The Penguins are arguably the NHL’s most successful franchise over the last 40 years. They have five Stanley Cups, a bunch of division titles and one President’s Trophy. Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have all won MVP in black and gold. Only three teams have more wins since 1984.
But this current Penguins team on Thursday has a chance to do something that the franchise has done only once before — win for the 18th time in 20 games.
So, Kris Letang, what has been making these Penguins so difficult to defeat?
“Well, Jars is a big part of it,” he said after Tuesday’s 6-3 win against Arizona.
Yeah, for sure. Statistically speaking Tristan Jarry has been one of the league’s very best goalies. He was between the pipes for all but four of those victories.
But the blue-liner continued: “The depth of our team, whether it’s the defensemen or the forwards, I think every time somebody is hopping over the boards, we’re playing with an edge. We know the system. We’re playing the right way.”
With all due respect to Jarry, an All-Star this season, what Letang was getting at right there is the story of this Penguins season with 40 games left to go.
This season, including training camp, the Penguins have been able to conduct just one practice with what would be their preferred lineup. That was last Wednesday. Since then, Teddy Blueger and Jason Zucker have both undergone surgery.
And yet the Penguins, who had a losing record in the first month of the season, had the NHL’s fifth-highest points percentage entering Wednesday’s games.
Since this incredible run began Dec. 4 in Vancouver, the Penguins have deployed 26 different skaters and three goalies. Eighteen players have scored, including Radim Zohorna and Kasper Bjorkqvist, who started the season in the minors.
Offseason addition Brock McGinn, brought in to be a checker, has a few large ones among his 10 goals this season, including a game-changer on Tuesday.
Blue-liner Mike Matheson buried both winners in last week’s back-to-back set.
Brian Boyle, out of the league a year ago, averages 10-plus minutes of ice time. He is improbably on pace for a 10-goal season after a beauty Tuesday night.
And we haven’t even mentioned Evan Rodrigues, this year’s breakout forward.
“On any given night, we can have everybody on the board,” Letang noted.
All four forward lines chipped in with at least one goal in their past two games. The Penguins have nine goals from Letang and the defenseman in the last 10.
The Penguins are far from alone in terms of having a revolving door of key players coming on and off the myriad reserve lists. Believe it or not, they don’t even rank in the top 10 in man games lost, per NHL Injury Viz, nor are they among the top five in terms of the projected impact of sidelined players based on WAR.
However, few contenders compare in terms of outperforming expectations in the standings given the caliber and cap hits of the players who missed time. Eight of 11 Penguins making $3.5 million or more have missed at least four games.
And when looking at the Post-Gazette’s unofficial you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me metric, it is hard to imagine many other teams have had worse timing.
Crosby made his return from offseason wrist surgery, then caught COVID-19 after his first game back. Half their blue-line crew was simultaneously sick at one point. Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust both went down during torrid scoring streaks. Louis Domingue injured his foot during a fluke sequence at a morning skate.
Coach Mike Sullivan, who is getting early buzz for the Jack Adams award, has kept the team focused while also seamlessly integrating minor-league call-ups.
“Everybody knows the system and everybody knows how to go out there and play,” McGinn said. “[The coaches] do a good job at having everybody ready.”
After Wednesday’s practice, Sullivan was quick to spread around the credit for the team-building process. The Penguins have a newish general manager in Ron Hextall, but Sullivan said so many behind-the-scenes staffers are overlooked.
“It’s not just the coaching staff and the players on the team,” Sullivan said. “It’s our scouting staff and our management team that go out and draft players. It’s our development department and our minor league coaching staff in Wilkes-Barre that [develop and] prepare them to play and compete at the NHL level.”
Despite their limitations due to the NHL’s salary cap, the Penguins continue to find both short-term and long-term contributors with moves on the margins.
“We’ve got to find players whether it be through college free agency or players from Europe, like Zohorna, where we can plug these guys into our team and they can play games for us,” Sullivan said. “Our organization in my whole tenure here has been able to do that. And that’s a credit to the top-down approach.”
Of course, star power is important, too. That’s been plentiful in Pittsburgh.
Sidney Crosby has 26 points during these 19 games. Guentzel, an All-Star, scored 11 goals. Letang has been marvelous. And Malkin is starting to gain steam.
Once again, Sullivan said, they lead the way and everyone else falls in line.
“There’s always a hunger for more. And that starts with our core players. ... That’s where it starts for me,” he said. “Those guys are accomplished players and they’ve built such an impressive legacy to this point. But they’re hungry for more. They just have an appetite to win and that’s contagious in our locker room.”
