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Have the Penguins been putting their best team on the ice? What the television commentators and studio analysts were rightly asking during Game 2 is whether superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are getting as much playing time as possible. That’s one issue. The unspoken roster consideration is whether any improvements can be made to the steady stream of near-replacement level drones filling space on Pittsburgh’s third and fourth lines and on defense.
Goals Versus Threshold (GVT) provides a measure of a player’s offensive, defensive and total value over the course of the season. GVT tells us how a player has performed beyond what a marginal player would have contributed, in number of goals. In the analysis below, we will not only look at the overall GVT contribution over the course of the regular season, but the rate stat of GVT per game as well, to see what the optimal Pittsburgh lineup should consist of.
Pittsburgh Penguins – Offensive, defensive and total GVT values and GVT per game values
Name Pos GP Val O Val D Total O/GP D/GP Total/GP
Evgeni Malkin C 82 +18.9 +4.5 +23.4 +0.23 +0.05 +0.29
Sidney Crosby C 77 +16.7 +2.0 +18.7 +0.22 +0.03 +0.24
Sergei Gonchar D 25 +2.8 +2.6 +5.4 +0.11 +0.10 +0.22
Ruslan Fedotenko LW 65 +6.0 +3.3 +9.3 +0.09 +0.05 +0.14
Philippe Boucher D 25 +0.1 +3.2 +3.3 +0.00 +0.13 +0.13
Tyler Kennedy C 67 +4.8 +2.8 +7.6 +0.07 +0.04 +0.11
Chris Kunitz LW 82 +5.9 +3.4 +9.3 +0.07 +0.04 +0.11
Alex Goligoski D 45 +2.3 +2.3 +4.6 +0.05 +0.05 +0.10
Jordan Staal C 82 +5.2 +2.4 +7.6 +0.06 +0.03 +0.09
Rob Scuderi D 81 +0.0 +6.4 +6.4 +0.00 +0.08 +0.08
Petr Sykora RW 76 +4.4 +1.5 +5.9 +0.06 +0.02 +0.08
Miroslav Satan RW 65 +3.8 +1.1 +4.9 +0.06 +0.02 +0.08
Bill Guerin RW 78 +3.6 +1.0 +4.6 +0.05 +0.01 +0.06
Hal Gill D 62 -0.3 +3.2 +2.9 +0.00 +0.05 +0.05
Kris Letang D 74 +3.7 -0.5 +3.2 +0.05 -0.01 +0.04
Pascal Dupuis LW 71 +1.7 +1.0 +2.7 +0.02 +0.01 +0.04
Matt Cooke LW 76 +2.1 +0.7 +2.8 +0.03 +0.01 +0.04
Brooks Orpik D 79 -0.2 +2.7 +2.5 +0.00 +0.03 +0.03
Mark Eaton D 68 -0.4 +1.4 +1.0 -0.01 +0.02 +0.01
Maxime Talbot C 75 -0.1 -0.6 -0.7 +0.00 -0.01 -0.01
Craig Adams RW 9 -0.2 +0.1 -0.1 -0.02 +0.01 -0.01
Were Dan Bylsma to make his decisions based on regular season GVT per game, he might conclude that:
- In addition to Malkin and Crosby, the playing time of Sergei Gonchar should be maximized. All three skill players have a GVT per game that is on the order of double (or triple) the GVT per game of the next best Penguins skaters. While the three have indeed received the most playing time, the question would be whether that playing time could be further increased without loss of effectiveness.
- Petr Sykora (25 Goals, 21 Assists, 46 Points, +3 plus/minus in 76 Games; ranked 6th in points for Pittsburgh) should play instead of overrated role player Maxime Talbot (12 Goals, 10 Assists, 22 Points, -9 plus/minus in 75 games) or Blackhawks’ throwaway Craig Adams (2 Goals, 5 Assists, 7 Points, -3 plus/minus in 45 Games). The 32 year old Czech winger ranked 2nd on the Penguins with 13 PPG; even if he were used on the third or fourth line, Pittsburgh could benefit from him doubling as a power play specialist. You would think that the fact that Sykora has registered one point in six playoff games this year could be written off as a small sample, while his extensive playoff experience, including winning the Stanley Cup in 1999-2000 with New Jersey and finals appearances in 2002-3 with Anaheim and 2007-8 with Pittsburgh, would be held in high value. Coaches and general managers tend to fall into a trap of overthinking the playoffs, believing that they suddenly need grit and intangibles to win hockey games instead of by just putting their best players on the ice. Let’s hope that Byslma is not playing Craig Adams out of obligation to GM Ray Shero’s ego regarding his prized waiver wire pickup.
- Phillippe Boucher (3 Goals, 3 Assists, 6 Points, +10 plus/minus in 25 Games) and Alex Goligoski (6 Goals, 14 Assists, 20 Points, +5 plus/minus in 45 Games) should change out of their street clothes at the expense of Mark Eaton (4 Goals, 5 Assists, 9 Points, +3 plus/minus in 68 Games) and Brooks Orpik (2 Goals, 17 Assists, 19 Goals, +10 plus/minus in 79 Games). During the regular season, Eaton and Orpik hurt the Pittsburgh cause by taking 15 and 11 more even strength penalties than they drew, with Eaton’s mark the worst on the team. While Boucher has been no better on that account, Goligoski actually drew more penalties than he took, an uncommon feat for a defenseman. Unfortunately, Bylsma has found some “fool’s gold” in the performance of Eaton this postseason; his 4 Goals, 2 Assists, 6 Points, +7 plus/minus over 19 games make it extremely unlikely that he will be displaced.
Now, let’s see who has been getting playing time against Detroit, and also in general throughout the playoffs:
Pittsburgh Penguins – TOI in Game 1 and Game 2 compared to GVT per game values
Name Pos GP O/GP D/GP T/GP Playoffs Gm 1 Gm 2 vs. DET
Sergei Gonchar D 17 +0.11 +0.10 +0.22 23.20 19.12 21.93 20.53
Evgeni Malkin C 19 +0.23 +0.05 +0.29 21.33 20.28 19.68 19.98
Sidney Crosby C 19 +0.22 +0.03 +0.24 21.63 19.63 18.90 19.27
Kris Letang D 18 +0.05 -0.01 +0.04 19.52 16.33 20.87 18.60
Brooks Orpik D 19 +0.00 +0.03 +0.03 19.87 17.18 18.93 18.06
Jordan Staal C 19 +0.06 +0.03 +0.09 19.53 17.02 17.93 17.48
Mark Eaton D 19 -0.01 +0.02 +0.01 17.98 15.13 19.55 17.34
Ruslan Fedotenko LW 19 +0.09 +0.05 +0.14 14.35 16.83 17.73 17.28
Rob Scuderi D 19 +0.00 +0.08 +0.08 20.58 16.33 16.43 16.38
Chris Kunitz LW 19 +0.07 +0.04 +0.11 17.22 16.42 16.15 16.28
Bill Guerin RW 19 +0.05 +0.01 +0.06 17.38 14.23 16.50 15.37
Hal Gill D 19 +0.00 +0.05 +0.05 19.47 13.73 16.25 14.99
Maxime Talbot C 19 +0.00 -0.01 -0.01 14.75 15.55 13.83 14.69
Matt Cooke LW 19 +0.03 +0.01 +0.04 15.28 13.45 13.47 13.46
Tyler Kennedy C 19 +0.07 +0.04 +0.11 13.83 13.17 11.75 12.46
Pascal Dupuis LW 11 +0.02 +0.01 +0.04 8.65 0.00 10.47 10.47
Philippe Boucher D 9 +0.00 +0.13 +0.13 11.38 10.17 0.00 10.17
Miroslav Satan RW 13 +0.06 +0.02 +0.08 10.37 9.83 9.15 9.49
Craig Adams RW 19 -0.02 +0.01 -0.01 9.43 7.55 6.58 7.07
Petr Sykora RW 6 +0.06 +0.02 +0.08 12.82 0.00 0.00 0.00
Alex Goligoski D 2 +0.05 +0.05 +0.10 10.35 0.00 0.00 0.00
What would give the Penguins the best chance to turn the tide against the Red Wings?
- Going back to dressing seven defensemen, which was an inspired choice by Bylsma to begin with; the idea is to use offensive and defensive specialists in various situations. Ideally, Gonchar, Boucher, Goligoski and Scuderi should get the most playing time in general, due to their superior total GVT per game. There is a case for the use of Kris Letang as well, as he was best among the defensemen in net penalty rating, drawing an impressive 8 more penalties than he took at even strength. Defensive specialists Boucher, Scuderi, Gill, and Orpik should get proportionately more time either against the best lines and on the penalty kill. Letang, Gonchar and Goligoski should get the most power play time.
- A side effect of having less forwards dress for each game would be to double shift Crosby and Malkin as the 4th line center for parts of the game. With 7 defensemen and 11 forwards dressing for Game 1, Crosby and Malkin each received more ice time than in Game 2.
- Scratching two of the following four forwards: Maxime Talbot, Matt Cooke, Pascal Dupuis and Craig Adams. One reason Talbot maintains a spot in the lineup is to take faceoffs for the fourth line, but why? Tyler Kennedy is a better all around player than Talbot and has a superior regular season faceoff percentage, 52.8% to 51.1%, and a superior postseason faceoff percentage, 48.1% to 45.5%. Unfortunately, the broadcast team seems to believe that Talbot brings great intangibles to the game and are helping perpetuate the myth of his necessity to the team. Of the forwards mentioned, Matt Cooke gets my vote for inclusion by bringing the nastiest streak this side of the unutilized Eric Godard, which is useful as long as it doesn’t put him in the penalty box. Dropping Talbot and Adams would eliminate two below replacement level skaters and put Kennedy in Talbot’s faceoff role.
On a related note, it’s a shame that 28 year old journeyman Mike Zigomanis (2 Goals, 4 Assists, 6 Points, -2 plus/minus in 22 GP) was lost to injured reserve in early January, both for himself and Pittsburgh. His 62.9% success rate over 251 faceoffs would have been a useful skill for the faceoff-challenged Penguins. Through limited NHL experience, the faceoff specialist has shown some speed and a decent scoring touch for a fourth liner. The 2001 2nd round pick has made stops in Carolina, St. Louis, Phoenix and Pittsburgh as well as in Lowell, Peoria and San Antonio of the AHL. The point here isn’t to cry over spilled milk, but to show that Shero did try to add this lacking element in their roster construction.
It’s unclear what Bylsma’s aversion to Petr Sykora is, and why Pittsburgh couldn’t utilize both Sykora and Miroslav Satan on different lines. It’s not like the bulk of the third and fourth liners–aside from Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy–are giving Pittsburgh outstanding energy, speed, defense, hitting or faceoff prowess.
- Moving Chris Kunitz to another line. It doesn’t matter what your other stats are; if you only score one goal in 24 games while paired up with Sidney Crosby, it’s time to give someone else a chance.
Based on total GVT per game rates from the regular season, the value of playing Petr Sykora, Alex Goligoski and Philippe Boucher over Maxime Talbot, Craig Adams and Mark Eaton would be a third of a goal per game (0.08+0.10+0.13+0.01+0.01-0.01=0.32); the value over the series would have been 2 goals. Beneficial side effects would likely be an increased number of penalties drawn, better power play specialists, better faceoff percentage and increased time on ice for Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
In being down 2-0 in the series, the Pittsburgh Penguins have a considerably tougher hill to climb against the veteran champions than they did against the Washington Capitals. Optimizing their lineup would give them the best chance to make a second comeback this postseason.
Timo Seppa is an author of Hockey Prospectus.
You can contact Timo by clicking here or click here to see Timo's other articles.
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