After taking an extensive period of time to recover following the Pittsburgh Penguins’ loss to the Washington Capitals in the second round of the NHL Playoffs, I have taken the time to dissect what went wrong with this team. Many fans have taken the optimistic view of the season because of the great success the team has had over the past decade, but they fail to realize that the window on this team is closing faster than they may realize.
Losing to the Washington Capitals was not just the product of this season being the Capitals’ year. It has been the Caps’ year for the last several years, but each time, Washington fans get excited for the playoffs only to watch the Caps run into the impenetrable black and gold wall. The Penguins have consistently outmatched the Capitals. They have had their number for years and Sidney Crosby proves time and time again that he is able to match and outdo his counterpart Alex Ovechkin. (Counterpart really does not do the true comparison justice because Sid brings so much more to the game than Ovechkin.) The Penguins have always been able to overcome adversity and rise above teams like the Flyers who loved to throw the Penguins off their game and rough them up a bit. The Pens have never let that kind of play affect their mentality. This year however, Tom Wilson of the Capitals was able to completely derail the Penguins with his nasty cheapshots on Brian Dumoulin and Zach Aston-Reese. It was very evident how how distracting his presence was on the ice for the team. The NHL shares a lot of the blame for not suspending Wilson after his first incident in Game 2. The NHL’s failure to get out in front of the situation after Wilson’s hit on Dumoulin led to the demise of Zach Aston- Reese who suffered a broken jaw and a concussion at the hands of Washington’s bruising winger. In both games when Wilson injured a Penguins player, they went on to lose. The officials on the ice and in Toronto repeatedly failed to protect the Penguins’ players and it took a serious toll on their ability to win the series.
Washington advancing past the Penguins is also the result of a number of poor decisions made by General Manager Jim Rutherford over the last calendar year. Despite glaring deficiencies, Rutherford failed to fill the huge holes in Penguins’ defense and even created new ones. Jeff Schultz, Brian Dumoulin and Ian Cole were the Pens’ best defensemen in 2017 while Kris Letang was sidelined for a large chuck of the season with a serious injury. Pittsburgh showed great weakness on the back line during the Stanley Cup playoffs a year ago. The Penguins still managed to win the Stanley Cup with offensive talent and willpower. After the departure of Trevor Daley, Mark Streit and Ron Hainsey in the offseason, Rutherford decided to plug the holes they left with Matt Hunwick, Chad Ruhwedel and occasionally Frank Corrado. Unsurprisingly, only on of those players even managed consistent playing time during the 2018 Playoffs. At the trading deadline, Rutherford was forced to patch another leak that he himself created by sending Ian Cole to the Columbus Blue Jackets as part of a multi-team deal for Derick Brassard. Brassard was needed to fill the space left by the Penguins’ bottom two centers, Nick Bonino and Matt Cullen, leaving in the offseason uncontested. Bonino especially was an essential part of the Pittsburgh identity and came up big more than once during the Stanley Cup runs. The departure of Ian Cole meant that Kris Letang and Olli Maata were given a lot more responsibility, which they both proved that they could not handle. Derick Brassard seemed to disappear in the playoffs which made Rutherford look even worse for the deal. The Penguins were also very sloppy in the playoffs this year.
Bad turnovers were a constant problem for the Penguins most notably by Kris Letang who got caught behind the opposing goal a few times while the Caps were on the counter attack. Matt Murray was hung out to dry on numerous occasions resulting from a turnover by a defensemen who could not recover. This ended multiple games against the Capitals. However, poor goaltending before the last second turnovers kept the Capitals in most games and even took the Penguins out of others when Matt Murray consistently let in “soft” goals that you cannot afford to give up. Murray posted a very low 9.08 save percentage and a 2.43 Goals Against Average in the playoffs which were much worse than his career averages. This was his first playoff series without Marc-Andre Fleury to carry the team most of the way through so that he could take over and be handed all the credit by the peripheral Pittsburgh fans. Murray’s deficient glove hand and lacking vision have plagued the Penguins since his arrival in the NHL in 2016. He was not able to steal games for the Pens the way Pekka Rinne can for the Nashville Predators, Braden Holtby did for the Caps or Marc-Andre Fleury has for the Vegas Golden Knights. The Penguins handed him the keys to the franchise before he had truly proven himself over the course of a full season in the NHL. The move to make Matt Murray the starting goaltender may cost the Penguins for years to come as Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith failed to live up to their hype from Wilkes-Barre/ Scranton.
Sloppy play on the back end really hurt the production offensively and cost the Penguins a series and another year. As Penguins radio play-by-play announcer Mike Lange loves to say, the turkey was on the table for the Penguins. On any given night, they are the most talented team in the league and they squandered another chance to win the Stanley Cup. This current window with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin is quickly closing. Both are now in the thirties and cannot have much time left in their primes. Sid is no longer the kid anymore. Realistically we can only expect a few more productive years from the Two-headed Monster. Complacency with the hardware the Penguins have won over the last decade is a worrying trend among the Pittsburgh faithful. You cannot win the Stanley Cup every year. It is the hardest trophy to win in sports considering all the obstacles that teams face over the grueling playoff format. However, the Penguins have the talent to win and have already squandered enough years of Sid and Geno’s careers from 2010- 2015 with embarrassing playoff losses and injuries. The Penguins needed to strike while the iron was hot. It is unlikely that the city and even the league will ever see a talent like Sidney Crosby play with another talented player like Malkin. Not since Jagr and Mario Lemieux, had the Penguins had such a fearsome number one and two guy. Who knows if the Penguins will ever have this sort of luck again? Complacency with letting the Capitals by this year will only serve to worsen the blow if the Penguins fail to reach the Stanley Cup again during the Malkin-Crosby era. Poor mental fortitude coupled with bad officiating, sloppy defense and goal tending, and poor choices by the general manager cost this team an unprecedented third consecutive championship in the modern era of hockey. This year, the Cup was well within reach and the Penguins let it escape them. This team will need some restructuring during the off season to regain its former glory and fully capitalize on the last few years of a truly essential era in Pittsburgh sports history.
