COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Though Kris Letang's return is nearing after missing time with COVID-19, possibly as soon as the Penguins' game tonight against the Flyers at PPG Paints Arena, Mike Sullivan announced yesterday Sidney Crosby and Brian Dumoulin have joined Marcus Pettersson and Chad Ruhwedel in the NHL's COVID protocol.
The blow of losing Crosby just after his return from wrist surgery can't be overstated, but the roster's also now without three regular defensemen in Dumoulin, Pettersson, and Ruhwedel.
If Letang's back, he'll be with always-exciting Mike Matheson on the top pairing, then P.O. Joseph alongside John Marino and Juuso Riikola alongside Mark Friedman, with Joseph and Riikola having arrived over the weekend as replacements.
Remember Riikola?
When he made his season debut with the big club Saturday in the 4-2 loss to the Devils, it marked just his 76th NHL game, all with the Penguins, since his free-agency signing out of Finland in 2018, a stark contrast to the 89 games he's been a healthy scratch, the 20 he's missed to injury and the 30 he's spent in the AHL, according to local hockey historian Bob Grove.
Even last season, with the defense decimated by injury and a huge opportunity at hand, he was hurt, too.
And even when he's been healthy and performed well, most maddeningly, he hasn't stayed on the ice.
In 2019-20, he had some of the NHL's best defensive impacts, which isn't to suggest that he could shut down Connor McDavid but that he was a perfectly capable, cost-efficient option for the Penguins' third pairing. (Making Jim Rutherford's acquisition of Matheson that much more of a head-scratcher, by the way.) In 36 games that season, the Penguins outscored the opposition, 14-10, with Riikola on the ice at five-on-five while controlling 59.2% of the expected goals, the highest mark of any NHL defenseman to play at least 400 minutes at five-on-five, per Evolving-Hockey.com. Looking specifically at the defensive side, the Penguins ceded 47.8 shot attempts against per hour (7th among NHL defensemen), 1.38 goals against per hour (4th), and 1.66 expected goals against per hour (1st) at five-on-five.
Again, this isn't a signal that Riikola is a shutdown defender who can stymie the best of the best, but he certainly helped keep lesser competition away from prime scoring areas, as evidenced by the below 2019-20 heat map from HockeyViz.com:
HockeyViz.com
Riikola's in-zone defense is adequate, but it's the things he does in the offensive zone and neutral zone that lead to such strong impacts in his own zone.
While Riikola hasn't proven to be much more than a slightly-above-average driver of offense in terms of creating quality chances, there's very clearly some offensive upside to his game:
In last Saturday's matchup against New Jersey, Riikola received a pass as he crossed the offensive blue line. Even though the Penguins didn't have any skaters in the middle of the ice, the angle of Riikola's stick blade forced New Jersey's defenders to respect a potential pass to the slot.
This gave Riikola just enough space to pull off not one, but two quick dangles to his backhand before powering to the goal line and slipping a backhand pass to the slot that was ultimately buried by Danton Heinen.
The coaching staff saw enough in Riikola's offensive upside to put him on the top power-play unit in place of Marino in the same game against New Jersey.
As the puck was worked to Crosby at the right circle, New Jersey's penalty killers became fixated on him. This opened up a lane down the left side for Riikola to sneak down and receive a vintage cross-ice Crosby pass. Just after receiving the pass, he nearly slipped a pass of his own across the goal-mouth to Jake Guentzel for an easy tap-in:
As with most defensemen, the majority of Riikola's shots come from low-danger attempts from the point, but he has shown he's not afraid to get to the slot or net-front to shoot either:
HockeyViz.com
It's a common tactic on offensive zone faceoffs to have the inside winger immediately sneak up to the high slot or point in the middle of the ice upon winning the draw. The idea is that even though the one-timer would have a low chance of going in, it has the potential to create a juicy rebound for the other forwards crashing the net while the defense is being pulled toward the top of the zone.
Riikola scored one of his three NHL goals, in part, thanks to that set faceoff play, but it didn't happen the way I just described.
In a 2019-20 game against Nashville, the Penguins won the draw and immediately got the puck to Riikola at the point. Alex Galchenyuk, the inside winger, worked his way to becoming an option in the high slot, while Dominik Kahun was pushed into the defender going toward Riikola by another Nashville player.
Riikola noticed the unintentional pick and immediately darted forward into open ice, and eventually buried his own rebound after powering to the front of the net:
The one downside to Riikola's eagerness to activate in the offensive zone is that it can lead to odd-man rushes against, but that comes with the territory of taking risks. Besides, if it were anything of a problem, it would show up in his on-ice goals against and expected goals against rates.
Another part of the reason teams can't generate quality chances with Riikola on the ice is because he often "surfs" through the neutral zone when defending.
Similar to the clips I showed of Evan Rodrigues last week, instead of skating backward and defending attackers head-on, Riikola skates forward and with the flow of play to stay alongside his assignments as often as possible. This allows him to break up passes to his assignment with relative ease:
If he does find himself in a situation where he can't surf alongside an attacker, he does his best to use his exceptional edge work to put himself in position to prevent teams from being able to set up in the offensive zone.
In a 2019-20 game against Dallas, Jamie Benn came barreling down the wing in Riikola's direction. Instead of Riikola letting Benn come right at him, he used his inside edges to actually get out of Benn's way, before riding his edge right back in Benn's direction and sealing him off along the boards and finally making a pass that led to a zone exit:
The funny thing about all of this is that Riikola isn't a better skater or shooter than Matheson, but he takes more calculated risks, doesn't turn the puck over nearly as often, and quite simply has a more positive impact on the game in terms of shots, chances, and goals (albeit in a smaller role).
It won't matter for the time being, as the Penguins need all the able-bodied blue liners they can get, but Riikola has another opportunity to prove to the coaching staff that he deserves a permanent spot on the third pairing. If Riikola continues to crush his role, there's absolutely no reason for the Penguins to not look into moving Matheson to free up any and all cap space. Then again, this team can never stay healthy.
