Barry Trotz officially has the Pittsburgh Penguins number

Give credit to Barry Trotz. After beating the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in consecutive seasons, he has their number.

I want to start this article off by saying a few things about the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Islanders series. Firstly, congratulations to the Islanders on a great series. They deserved to win it and capitalized on their offensive chances. Props to Barry Trotz and his defensive system for knocking off the Penguins for the second consecutive spring. The Islanders will be a tough out moving forward.

Secondly, getting swept in this series will do nothing to tarnish the legacies of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, and Kris Letang. There will be reporters who suggest major changes to the core of this team. Ignore them.

Considering that the Penguins have the NHL’s longest active playoff streak (13 years), most playoff wins (97) and most Stanley Cup Championships (three) of the NHL’s salary cap era, I’d say the mere idea of subtracting the elite talent from this roster is outrageous and incredibly idiotic.

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The reality of the situation is that as Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, and Letang get into their early 30s, they need to be surrounded with more speedy, skillful, and creative players who can help provide secondary scoring and control territory.

Pittsburgh’s core is still elite, but they just can not cover and make up for the flaws of the roster as well as they could have throughout their twenties. There are more miles on their legs. That is no reason to move on from them, it is just apart of the aging curve.

It is general manager Jim Rutherford’s job to do properly construct this roster. Since the summer of 2017, he has not done his job on an effective or consistent enough basis. A large portion of Pittsburgh’s errors have been self-inflicted.

The Penguins have gone away from the speed and skill approach that they won championships with. The departure of Assistant General Manager Jason Botterill likely had something to do with the change in team identity. Instead, the Penguins have gone out and added size, grit, and below-average players on a semi-regular basis. There has been a revolving door of roster transactions this season. The post-season results over the last two seasons speak for themselves.

Pittsburgh has an over the hill Matt Cullen and the offensively challenged Garrett Wilson on their fourth-line. Defensemen Jack Johnson and Erik Gudbranson are regulars, who lack the proper puck skills and awareness to get Pittsburgh’s high-end talent the puck with speed and the ability to keep plays alive in the offensive zone. Gudbranson has been better than anyone could have expected, but he is not worth the $4 million dollar cap hit.

I wrote a week prior to the playoffs that the Penguins needed to split up the defense pair of Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz before their post-season opponent exposed it. Well, they did that in Game 1 on Long Island, the Penguins outplayed the Islanders but lost the contest in over-time.

Mike Sullivan and the coaching staff proved to be results-oriented, over-reacted, and made the horrific decision of re-uniting Johnson and Schultz. Here is how they faired in three games against the Islanders.

Shot Attempts For Percentage: 45%
Scoring Chances For Percentage: 33% (Data via Natural Stat Trick)

The Penguins were out-shot 26-12 and out-scored 3-0 with this pair on the ice. You get it. I hate to sound like a broken record with this, but it is so blatantly obvious that this pair was below-average. Fire it into the sun this summer.

Need to see visual evidence of the trainwreck? Don’t worry, I have you covered. Johnson sure had a playoff series full of blunders to remember. In the early stages of Game 2, the circus was on the ice and causing physical havoc. Johnson really finished his check hard on the NBC logo in Game 3.

In Game 4, Johnson got caught chasing an unnecessary hit and got caught out of position for the 537th time this season.

All of seven of the Penguins defenders had their fair share of blunders in this series. Johnson was the only defenseman that was truly abysmal all season. That continued in the post-season. That has been the case for over a decade. Here is to hoping he has played his final game in a Penguins uniform.

In terms of internal answers on the blue-line, Ethan Prow serves a potential option moving forward. He is a 26-year-old, right-handed, offensive defensemen. Prow led the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins in scoring with 50 points in the 2018-19 season and ranked third in both points and goals (18) amongst all AHL defensemen. He will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, so it will be interesting to see if his offensive upside is part of the Penguins long-term plans on defense.

Pittsburgh’s forwards are still very good. Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, and Guentzel are an elite group. Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann turned out to be great additions. Teddy Blueger proved to be a versatile, bottom six NHL forward. I would explore trading Patric Hornqvist in the summer, but that is a different topic for a different day.

Matt Murray and Casey DeSmith were an above-average duo between the pipes. DeSmith proved to be an adequate backup, and Murray played at an elite level after returning from injury in December.

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The Penguins defense needs an overhaul this summer. Ultimately, it was a disappointing end to an inconsistent and frustrating season for the Penguins. Mario Lemieux’s reaction sums it up for the entire city and fanbase. Thanks for reading all season!

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