth goal in 16 games together on the second line.
Three of those six goals have come off the rush, per Sportlogiq. Those three have generated little offense in other ways. They have just six chances via the cycle game. Zucker’s goal Tuesday was one of three chances created from a forecheck. And they have been credited with only one chance off of a rebound.
That’s likely not a formula for success in the first round of the playoffs, when the Penguins face a tightchecking team in Boston or the New York Islanders. And that’s not even mentioning the line has hemorrhaged chances the other way.
But there are only two other spots where Sullivan could crowbar in Zucker.
One is putting him back on a line with Carter and McCann. That isn’t ideal because it would mean that either McCann or Zucker, who are both lefties, would have to play on his off wing. But in spite of that, they have been a productive trio.
The other is sticking Zucker down on the fourth line, where he may only get 10-12 minutes of ice time. But he doesn’t exactly have a shutdown defensive game, and Sullivan deploys Blueger and Aston- Reese in tricky defensive situations.
The flip side, though, is that moving Zucker down the lineup could free up a top-six role for Brandon Tanev, who could return from injury this weekend. The Penguins brought him in to be a playoff tone-setter and his defense, speed, physicality and ability to force turnovers should make him a good match with Malkin.
“We’ve had Tanev with Teddy and Zach a lot [in the past] because we like the identity of that line and its contribution to helping our team win. By no means is that etched in stone,” Sullivan said of the pesky winger on Monday, suggesting that option is on the table. “We realize we can use Tanev in different situations.”
If Zucker and Malkin, with Kapanen on the right wing, can finally click, it would make Sullivan’s lineup construction much simpler. But they’re almost out of time.
“I feel confident that we’ll be able to do it,” Zucker said Monday. “It’s just a matter of sticking together and working together and lots of talk on the bench.”