Stats 'N' At: Murray's true status, Steelers' imbalance, Pirates' rotation taken in Downtown (Penguins)

Photo-illustration - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

Despite markedly better play since the start of December, the Penguins enter their bye week and the NHL All-Star break with a tenuous hold on a playoff spot and a smorgasbord of unanswered questions.

Can they clamp down on the ill-advised pinches and passes that fuel the other team's offensive game?

Can Evgeni Malkin clear his head and rediscover his game in five-on-five play? Will Derick Brassard ever emerge as the high-end third-line center that Jim Rutherford envisioned?

When Justin Schultz is healthy, which of the team's baker's dozen or so of defensemen will suit up?

One question that the Penguins have answered, however, is who's the number one guy in the net. Since returning from a lower-body injury in mid-December, Matt Murray has arguably been the best goaltender in the NHL while restoring faith in his ability to help carry this talented, if flawed team into another Stanley Cup run.

Before Murray went on IR on Thanksgiving, he was an absolute mess. In 11 games, Murray had an .877 save percentage that ranked 37th among 38 net minders who had skated at least 500 minutes to that point in the season, and was a far cry from his career .916 regular-season save rate. Since returning in mid-December, though? Murray has a .944 save percentage in 11 games. That's second among goaltenders with 500+ minutes of ice time over that stretch, behind only the Islanders' Robin Lehner (.953).

Murray has seen plenty of action this season, facing the eighth-highest shot rate per 60 minutes of five-on-five ice time (32.7) among regular goaltenders. And, with the Penguins prone to the kind of turnovers and poorly-timed pinches referenced previously, he has seen an NHL-high 2.5 rush attempts per 60 minutes. At the beginning of the season, Murray struggled horribly to stop those juicy scoring chances.

Before going on IR, he had the fourth-worst high-danger save rate (.750) among regular goaltenders, according to Natural Stat Trick. Higher-danger shots are those that have the highest chance of becoming goals based on the shot location, shot type, and odd-man rush situations. Since mid-December, Murray has boosted his high-danger save rate to .859, which is 12th-best among regular goaltenders. It also helps that the Penguins aren't hanging him out to dry quite as often (Murray saw 10.5 high-danger chances per 60 minutes before his injury, and 8.7 since returning). He has been a wall all season against low-danger shots (an NHL-best .996 save percentage), but his improvement against the most lethal chances has been dramatic. He's once again making the kind of hockey card saves needed to make a deep playoff push.

Murray's career has been full of triumph and turmoil, and there are still serious questions to answer about his durability (since he became the undisputed top goaltender last season, he has started 51.9% of the Penguins' games and appeared in 55% of games, while dealing with lower-body and concussion problems).

But let's take stock of just how good Murray has been overall during his four-year career:

• On a per-game basis, he's arguably the best goaltenders in Penguins history. Among goaltenders with 125+ career games, Murray has the best adjusted goals allowed rate among all Pittsburgh goaltenders. Adjusted goals allowed is a Hockey Reference stat that factors in the overall offensive environment in which a goaltender played, so that it's easier to make a direct comparison between different eras. An average adjusted goals allowed rate is 100, while a rate under 100 means that the goaltender made more stops than the average player.

• Murray also has the best adjusted goals allowed rate in the playoffs among Penguins goaltenders (minimum 15 career postseason games). His mark of 86 bests the likes of Ken Wregget (90), Tom Barrasso (98), Johan Hedberg (102) and especially Marc-Andre Fleury (122). No one's claiming that Murray has anywhere near the legacy of Fleury--he'd need another decade of high-quality play to be in that conversation--but his early-career work has been better.

• Overall, Murray has performed like one of the best young goaltenders in league history. His adjusted goals allowed rate of 93 ties him with Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr for the 12th-best mark by a goaltender through his age 24 season. The names above him read like a who's who of NHL greats, including leaders Patrick Roy (84), Roland Melanson (85) and Martin Brodeur (86). Murray also has the ninth-best adjusted goals allowed rate ever (regardless of age) in the playoffs among players with 30+ postseason games.

Murray's injury history and performance swings have been frustrating. But he's still one of the team's core assets and could have the biggest say in whether the Penguins have a real shot at claiming a third Stanley Cup in four years. Longer-term, we'll learn more about the team's belief in Murray when it's time to extend him (he'll make $3.75 million this season and in 2019-20, before becoming a restricted free agent; his next deal could easily reach $5-6 million per season). For now, he'll just keep stamping out scoring chances and making fans forget about his wretched beginning to this season.

MORE PENGUINS

• Letang's goals: with 0.24 goals per game, Kris Letang is scoring at a clip that ranks fourth among all defensemen in 2018-19 and that he has surpassed only once in his stellar career (0.3 per game in 2013-14). And, with 107 career goals, the Norris Trophy contender ranks behind only Paul Coffey (108) for the franchise record among players on the blue line. Letang is being more assertive with the puck, taking a career-high 3.1 shots per game, and he's finding the back of the net from long distance. Five of his 11 goals (45%) have come from the area of the ice that is in front of the neutral zone but in front of the faceoff circles, according to the IcyData website. Overall, NHL players have scored just 9% of their goals from the far-away part of the ice. According to NHL.com, five of Letang's goals have come on wrist shots, three on snap shots, two on slap shots and, of course, there was that one beauty on the backhand in San Jose.

• Sacrificing the body: When an opposing player winds up for a slap shot, odds are that Olli Maatta is going to dive in front of it like a Secret Service agent. The Penguins defenseman is blocking 6.4 shots per 60 minutes of ice time in five-on-five situations, which is the seventh-highest rate among regular players on the blue line. That's up from 4.3 blocked shots per 60 minutes during the 2017-18 season. The question is, is that increase really a good thing? Blocking a shot means that the other team is controlling puck possession. And, with Maatta on the ice this season, the Penguins are often chasing the puck. Maatta's Corsi For percentage--the share of total shots taken that the Penguins generate with him skating in five-on-five play--is just 44.8% this season. That's the 13th-worst mark among defensemen who have skated at least 500 minutes. Last year, Maatta's Corsi For was a more robust 51.8%.

STEELERS

Getting the most from the O-Line: With Mike Munchak departing for Denver, it will be fascinating to see if the Steelers can continue to develop unheralded, undrafted offensive lineman into serviceable--and occasionally, even Pro Bowl-caliber--starters. During Munchak's tenure as offensive line coach (2014-18), the Steelers had two of the five most valuable O-lineman among players who weren't picked during their draft year. Ramon Foster ranked third among previously undrafted O-lineman from 2014-18 in Approximate Value (AV), a Pro Football Reference stat that attempts to compare the overall value of player across different eras and across positions on the field, Foster had 36 AV from 2014-18, which placed behind only Ryan Schraeder (42 AV) and Jason Peters (41) among once-undrafted offensive lineman. Directly behind Foster on the list is Alejandro Villanueva (35), the tight end-turned-defensive lineman-turned soldier-turned two-time Pro Bowl left tackle. In addition to those two, undrafted linemen Chris HubbardB.J. Finney and Matt Feiler all progressed into starting-caliber players during Munchak's tenure. How much of that was due to Munchak's coaching, and how much of it was due to the Steelers' scouting department? We''ll find out over the next few years.

• Seeking balance: The Steelers ranked fourth in total offense (403.3 yards per game) and tied for sixth in scoring (26.8 per game), but they could stand to find more balance in 2019. Last year, Pittsburgh threw the ball on 67.4% of offensive plays--the second-highest total in the NFL, behind only Green Bay (67.5%). For comparison's sake, the Steelers threw the ball 59.7% of the time in 2017 (11th in the league), 58.9% in 2016 (20th), 61.7% in 2015 (13th) and 61.2% in 2014 (11th). The team made the playoffs in each of those four seasons. Speaking of the playoffs, the Eagles (with a pass percentage of 61.9% in 2018, seventh in the league) and the Colts (61.6%, ninth) were the only postseason teams to rank in the top ten in pass percentage during the regular season. It's hard to play into January with a one-dimensional offense.

Blaming the Boz: As we detailed in a previous edition of Stats 'N'At, the Steelers' special teams problems in 2018 extended well beyond the right leg of Chris Boswell. But it's noteworthy that in his end-of-season press conference, team president Art Rooney II called out Boswell's erratic kicking as one of the primary culprits in the Steelers missing the playoffs. The truth is, most teams cut bait when a kicker struggles that badly, for that long. Boswell converted on just 65 percent of his field goal attempts this year. The previous single-season low for a Steelers kicker since 1980 was Gary Anderson (65.6 percent in 1986). Anderson, like Boswell, was historically accurate to start his NFL career before tailing off badly. The Steelers stuck with Anderson, and he went on to have a 23-year career that saw him finish third all-time in field goals made and points scored. If Boswell is looking for some inspiration, it's hard to think of a better case than Anderson. Steelers legend Roy Gerela made 60 percent of his kicks in his career.

PIRATES

Sizing up the rotation: If the Pirates are going to leapfrog the Brewers, Cubs and Cardinals in the NL Central standings, they're going to need their starting rotation to step up. Last year, Pirates starters ranked 15th among MLB teams in Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which compares a player's value to that of a waiver wire-caliber talent. Pittsburgh's 10.1 WAR from the rotation placed behind that of the Cardinals (14.3), but ahead of all other division foes. So, how does the 2019 rotation stack up? According to FanGraphs' depth chart projections, the Pirates' starters are forecast to contribute 12.8 WAR, which is tenth-best in the game. Chris Archer (3.8 projected WAR) and Jameson Taillon (3.3) are the horses here, with Joe Musgrove (2.4) projected for a solid season and Trevor Williams (1.1 WAR) poised to regress some. Pittsburgh's projected WAR total is the best in the NL Central, ahead of the Cubs (12.5), Cardinals (12.4), Reds (11.3) and Brewers (7.4). The Pirates need a competitive advantage on the mound, considering the lack of power in the lineup.

Celebrating Blass: With Steve Blass recently announcing his retirement from the broadcast booth after the 2019 season, let's take a minute to salute the on-field career of a man who has become a Pirates institution since he first signed a contract with the team back in 1960. Blass is renowned for his postseason performances, and for good reason: he had a 3.10 ERA in 40.2 career playoff innings, which included a pair of complete game wins during the Pirates' 1971 World Series run. But he was more than an October stud. Blass ranks 15th all-time among Pirates pitchers in innings pitched (1,597.1), and 34th in both complete games (57) and WAR (13.4). He finished second in NL Cy Young Award voting and made his lone All-Star team in 1972. Blass' career was famously cut short by control woes, but he was highly productive through age 30 (his 15.7 WAR through that age ranks in the top 20 in franchise history).

Can Slegers miss bats? Considering his 6-foot-10, 245 pound build, you might think that Aaron Slegers is a fire-breathing power pitcher. But the 26-year-old right-hander, claimed off waivers recently from the Minnesota Twins, is about as finesse as it gets. In 233 innings at the Triple-A level, Slegers has shown excellent control (1.8 walks per nine innings pitched) but has a strikeout rate of just 6.8. In a 29 inning MLB sampling over the past two seasons, the Twins' 2017 Minor League Pitcher of the Year has struck out a paltry 4.7 per nine frames. Armed with a 90-ish mph fastball and a slider and changeup that both park in the mid-80s, Slegers has induced swinging strikes 8.5% of the time in the majors (well below the 10.7% MLB average). He's not really a groundball-centric pitcher, either (he induced grounders about 44% of the time at Triple-A and 43% in the majors). Especially in today's MLB, it's virtually impossible to succeed while fooling hitters so infrequently.

THE NATIONAL TREND

Gunslingers, young and old: The AFC and NF title games showcased quarterbacks who have enjoyed epic seasons at the opposite end of their respective careers. Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes, the favorite for NFL MVP, just turned in the second-best season ever by a QB age 23 or younger as measured by Passer Rating Index (Rate+). Rate+ is a Pro Football Reference stat that adjusts a QB's passer rating for the offensive era in which he played, and places it on a scale where 100 is average, above 100 is better than average, and below 100 is worse than average. Mahomes' 131 Rate+ this season ranks behind only Dan Marino (141 in 1984) for the highest among QBs age 23 or younger. Daunte Culpepper (128 in 2000), Marino again (125 in 2983) and Y.A. Tittle (124 in 1948) round out the top five. On the opposite side of the age spectrum, Drew Brees (134 Rate+ in 2018) just turned in the best season every by a QB age 39 or older. The man directly behind him on the list? Tom Brady (133 in 2016).

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Stats ‘N’ At is a weekly feature that takes a deep dive into the numbers that define our city's sports scene.

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