Absence of Josh Archibald, Ryan Poehling Hurting Penguins

This season has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride for the Pittsburgh Penguins. They’ve been largely impressive at times and largely disinterested at others. Such is the story for a typical Penguins season except this season just has a different feel.

In other years, the Penguins could slump a little bit yet be okay in the playoff standings. The usual culprits such as the Washington Capitals, New York Rangers, and New York Islanders would be the only worries for the Penguins in their division.

This season, the Carolina Hurricanes have continued their dominance from last year and the New Jersey Devils have accelerated their rebuild and become a force in the NHL as well.

Pittsburgh has always featured a star-studded top six which is to be expected with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin as your top two centers. Players like Jake Guentzel, James Neal, Pascal Dupuis, Chris Kunitz, and Patric Hornqvist have come and gone through the Penguins’ top lines over the years.

The question never was if the Penguins could score. They would and they’d do it in bunches. It was whether or not their bottom-six guys could play a role befitting of a bottom-six player and pitch in offensively from time-to-time.

We’ve seen the likes of Tom Kuhnhackl, Craig Adams, Nick Bonino, and many others contribute to the Penguins’ three most recent Stanley Cups as bottom-six players.

If Pittsburgh is to go anywhere this season with the aging stars not totally able to carry the team by themselves like they once could, they need an identity in their bottom-six, specifically on the fourth line.

Guys like Ryan Poehling and Josh Archibald are players that play big and can pitch in offensively like the Penguins need.

Neither player was in the organization last season but they’ve become important parts of the Penguins’ fourth line and their current absence is being felt immensely.

Poehling, Archibald, and Teddy Blueger made up a nice combination on the fourth line.

Poehling is a big body that the Penguins acquired in the Jeff Petry trade. He certainly wasn’t the focal point of the trade but Poehling has been a guy that will throw his body for a hit and plays a pivotal role on the Penguins’ penalty kill. He’s also pitched in four goals in 31 games, not a blow-your-socks-off number but a respectable number for someone averaging just over 11 minutes a night with a portion of that being penalty-killing minutes.

Archibald was a day one free agency signing and one that puzzled a lot of the Penguins’ faithful. He was considered a waste of cap space with the Penguins having other younger options in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for their bottom-six.

Archibald has been a pleasant surprise with four goals of his own in 30 games.

While the offense doesn’t blow you away, he does lead the team with 109 hits despite missing nine games this season. He’s a spark plug kind of guy that will kill penalties, throw his body around, and make his presence known enough that he is not invisible if he isn’t scoring.

Ironically, while both of these players have been out, the Penguins are suffering from a losing record over the past ten games or so. Their offense isn’t being missed because they don’t provide a ton of it but it’s more so the penalty killing ability and their willingness to throw hits.

Guys like Drew O’Connor and Danton Heinen don’t really provide that type of game for the Penguins’ fourth line and they haven’t provided much offense either which speaks to that lack of an identity the Penguins have in that area where they really need to have one.

In an ideal world both Poehling and Archibald return soon and the Penguins’ bottom-six becomes tougher to play against once again.

Their lengthy absences may not be as consequential as losing a Crosby or Malkin on the front end but they’re big parts of an important line of the Penguins’ team.