What the Pittsburgh Penguins are thankful for

As the new year approaches, PHR will be taking a look at what teams are thankful for in 2023-24. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Who are the Penguins thankful for?

Sidney Crosby

There is very little doubt as to who the Penguins should be thankful for. Sidney Crosby is the face of the franchise, he saved the team and in his 19th NHL season, he has had to drag the lifeless Penguins to victory on more than one occasion.

Crosby has quietly played at a level this season that few 36-year-olds have ever played at. In 33 games, Crosby has 19 goals and 16 assists. While it isn’t one of his best offensive seasons, he has put up those numbers without the benefit of a productive power play. The Penguins’ current power play is tied for the sixth worst in the entire NHL despite having Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Erik Karlsson and Jake Guentzel on it.

Crosby’s productivity this season goes well beyond what he does in the offensive zone. He’s been downright dominant in the faceoff circle, stronger defensively, and has been more physical than in recent years. His two-way play is elite, and while it would be surprising to see this happen, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that we could be seeing his name in the Selke Trophy conversation come the end of the season.

Crosby will likely end his career in Pittsburgh, and he should. He is not only the on-ice leader of the Penguins, but he is also the heart and soul of the entire organization, particularly with Mario Lemieux less involved with the team now. Many people have waited for Sid the Kid to see his play tail off but given his work this season it doesn’t appear it will happen anytime soon. And for that the Penguins and their fanbase should be very thankful.

What are the Penguins thankful for?

Their top six forwards

The Penguins’ power play might be amongst the worst in the league, but their top-six forward group is one of the strongest in the NHL. Crosby, Malkin, Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Reilly Smith and Rickard Rakell are a very strong group of scorers, and they have to be because they are the only ones who score on most nights for Pittsburgh.

Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan has been very busy this season shuffling the forwards around, and while he has dropped Rakell and Smith to the third line on occasion, he has largely kept the six men as a constant on the top two lines. Many Penguins fans have called for Sullivan to spread the offensive wealth over the top three lines as the Penguins have struggled to generate depth scoring, but anytime the Penguins coach has done so the results have been meek at best. The Penguins lack offensive forwards outside of the ones that play in the top six, and anytime they have sent a top-six forward to the third line, they have been unable to generate any additional offense, and the top two lines have suffered.

It’s been pretty obvious all year that the Penguins’ third and fourth lines lack an offensive component and that will be general manager Kyle Dubas’ biggest obstacle to overcome if he’s going to help Pittsburgh get back to the playoffs. But for now, Pittsburgh will have to continue to heavily rely on their top six forwards, as they have for most of this season.

What would the Penguins be even more thankful for?

The continued undoing of the Ron Hextall era

Ron Hextall had a very tumultuous run as Penguins general manager and much of the work he did during his two-and-a-half-year run was undone by Dubas when he took control of the Penguins this past summer. Dubas was quick to identify Jeff Petry, Mikael Granlund and Jan Rutta as players that didn’t fit the mold of how Sullivan wanted the Penguins to play. In two separate trades, Dubas was able to move on from those three players. Dubas was also able to let Ryan Poehling, Josh Archibald and Danton Heinen walk and move on from Mark Friedman in an additional trade. When all was said and done, Dubas was able to turn over nearly half of the Penguins roster from last year to this season, and while the group is improved, there are still many relics from the Hextall era that the Penguins could stand to move on from.

The most obvious is Jeff Carter, who is virtually unmovable thanks to an ill-advised two-year contract that Hextall gave him in January 2022. Fortunately for the Penguins, Carter’s deal finishes up at the end of this season and that $3.125M should be allocated more effectively going forward.

The Penguins also have Ty Smith and Alex Nylander who are toiling away in the AHL after they were unable to show they belonged on the NHL roster. Smith was acquired in an ill-fated trade with the New Jersey Devils for top-four defenseman John Marino and Nylander was exchanged for speedster Sam Lafferty who has been a very effective depth piece in Vancouver.

The biggest change Hextall made was to the Penguins’ bottom two lines, they were dismantled under his watch as he moved on from Freddy Gaudreau, Jared McCann, Evan Rodrigues, Brandon Tanev and the aforementioned Lafferty while choosing to hold on to more defensive-minded forwards who provided little in the way of offense.

The Penguins would do well to buck this trend in favor of more offensive-minded bottom-six forwards, which leads us to our next section.

What should be on the Penguins holiday wish list?

Bottom-six help

It wasn’t until their 11th game that Pittsburgh received a goal from their fourth line, and while two-thirds of that line has been part of a very effective penalty kill, they need to get on the scoresheet a lot more if Pittsburgh is going to make a run at the playoffs.

In the previous section much was made about Hextall and the previous management regime making moves to create a bottom six that couldn’t score, however, current general manager Dubas failed to address the Penguins depth scoring woes in the offseason and doubled down on defensive-minded forwards by signing Matthew Nieto, Noel Acciari, and Lars Eller at a time when Pittsburgh needed to add a scoring forward. The Penguins have responded with strong team defense as they sit sixth in the league in goals against, however, they have struggled to score sitting 25th in the league in goals for.

In a perfect world, the Penguins would acquire a true third-line center with some offensive output who could push Eller into a fourth-line role. This would perhaps allow the Penguins to create a third scoring line and push some of those in the current bottom six into slots that better suit their skillset.