Conor Sheary (top left), Bryan Rust (top right), and Jake Guentzel (bottom) have forced their way into key roles with the Penguins.
Photos by Keith Srakocic/AP, NHL.com, Jeanine Leech/Icon

Existing somewhere beneath the surface of Sidney Crosby’s goal-scoring explosion, the breakout performance of Justin Schultz, and the drama surrounding the future of Marc-Andre Fleury, the Penguins have quietly received outstanding contributions from three young products of their farm system.

Conor Sheary debuted last year and showed off his speed and occasional scoring touch, especially in the playoffs at times, so he’s a little more of a known quantity at this point.  Bryan Rust got a cup of coffee in 2014-15, but played 41 games last year for the Pens.  He had glimpses of offense, mixed with a willingness to get gritty in the tough areas.  Jake Guentzel was finishing up his career at the University of Nebraska-Omaha before getting a taste of the AHL at the tail end of the year.

This year, all three have dazzled on the score sheet and have made cases to be core members of this team moving forward.  The best part is that all three are on dirt-cheap entry level contracts.  Even when Sheary will be an RFA after this year, he won’t break the bank that severely (more on that potential contract later).  Here’s the 2016-17 stats for each of them:

• Sheary — 41 games, 17 goals, 17 assists, 34 points ($667,500 salary)
• Rust — 45 games, 12 goals, 12 assists, 24 points ($640,000 salary)
• Guentzel — 11 games, 4 goals, 3 assists, 7 points ($734,167 salary)

For the combined salary of $2,041,667, the Penguins have received a total output in 97 man-games of 33 goals and 32 assists.  If you were to normalize that into an 82-game season, the triumvirate would be equivalent to a player that scored 28 goals and 27 assists.  That’s roughly the production that the Penguins got from Phil Kessel last year when he scored 26 goals and 33 assists in the regular season.  Keep in mind that’s the average performance you’re getting from three players, all for the cost of what the Penguins are paying Eric Fehr this year ($2M).

That’s the kind of low-cost output that the Penguins have to keep generating as long as they’re going to maintain four stars (Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, Letang) on contracts all with average cap hits of $6.8M and greater.  Finding these hidden gems is one thing, but to get this kind of point-scoring prowess out of them is a whole other kettle of fish.

Although I’m not convinced that Rust is a true top-6 type of player, he seems to have found a home on Crosby’s right wing.  If that’s the case, the Penguins have their top-6 wingers all filled next year (including Kessel, who I think will move up to Malkin’s line next season).  The infamous “Sid needs a winger” clarion call may have been answered by the 5′-8″ Sheary.

As I mentioned earlier, Sheary is a restricted free agent after the season.  The Penguins will be able to negotiate a contract with him, unless some other team swoops in and offers a deal the Pens would be unable to match, in which case they’ll receive draft pick compensation.  I don’t envision a scenario where they let him go, so let’s guesstimate his next deal.  I’ve previously speculated that Sheary could make $2.5M/year (average cap hit) in his next deal.  I tried to find a rough comparable from last year to further peg his value.  Jaden Schwartz of the St. Louis Blues was a 24-year old RFA last year (same age as Sheary) and he signed a large 5 year/$26.75M deal with an average cap hit of $5.35M.  However, prior to that he signed a 2 year/$4.7M deal as his first bridge contract.  Schwartz’s production to that point was:

• Schwartz 2012-13 — 45 games, 7 goals, 6 assists, 13 points
• Schwartz 2013-14 — 80 games, 25 goals, 31 assists, 56 points

This led directly into his 2 year/$4.7M bridge deal.  Contrast that with Sheary’s numbers leading into his potential bridge deal:

• Sheary 2015-16 — 44 games, 7 goals, 3 assists, 10 points
• Sheary 2016-17 — 41 games, 17 goals, 17 assists, 34 points (extrapolate to 75 games based on time missed — 75 games, 31 goals, 31 assists, 62 points)

The Jaden Schwartz comp is a pretty solid one for me, so a $2.35M contract could be in order.  Conservatively, I’ll stick with the $2.5M estimate for inflation.  With Rust and Guentzel still on their entry level deals next year at the same cap hit, this troika could make a combined $3.87M.  That’s the same amount that Chris Kunitz ($3.85M) is making this year.  Essentially, the Penguins are swapping out Kunitz’s one salary cap spot for three players at a high expected rate of production.

That’s how this train of winning can be sustained longer into the future.  It’s the kind of deal that may enable the Penguins to re-sign an unrestricted free agent like Trevor Daley, if they so choose.  Cap space is tight moving forward for the Pens, especially if the NHL doesn’t increase it substantially, so it’s important to maximize every roster spot to the fullest extent.  The Penguins are getting 3 spots for the price of 1 next year, potentially.

The Penguins could stand to improve their faceoff percentage at the deadline with a move.
Photo by Peter Diana/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Penguins are, by and large, an excellent team that should go far in the playoffs to defend their Stanley Cup.  But that’s not to say they don’t need a tweak here or there.  One of the glaring needs for the Penguins is in the faceoff circle.  For a team that predicates their play on possessing the puck, they start off play more often than not needing to re-gain it.  These are the faceoff percentages of their four centers:

• Matt Cullen — 52.3%
• Nick Bonino — 48.7%
• Sidney Crosby — 47.9%
• Evgeni Malkin — 42.8%

Crosby and Malkin are not going anywhere, obviously, so any improvement would have to be an upgrade over either Cullen or Bonino.  But it’s hard to upgrade over Cullen (who’s out for 4 weeks with a foot injury from blocking a shot), so that leaves Bonino.  I suppose it would be possible to get someone now in a trade while Cullen is out, with the intent to limit the 40 year old’s minutes down the stretch, but with Eric Fehr and his 53.4% faceoff percentage (in limited attempts), it would be a wash.

This then raises the question of — “Is it worth it?” to replace Bonino and disrupt a productive 3rd line in the form of the H-B-K line.  Maybe, maybe not.  It depends who’s out there and available.

Here’s the current top 10 faceoff guys in the NHL (stats as of 1/20/17):

We can rule out most of these players for one or two reasons: existing salary and their team is a competitive team.  The Penguins have zero cap space available; the only way they are currently cap-compliant is by putting players on Long Term Injured Reserve (Dupuis, Dumoulin).  The only player on this list with a potential salary that could be accommodate the Penguins (meaning trading them a player of roughly equivalent value that isn’t a core guy) is Bryan Little of Winnipeg, but that would entail moving Carl Hagelin ($4M) and someone else (Pouliot?) to balance the salaries.

So we have dig deeper on the teams that are most definitely out of it: Arizona, Colorado, Buffalo, New York Islanders.  Arizona has Martin Hanzal on an expiring $3.1M salary that draws at 54.2%.  Colorado has John Mitchell on an expiring $1.8M salary at 54.4%.  Buffalo doesn’t have anyone else over 50%.  The Islanders don’t have anyone that fits salary-wise or worth upgrading in terms of their faceoff percentage.

John Mitchell would represent an incremental upgrade over Bonino in the faceoff department and their salaries are virtually a wash.  Mitchell had been a reliable 10 goal scorer in past years, but his performance has cratered to just 1 goal this season that has seen his ice time drop to just 12 minutes a game.  The Pens would have to add a sweetener to deal for the Avalanche, as Bonino’s expiring contract does nothing for their long-term future, so perhaps the extra 5th round pick they conned Ottawa out of in the Mike Condon deal would do it.

I still come back to question of is it worth it, though.  With Mitchell’s anemic offensive output, he would essentially be a faceoff specialist.  There’s real value to that, of course, but is it a luxury the Penguins need?

The stats bear out that the Pens are for real, but what about the others in the Eastern Conference?
Photo by Gene J. Puskar/AP

Since we’re more or less at the halfway point of the 2016-17 NHL season, now seems like as good a time as any to evaluate the competition against the Penguins in the Eastern Conference.  For purposes of this article, I’m only going to look at the teams currently in the playoff picture (with one bonus team to discuss, especially to watch starting next year).  The teams that are currently out of the playoff picture all have negative goal differentials, which is a quick measuring stick for me to evaluate the long-term prospects of a team’s title contention worthiness.

The crux of this article is going to rotate around three evaluation stats — Corsi For (CF%), Shooting Percentage (Sh%), and PDO which is a summation of a team’s Shooting Percentage and Save Percentage.  All three of these stats will be using 5-on-5 results only, as special teams will just skew the conversation.  These three stats, albeit rudimentary, can help peel back the curtain on a team’s record to determine if it is sustainable or not.  All stats are prior to the start of 1/10/2017 games.

Corsi For — this is a rough way of evaluating a team’s ability to possess the puck.  It takes a team’s shots on the opposing goalie and divides it by the sum of the team’s shots for and against.  Anything above 50% is good and indicates that your team is more in control of the game’s flow.

Shooting Percentage — this is the 1st of the two somewhat related “puck luck” stats.  Team shooting percentage is hovering around 9% in recent years, so if a team is significantly higher or lower than this threshold, there could be some regression to the mean in store.

PDO — this incorporates the above Shooting Percentage in with team goalie’s Save Percentage to get a stat that hovers around 100.  If your team is above, they may be lucky.  Below, better times may be in store.  I could have easily just done Save Percentage, but I think all humans are more comfortable with 100 as a baseline.  Plus it shows if a team’s offense or defense (via the goalie) is the culprit.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

Crosby is a goal scoring machine and the Penguins do not appear to have a Stanley Cup hangover.  There has been a breakout performance from Justin Schultz and Conor Sheary has solidified his standing on Crosby’s wing.

• CF — 51.4%
• Sh% — 8.29%
• PDO — 100.9

The Penguins are pretty much right in line with the cutoffs between lucky and not lucky, so the stats (and the eyes) are in agreement that they are contenders.  

COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS

How is one of the NHL’s most non-descript franchises the talk of the NHL this year?  A 16 game winning streak that is now 2nd only behind the 1992-93 Penguins is a large part.

• CF% — 50.1%
• Sh% — 8.96%
• PDO — 102.7

Columbus’s first two metrics check out, but the PDO reveals that Sergei Bobrovsky (primarily) has been playing out his mind with a crazy .931 save percentage that is hard-to-fathom unsustainable.  This is a good team and a contender, but they’re not as good as they currently are pictured in the standings.

NEW YORK RANGERS

The Rangers are the closest team in per game scoring to the Penguins (3.56 for the Pens, 3.48 for the Rangers) and have better goals against averages (2.55 for the Rangers, 2.79 for the Penguins).  So why does it feel like something is off with this team?

• CF% — 47.5%
• Sh% — 10.04%
• PDO — 101.9

There it is.  A rather sub-par Corsi For (25th in the NHL) coupled with a high Shooting Percentage (1st in the NHL) paints the picture of a lucky team.  To distill this down to the basics, the Rangers don’t have possession of the puck very much, but when they do they score.  That’s typically not a good recipe for post-season success.  See the 2015-16 New York Rangers, for example.  The Rangers have all the hallmarks of a pretender this year.

WASHINGTON CAPITALS

Because of the bizarre NHL seeding system, the Capitals have been mostly a “wild card” #7 seed in recent weeks, but they’re one of the best teams on paper in the Eastern Conference.

• CF% — 52.3%
• Sh% — 8.82%
• PDO — 102.9

The Capitals haven’t received nearly as much hype as the Blue Jackets this year, but you can see that their trio of metrics is in the same sphere as them.  As with the Blue Jackets’ Bobrovsky, the Captials’ Braden Holtby is playing out of his mind with his own .931 save percentage.  As with the Blue Jackets, the Capitals are due for a little regression but are definitely a contender.

MONTREAL CANADIENS

After a dreadful 2015-16 campaign, due almost entirely to the loss of all-world goalie Carey Price for the majority of the year, Michel Therrien has rallied the team back to the heights they were in 2014-15.

• CF% — 52.4%
• Sh% — 7.90%
• PDO — 101.8

The Canadiens are a muted version of the Blue Jackets and Capitals.  They possess the puck well, but don’t shoot with as much accuracy.  All three are buoyed by their goalies, as Carey Price has put up a .928 save percentage.  The crazy part is that Price is capable of sustaining that over the course of a year.  Two seasons ago, when he won the Vezina, Price had a .933 and in his short 12-game stint last year, Price already had a .934 save percentage.  The Canadiens are absolutely a contender, especially if they can find a complementary scoring piece to Max Pacioretty.

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

The team every Pens fan loves to hate, with good reason in most cases, has been quietly consistent this year.  They’ve been caught up in the riptide of the Metro Division with the Blue Jackets, Penguins, and Rangers all overshadowing them at times this year.

• CF% — 51.0%
• Sh% — 7.39%
• PDO — 98.3

The Flyers are a team struggling with their shot accuracy, as their 7.39% ranks them 19th in the NHL.  More troubling for them is their goalie save percentage of just 90.88 (embedded within the PDO) that has them at 29th out of 30 NHL teams.  Steve Mason is their primary goalie and the Flyers should look to upgrade on him, or at least get a more competent backup than Michal Neuvirth.  Both of them are unrestricted free agents at the end of the year.  Right now, their goalie situation makes them a pretender for me.

BOSTON BRUINS

By virtue of being in the weaker Atlantic Division, the Bruins have a more elevated playoff standing than other teams with more points than them so far.  The Bruins are really a walking contradiction of stats, too.

• CF% — 55.2%
• Sh% — 6.34%
• PDO — 98.2

No one possesses the puck (via the act of throwing shots on goal) more than the Bruins, who are 1st in Corsi For by a healthy margin.  But when they do shoot it, it doesn’t go anywhere, as evidenced by their 28th-ranked Shooting Percentage.  This drags their PDO down to 28th too, as Tuukka Rask and his .928 save percentage can only do so much.  Unless the Bruins get a little more puck luck going their way in the second half, it’s hard to not label them a pretender.

OTTAWA SENATORS

Of all eight current playoff teams, the Ottawa Senators have scored the fewest goals (99).

• CF% — 47.6%
• Sh% — 7.30%
• PDO — 99.8

The Senators don’t possess the puck well and don’t score on the oft-chance they have the puck, but aside from that they’re doing great.  They’re clearly a pretender and it wouldn’t shock me to see them lose their playoff spot to our bonus team…

*BONUS TEAM — TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS

The Maple Leafs may be one year too early to get ready for the playoffs, but they have a stunning collection of young talent, highlighted of course by Auston Matthews (19).  Mitch Marner (19) and William Nylander (20) are also promising young talents (among others on the team) and it’s not as if James van Riemsdyk (27) and Nazem Kadri (26) are greybeards.

• CF% — 50.1%
• Sh% — 8.34%
• PDO — 100.3

The metrics paint a much rosier picture of future success for the Leafs than the Senators, so we’ll see if they eventually run them down for a playoff spot this year.  No matter what, the Leafs are establishing themselves as a real threat in the not-so-distant future.

Pouliot’s time may be running short with the Penguins.
Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images

With Derrick Pouliot struggling to establish himself as a viable NHL defenseman, there have been some fans and media making the comparison between the soon-to-be 23-year old Pouliot and the resurgent Justin Schultz, as an example of how to be patient with defensemen.

It’s true that next to goalie, the most difficult position for a young player to master is defense.  Not only are the zonal marking schemes more complex, the offensive alignments are also unlike those seen in juniors and the AHL.  This is to say nothing of the fact  that the players themselves are the best in the world and far above the quality seen by defensemen, too.

As it relates to Schultz and Pouliot, there’s a misconception that Schultz himself was terrible with the Oilers.  He wasn’t a star, especially not as predicted when he spurned the Ducks to sign with the Oilers as a free agent out of college (thanks to a loophole), but it was more of a function of how terrible the Oilers were.  Schultz’s counting stats of goals and assists were pretty good the first three seasons in Edmonton, ranging between 27 and 33 points each of the three years.  His plus/minus (not a good analysis stat) ratings were unsightly as they ranged between -17 and -22 in his age-22 to age-24 seasons.  Schultz’s Corsi possession metrics were in the low 40’s his first two seasons and barely cleared 50 in his third season, indicating some improvement for both Schultz and the team.

But since the Oilers were rebuilding, it didn’t really matter.  Schultz averaged 22 minutes of ice time in those first three seasons, seeing plenty of top-4 ice time.  In Schultz’s debut 2012 season, he finished 7th in the Calder for top rookie.  Pouliot was drafted 8th overall in 2012, the same year as Schultz’s debut season, and debuted in 2014-15 at age 21.  Pouliot managed to rack up a -11 in plus/minus in just 34 games, even with being on a team that afforded him a Corsi of 54.0% that year.

Although last week’s rout against Columbus was a terrible team-wide effort, here’s an example of what’s wrong with Pouliot right now in this video clip.  Pouliot incorrectly pinched in, got caught flat-footed, then got outraced by Scott Hartnell to a loose puck.  This led to Hartnell coming in on Murray and roofing a shot on him.  Hartnell, especially at this point of his career, is no speedster, yet Pouliot’s lack of foot speed did not allow him to catch up to him.

All through Pouliot’s career in juniors and the AHL, he was touted as an offensive defenseman that needed work on his defensive games.  These defensive lapses were always papered over and excused as youthful errors, but in actuality he’s just not fast enough or well-versed in defensive positioning.

Recently, I forecast who the Penguins would protect and expose to Vegas in June’s Expansion Draft.  I didn’t expect them to protect the pending Restricted Free Agent Pouliot.  I mentioned that if Vegas wanted to gamble on upside, Pouliot should be their choice.  Now, however, I’m thinking that with Pouliot failing to establish himself in the top-4 with Letang, Daley, and Maatta all out (he was 3rd pairing with Steven Oleksy last night), the word is going to get out on him that he may just be a bust.

Perhaps Vegas or some other team will see him as a reclamation project, in the same way the Penguins did when they traded for Schultz midway through his 4th season, and Pouliot will blossom in a different system that accentuates his offensive gifts and covers his defensive lapses.  But it’s hard to envision Pouliot getting that chance here in Pittsburgh when he can’t even establish himself now as a viable option.

Justin Schultz was an established top-4 NHL defenseman that just suffered from a poor team environment.  His offensive talents were on full display in Edmonton.  At this point, it’s up for debate if Pouliot is anything more than a 3rd pairing guy in the NHL.  The comparisons between the two don’t ring true.

Video analytics may help teams’ decision making on health, safety of players
Photo by Duane Burleson/AP

Baseball has embraced statistical analytics for quite some time now.  It’s really gone mainstream within the last 10 years.  There are hosts of websites and blogs dedicated to breaking down each granular iota of data.  Virtually every MLB team now has multiple people dedicated to the angle of analytics.

Hockey is still a little bit behind baseball in terms of their analytical life cycle, but the sport is rapidly catching up to baseball.  The issue is that baseball is more conducive to taking, processing, and applying statistical data, due to the stop-start nature of the game.  Hockey is a free-flowing game with periodic interruptions, where players are changed on the fly for the most part.  Most hockey advanced stats right now are centered on possession.  The theory, correctly, is that if you have the puck more than your opponents and generate more quality opportunities than your opponent, you’ll win the game more often than not.  Stats like Corsi and Fenwick are the first-generation of hockey stats; it seems like something is missing with the stats that have permeated into the general population, though.

Perhaps the next generation of advanced hockey stats will come from the extensive use of high-speed tracking cameras at NHL rinks.  Many private companies have sprouted up in recent years, such as SportlogIQ with their player-tracking technology and machine logic algorithms and Stathletes with their video analysis.  It’s no surprise that both of these companies are based in hockey-mad Canada.

But what can be extracted from these troves of data?  Obviously, the possession-based advanced stats will improve.  Perhaps it will help parse out a stat like Corsi to show more how each individual does in terms of possession, rather than the more team-based nature of Corsi right now.  The real bleeding edge of hockey analytics, though, will come with advances that help with injury minimization of players.

The players are the true assets of the game, both in terms of the on-ice product for the fans and the real-world financial assets of the teams.  These players cost a lot of money nowadays, so teams are going to want to do everything possible to keep them upright and playing as much as possible.  A $6M winger does no one any good if he’s sitting in the press box for 20 games a year.  With some non-intrusive player trackers, the in-game health of the players can be followed more effectively.  It would be possible to download data after each game for each player directly to the team’s medical staff, where they could see energy expended, heart rate, caloric output, and oxygen levels.

The high-speed tracking cameras that are mounted in the rafters of some NHL arenas may also help training and medical staffs counsel coaches on hot spots to avoid on the ice.  Cameras may be able to determine over time where injuries are more prone to happen that may not be as evident to the naked eye.  Obviously the front of the net and the corners are where the action happens, but there may be a point on the ice where acceleration is maximized for both teams.  Teams may game plan to avoid sending pucks into these areas without controlling them, so as to cut down on potential impacts and minimize injury risk.

It’s also natural to assume that networks will try to apply real-time analytics to their broadcasts in some aspect.  Perhaps there would be a filter or toggle that a viewer could turn on to see stats like player speed/acceleration or we’ll be able to see impact strength in Newtons or foot-pounds on our screens.

It just seems like this era of Big Data that we’re in right now is going to lend itself to some sort of revolution both for teams and for the viewing public.  Within the next five years, hockey as we consume it today may be totally different.

After missing six games at the start of the season, Crosby has come back with a vengeance, like Uma Thurman from Kill Bill.  He’s caused goalies to bow their heads in shame an amazing 21 times in 24 games, good for 0.875 goals per game.  Remember that number, we’ll come back to that shortly.

He’s scoring goals in a manner that makes me think he could be on the bench for the Pirates this year, too:

Sometimes he gets bored and sees if he can bank them off the goalie’s back, just for fun:

And of course he scores them while laying on his stomach, because why not:

Sidney Crosby is a ridiculous hockey player, still the best in the NHL after all these years, no matter what challengers stepped to his throne while he was fully recovering from his severe concussion issues.  But he’s never been this prolific as a goal scorer.  His single-season high is 51, back in 2009-10, and he’s never cleared 40 in any other season.  He’s always been the visionary table-setter, not the finisher, per se.  But for whatever reason, things are different this year.  This is the greatest Crosby has looked since his head was introduced to David Steckel’s elbow on New Year’s Day in the Winter Classic on January 1st, 2011.  For Crosby to equal his career high of goals, he would need to score 30 goals in 52 games, a “mere” 0.58 goals/game.

Crosby is on pace for an all-time prolific season of scoring goals.  That 0.875 goals/game currently ranks as the 55th highest rate of all-time, as per Quanthockey.  And when you consider that well over half of the seasons ahead of him were from the years prior to 1925 when seasons were less than 40 games and guys would wait to score a goal, smoke a cigarette on the ice, then casually skate back to play a little defense, that makes it all the more impressive.  The last player to eclipse this rate over what is close to a full NHL season was some dude named Mario Lemieux in 1995-96, when he scored 0.98 goals/game by getting 69 in 70 games.

If you refine Quanthockey’s list by active players, Crosby stands alone at the top, well clear of Alexander Ovechkin in 2nd place with 0.79 goals/game (65 in 82) back in 2007-08.  And, oh yeah, Crosby sits in 3rd place with that aforementioned 2010-11 abbreviated season when he had 32 goals in 41 games (66 points total).  To me, that was Peak Crosby in terms of offense.  Of course, Crosby has more peaks than the Andes Mountains, but he was a force on the ice that year and absolutely dominant.

No one likes to talk about these types of things, though, for fear of jinxing him.  We all know that one stray shoulder or elbow to the ol’ cranium can ruin his season (or career).  But what he’s doing this year is legendary.  I’m going to enjoy it, no matter if he falls off the goal scoring pace, returns to being a master disher of the puck, or gets hurt.  He’s back in full form and he’s special.

Justin Schultz is going to pad his bank account with his strong on-ice play this season.

Yeah, a super-fresh reference to a B-list TV show from the ’70’s!  That will get all the millennial eyeballs on this article, Kevin!

Perhaps lost in the Penguins recent winning streak, highlighted by Sidney Crosby’s assault on NHL goalies and the nets they protect, has been the strong run of play by Justin Schultz.  In fact, what is happening is Justin Schultz blossoming into the potential he was touted as having many years ago when he caused waves by snubbing a deal with Anaheim to go to Edmonton.

Mostly because Edmonton was hot garbage during his time there, Justin Schultz never fully developed into a proper NHL defenseman.  He’s not going to be a stay-at-home, pound-your-face-into-the-boards d-man, but what he is developing into is a well-rounded defenseman.

If I were to ask you who was leading the Pens’ defensemen corps in Corsi, who would you guess?  Kris Letang would be the easy answer, but in actuality it’s Schultz.

For the uninitiated, Corsi is a rough metric to indicate possession.  Essentially, it is a percentage based on how many shots are taken versus how many shots are taken against, while a certain player is on the ice.  Anything above 50% is ideal.

It’s not as if Schultz is playing with Kris Letang, either.  He’s primarily been the 3rd pairing with Ian Cole all year, so seeing both of them well clear of 50% is heartening.  Clearly, Letang and whoever his partner is (mostly Dumoulin) are going to have a strong Corsi because of Letang’s greatness and the fact they are typically matched with either Crosby or Malkin’s lines.  But to see the Penguins’ 3rd pairing, usually with the Pens’ 3rd lines and against other teams strong lines at times, doing so well is showing that there are few cracks at the moment in the defenseman ranks.

At the end of this past season, Justin Schultz made a huge bet on himself.  He willingly took a pay cut from his 2015-16 salary of $3.9M to his salary of only $1.4M this year.  He wanted to build his value up and fully eradicate the stink of his Edmonton years.  Sure, he just won a Cup as a bit player and could have gotten himself a Lovejoy-type of deal, but instead he wanted to return to a strong team and continue to refine his game.

His gambit may look to pay off this summer as he’s positioning himself quite well on the free agent market.  Here’s a list from CapFriendly of all d-men eligible for free agency, sorted by points.  If you set aside Kevin Shattenkirk (age 27), I would hazard to say that Schultz (age 26) is the best or 2nd best d-man available.  There’s no way the teams are going to let their 22 and 23-year old RFA’s go to free agency that currently have more points than him, and players like Trevor Daley and Andrei Markov are getting a little long in the tooth.

Schultz is setting himself up for a monster deal that could easily eclipse $5M per season on a 5 year term.  Could it be with the Penguins?  Probably not, just based on all the other high-value salary commitments they have on the books.  Again, as per CapFriendly, the Penguins have a shade over $11M of cap space for next year and still need 9 players.  Yes, some cap space can be cleared up with the ever-present Fleury trade, but it’s not like the Pens will be flush with cash all of a sudden.

Essentially, this is the best possible outcome path for all parties.  The Penguins are successful this year because of a strong d-corps through all three pairings.  Schultz is setting himself up for future riches due to his personal strong play and a great team system that is buoying his performance.  It’s a win-win.

The Vegas Golden Knights have blanded their way into existence in the past few weeks, with their milquetoast name and color scheme.  Right around the time a team will be hoisting the Stanley Cup in June, they’ll be ready to form the initial roster for their inaugural season of 2017-18.

By the rules of the expansion draft as laid out on NHL.com, the Vegas Golden Knights will be selecting just one player from each of the 30 existing teams.  Eligible players for the draft must be under contract for the 2017-18 season and not have a no-movement clause (included limited no-movements), unless that player agrees to waive the no-movement clause prior to the draft, which is highly unlikely.

Each team has two paths they can take on how they want to protect their players prior to the draft:

• 7 Forwards, 3 Defensemen, 1 Goalie
• 8 skaters of any combination (at least one defenseman or at least one forward), 1 Goalie

I’m having a hard time envisioning why an NHL team wouldn’t select the first option that enables them to protect 10 total skaters, rather than just 8.  It’s not as if there is some team so overloaded on must-have defensemen that they feel compelled to protect, say, 4 or 5 of them.

So let’s run through the Penguins roster to determine which skaters they are most likely to protect come June, keeping in mind that trades, performance declines, or injuries are subject to disrupting this list by June.

FORWARDS

The Penguins have five guys on either limited or full no-movement clauses, so they are automatic protections:

• Evgeni Malkin
• Sidney Crosby
• Phil Kessel
• Patric Hornqvist
• Carl Hagelin

That leaves two potential protections to select from the following list.  I’m including their salaries and when their contract runs through, as it may come into the decision process.

• Eric Fehr ($2M, 2018)
• Jake Guentzel ($734K, 2019)
• Bryan Rust ($640K, 2018)
• Scott Wilson ($625K, 2018)
• Tom Kuhnhackl ($625K, 2018)

Of note, Conor Sheary is a Restricted Free Agent next year.  Vegas is allowed to draft RFA’s (but no one knows exactly how many they can draft total), so Sheary is eligible for the expansion draft. I don’t anticipate him staying that way and could see the Pens signing him to an affordable short-term deal before the expansion draft.

All of the players in the Fehr to Kuhnhackl bin are exactly the types of guys that end up being selected in expansion drafts.  These 3rd and 4th line types are cheap for the new team and will help keep things competitive in those early, rough years.  I don’t think the Pens would mind terribly if any of the Fehr to Kuhnhackl bin are lost, but I imagine they would want to protect Guentzel the most if they had to.  Secretly, they are probably hoping that Vegas takes Fehr so that they can clear his $2M off the books and re-allocate it to Sheary.

I’ll predict the seven protections are Malkin, Crosby, Kessel, Hornqvist, Hagelin, Guentzel, and Sheary.

DEFENSEMEN

Kris Letang is the only defenseman with a no-movement clause, so he’s an automatic protection.  The other two could get pretty interesting, though.

Olli Maatta is young (22) and full of upside, but it’s no secret that injuries have plagued him in the early portion of his career.  He signed a very lucrative, long-term contract prior to his repeated shoulder and other ailments, so I’m wondering if there’s some buyer’s remorse by the Pens.  Would they like to dangle his $4.1M through 2022 out in the expansion draft, knowing full well that Vegas would snap him up and take the risk on his health?  Would it bother them if Vegas did select him?

Ian Cole at $2.1M through 2018 is the only other defenseman, somewhat amazingly, under contract next year.  Brian Dumoulin is a Restricted Free Agent and aside from his recent run of poor play, I expect the Pens will sign him to an affordable deal, too.  Derrick Pouliot is also an RFA, but his case is a little more gray.  He’s fought off injuries and inconsistent play in his young career.  If he’s signed to a new contract, he’s a type that is a candidate to be exposed in the draft.

In the end, I’ll predict the Pens protect Letang, Maatta, and Dumoulin, banking on youth and leaving Cole and Pouliot exposed.  As with the 3rd/4th line forwards above, Cole is the perfect type of player for an expansion franchise to grab — a productive veteran on a modest deal with Stanley Cup-winning experience.

GOALTENDER

It’s Murray who will be protected.  He’s the future.  Fleury, through no fault of his own, is making things awkward on the team and that’s straight from the GM’s mouth, too.  There’s no way that Fleury finishes up this campaign with the flightless bird on his sweater.

The return for Fleury will be a goalie that is fodder to be included in the expansion draft, so it’s got to be someone with a no-movement clause.  We looked at some candidates a couple of weeks ago.

SO WHO WILL VEGAS SELECT?

Now that’s a really good question.  If the list of players submitted for the draft is the same as I’ve shown above, Vegas will be looking at:

• Eric Fehr
• Bryan Rust
• Scott Wilson
• Tom Kuhnhackl
• Ian Cole
• Derrick Pouliot
• Goalie obtained in Fleury trade

Of course without knowing the goalie, it’s more difficult.  Also we don’t know who the other 29 NHL teams will submit and what type of players Vegas will select before they raid the Penguins for a player.

But in a vacuum, I would say that Ian Cole would be my pick.  He’s a solid #3/4 defenseman that can be a solid penalty killer and team leader on a team that will be relying on castoffs and young players for the first year of their existence.

If the Golden Knights wanted to gamble on upside, Derrick Pouliot would be a strong selection.  His potential is that of a top pairing d-man, but injuries and inconsistencies have held him back.

Whoever is selected, the Penguins will miss their contributions, but it doesn’t appear to be anyone that can’t be replaced long-term.

It was time to switch Dumoulin (left) and Maatta (right) on the top pairing.

Last week I got into a discussion on the podcast I share with my friend, Pat. It started off as a “Dumoulin hasn’t looked great” and ended up with Pat reading me an interesting statistic. Kris Letang, at the time and let’s be honest probably now, was leading the Pittsburgh Penguins’ defense corps in Corsi-for. This is hardly unusual as the perennial Norris trophy short-lister is just that good. What was interesting was the number two name. Because where last year it was regularly Brian Dumoulin, who found himself at the top of this list or just behind the astronomically gifted Letang, the next name so far this season was Olli Maatta.

That’s right. The guy half the Penguins fanbase left for dead in a ditch three games into the season has quietly got himself oriented back into the player who Kris Letang prefers to play with once more. So let’s put them back together. It seems fairly simple to those of us not coaching the team. To us armchair coaches and GM’s, putting the two best performing players who have historically played solid together seems simple.

Jacques Martin, who runs the Penguins’ blue line, is a brilliant man, though, so the thought has surely crossed his mind. However, as the man has been responsible for the resurgence of Schultz, Cole and oversaw the reaching of Letang’s career to new heights, I’m apt to trust him. Because Martin and Sullivan have always been tops at building confidence and resurrecting the careers of many of their players by doing two things very well. One, giving them appropriate deployment and two, allowing them to make errors.

For the number one example of this not named Justin Schultz, look at the transformation Maatta’s undergone in the first month and a half of the 2016-17 season.

Game One: He pinched forward on a puck trying to keep it in the offensive zone while a forward was back covering for Trevor Daley who was in way deep. He got caught kind of oddly out of position and was able to get back into the play but not effectively. The puck went into the net on Marc-Andre Fleury and the game was tied.

Now: In the Penguins more recent games Maatta’s made a concerted effort to get the puck in as deep as possible at the blue line. On the extended shifts in the offensive zone the Penguins had against the Rangers and Sabres recently, he was part of the defensive posture sealing up the exits to the zone effectively to keep the puck in to keep the cycle working.

I believe this approach by Martin and Sullivan is why the pairings haven’t been swapped yet. Letang and Dumoulin have had limited effectiveness since the former returned from an early season injury. But it is still the regular season and very early in it so they kept giving them the benefit of their stellar play together last spring.

Meanwhile, Maatta, who has looked better by the game has been performing better but they didn’t necessarily want to rush it. They trusted him and wanted his confidence to go back up because a lot of what was wrong with him early in the year was between the ears. He was making plays like he had limited time and space when he really had both. Now he’s banking pucks off of the wall, easily following his nose for the puck (remember – his offensive numbers in junior are a large part of why he was drafted so high), and making defensive plays with his skates to protect the puck as he moves it around the cage. But he’s ready and it’s time to take the training wheels off and see if he is going to be their first or second pairing defender and there is no better time.

On the other hand there’s Dumoulin. Brian Dumoulin is playing his second full NHL season and hasn’t had a great run of late. He seems to just be a bit out of position and making his goalies lives more difficult, as opposed to making them easier. He’s not completely fallen off of a cliff and is still a high-level shutdown guy but his numbers haven’t been there lately. And it feels like Letang is dragging an anvil more than he’s playing with a defenseman he trusts.

This isn’t saying Dumounlin’s career is over by any stretch but he needs to get his feet under him. He needs to see less of the Ovechkins of the NHL and more of those second/third line match-ups, plus he needs to play a little less time-wise because he does look fatigued at points.

This is where the swap of Maatta and Dumoulin has its real genius though: Dumoulin plays well with Daley. Dumoulin became well known last season when he emerged on the top pairing with Daley when Letang was out.

Daley and Dumoulin has worked as swimmingly in the past for its players as Letang and Maatta. It’s only November, tinker while you can and see what happens. And it seems like the Penguins have decided to try just that. As news out of practice following the teams 5-2 setback to the New York Rangers was they had gone to 3/58 and 8/6 as the pairings.  As for Cole and Schultz? The 28/4 pairing remained as it has been. And I for one don’t think they’re getting split up any time soon unless injuries necessitate it. Sure, their deployment has been calculated extensively, especially at home, by Martin and Sullivan. But they’ve thrived and their second unit deployments on their respective special teams (Cole on PK and Schultz on PP) have been brilliant. They’re dependable and working well but the staff knows better than to overtax them.

It’s time to go back to 3/58, 6/8 and 28/4 – conveniently it seems like that’s just what the team is about to do.

Jake Guentzel (left, #44) and Oskar Sundqvist (right, #40) both are showing well for WBS Penguins

While the Pittsburgh Penguins faced off against the Toronto Maple Leafs on November 12, I made my way to Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre to check in on some of the team’s prospects.  They did not disappoint.

Jake Guentzel (2013 draft, 3rd round) was everything he has been advertised as and maybe even a little more.  He’s noticeably faster than everyone else around him and has fantastic hands. He could literally skate circles around some of the guys out there while carrying the puck and still make it from point A to point B first.

He isn’t the biggest guy, but he knows how to move and his usage of the space available to him is great. Then, if space isn’t available he knows how to make smart plays in the neutral zone that try to neutralize any rushes back.  He was targeted for big hits quite a bit due to his size (5′-11″/180 lbs), but he absorbed impact well by keeping his head on a swivel especially on a team that’s bigger overall than the Wilkes Barre Penguins.

His stat line for Saturday was highlighted by an empty net goal that he actually had to fight for and didn’t just throw the puck at from the opposing blue line. He carried the puck in on net from the neutral zone evading defensive players and pressure. He also racked up three shots on goal, tied for the second-most on the team. But this kind of performance wasn’t limited to Saturday. His numbers so far this season are just unreal, his 6 G-7 A-13 P in 13 GP stat line is good for second among all AHL rookies (the leader has 14 points and has one additional game played) and his six goals lead all first year players in the league. His goal total also puts him in a tie for third overall.

But Guentzel wasn’t alone as both Oskar Sundqvist (2012 draft, 3rd round) and Dominik Simon (2015 draft, 5th round) put on the kind of performances you’d expect from prospects of their caliber.  Sundqvist led the WBS in shots on goal in the November 12th contest with four, played monster minutes, scored the game winner on touted Providence goalie and Bruins prospect Malcolm Subban, and took home first star honors. He and Guentzel are the two players who stand out, much like Sheary and company last season, as too good for the AHL. It’s pretty well known Sundqvist is only where he is because of the log jam at his position and a pre-season injury.

Sundqvist’s stat line of 5 G-5 A-10 P in 12 GP with 12 penalty minutes shows off his sneaky scoring ability and nasty side, but what he’s really great at is killing penalties. In the game against providence the Bruins went 1-4 on the power play in large part due to the hard work of Sundqvist and the other PK’ers. It’s this dual skill set that has him tabbed as a potential third line center for the Penguins moving forward.

And last but not by any means least is Dominik Simon. The over-aged 5th round selection in the 2015 entry draft from the Czech Republic set the AHL on fire early last year but cooled off later. Early this year his offensive output isn’t gaudy by any means and he left Saturday night’s win with a 0-0-0 stat line and 2 shots on goal. His overall stats in 2016-17 so far don’t jump out as great with just 3 G-2 A-5 P in 13 GP, but that hardly matters right now. Because Simon, in his second season in North America, has shown he’s started to comprehend and think the American game at a high rate. Twice in the game against Providence he did everything in his power to get the puck out of the defensive zone off of a draw. Once, he tied the opposing center up so fully he was able to poke the puck free to an area, allowing a teammate to skate it into the neutral zone. Another time, he lost the draw but went down and sacrificed his body to use his stick and poke the puck out into the neutral zone. He made countless plays like that. Small little movements that don’t score goals but illustrate a deep understanding of the game. Patience will be key with him in his development, but he certainly has both the intelligence and skills to play in the NHL.

On the other side of the ice David Warsofsky (2008 draft, 4th round, Blues, signed as FA in 2016) was far and away the best performer for Wilkes-Barre’s defense. On a blue line where Prow, Di Pauli and Plachta all have little to no pro experience, Warsofsky, Steve Oleksy, Chad Ruhwedel are the elder statesmen. He and Prow play on the top pairing effectively and while Prow has growing to do, his hockey sense is incredible in a way that matches the minds of Letang, Dumoulin, Maatta and the Penguins other young blue liners.