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Penguins One-Timers: Crosby, Common Sense, & Sullivan’s Wild Analogy

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Pittsburgh Penguins game analysis, Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell

LOS ANGELES — The Pittsburgh Penguins have a well-deserved day off with some sunshine on Tuesday. They’ll be somewhere in the Southern California sun, even if it is only 55 degrees. After three games in four days in three cities, including coast-to-coast travel, the team probably needs a breather.



Yet they’ve been much better when they play more hockey. The Penguins have played 10 sets of back-to-back games and won the first game just once. They have six wins in the second game. On Monday, they should have been the tired, dead-legged team against the LA Kings, but they were instead the aggressor for 60 minutes, and they thumped LA 5-1.

Read More: Penguins Report Card: Dominant Win, And Why It Could Matter

Shouldn’t an older team be worn down, and the inverse be true?

“I think there might be an assumption that when you have a team that’s a little bit older, they may require rest. My experience has been just the opposite. I think they’re at their best when they may require a little more work, and I think our team tends to respond to that,” said Sullivan. “We use the analogy, maybe it’s a good one, maybe it isn’t. but you can keep the soldier out of harm’s way, or you can make them harder to kill–we’re trying to make them harder to kill.”

This Penguins squad needs to be pushed to the limit by circumstance. It seems when the task is impossible, they are at their best, and when they have the biggest opportunity in front of them, they are at their worst. See also the five-game homestand, which could have made their season and firmly established them as the second, or even first, wild card.

I suppose a few of us can relate, but it is a departure from normal team psychology.

Also, I’m not sure I get Sullivan’s expression, at least in that context.

Sidney Crosby

Remember back in November, when Sidney Crosby was averaging less than a point per game and Sullivan was tossing linemates at Crosby like noodles at the wall to see what would stick?

Crosby has 26 points in his last 23 games going back to Dec. 3. That is not a staggering amount, but it’s vital when compared to the rest of the team. He has six multi-point games in that 23-game span, including three with three or more. Since Dec. 3, when the Penguins’ captain scores a point, the Penguins are 9-3-2.

When Crosby doesn’t score a point, the Penguins are 1-6-2.

Going back further to Nov. 1, the team is a combined 15-4-5 when Crosby scores and 1-9-2 when he doesn’t.

Crosby has just two minus seasons in his 19-year career. He was minus-1 as a rookie on that awful team that imploded with overpriced veterans at the end of the run. He was a minus-8 in 2019-20 in 41 games when that nasty virus swept the country.

This season, he’s a career-worst minus-17, in part because when the Penguins lose, Crosby has crooked numbers. Before the win Monday, the Penguins had lost three of four games, and in those three losses, Crosby was minus-2 (Washington), minus-3 (Seattle), and minus-2 (Tampa Bay).

The Penguins have allowed 13 empty net goals, which surely doesn’t help Crosby’s plus/minus stats, but six teams have allowed more empty-net goals, and three of them are Stanley Cup contenders (Colorado, Toronto, and Florida).

So why such a big minus number? A common-sense answer might be that Crosby knows if he and his line don’t score goals, the team loses.

The Penguins have won only two games all season when Crosby hasn’t registered a point. They beat the Buffalo Sabres last Friday and the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre on Oct. 14.

That’s it.

Common Sense

A report swept the internet Monday that a Penguins fire sale was beginning.

It’s crazy Kyle’s clearance sale! Everything that isn’t nailed down, spoken for, and that has value must go!

The report was exaggerated.

Hey, I long ago came to terms with the public perception that people who cover a sports team are hiding things from the audience, suck-ups, or idiots. Only people with no connection to the team, often without a professional outlet that verifies sources or double-checks their work, are white knights able to tell the real truth. After many in the news profession chose partisan sides over the last 50 years, some of that public mistrust is earned.

I get it.

However, I can assure you that Penguins management does not speak with the media unless it is in an official and public setting. The Penguins’ brain trust is a small group able to keep secrets.

Second, we know some trades are coming. You know it, and the players know it. It’s well documented that general manager Kyle Dubas is hunting for young players, prospects, and draft picks to build a forward-looking roster capable of competing for another 20 years. Dubas himself has said multiple times that making the playoffs without a chance to win the Stanley Cup is not good enough.

We also know the Penguins’ most desirable tradeable assets have some trade protection and/or are veteran players with term. Such assets are best dealt in the summer when more teams have the salary cap space and families aren’t disrupted.

In a hypothetical world, if Toronto wants to bag up their top youngsters and prospects like Easton Cowan and Fraser Minten with some draft capital for a winger such as Rickard Rakell, who could replace Mitch Marner for a fraction of the cost next season, sure Dubas would jump on that.

Dubas has also stated that he will not tear it down to the studs because too many teams find themselves “wandering in the abyss.” Last April, he cited the LA Kings and New York Rangers as examples of quick turnarounds without decimating the roster first, and that was his plan.

Make no mistake—there will be Penguins trades. They will probably upset the players, and Dubas showed some teeth by waiving Tristan Jarry last week. However, there will not be a firesale. Common sense.