COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Penguins have always had a flair for the dramatic.
We've seen their superstars rise to the occasion at the most crucial times, just like the vintage goal Sidney Crosby scored against St. Louis Wednesday night.
We've seen the high-flying offenses that couldn't help but make one too many passes on an otherwise sure-fire goal.
There's the moments they'd fall asleep at the wheel with a lead, only to come out unscathed.
It's only fitting that the current iteration of the Penguins have a player as entertaining as Mike Matheson.
A man that wears many hats, there's nights where Matheson will make an egregious turnover that leads to a goal against, only to make up for it with a goal of his own shortly after.
Until he arrived in Pittsburgh, he had never played a season in which his team outscored or outshot the opposition with him on the ice at five-on-five.
Though the Penguins had a positive goal differential (54.4%) with Matheson on the ice last season, they roughly broke even in terms of shots and chances, alluding to a smidge of luck.
This season, however, in Matheson's 479 minutes at five-on-five, the Penguins have scored a stellar 58.7% of the goals -- and there's every reason to believe luck has nothing to do with it:
HockeyViz.com
They're getting to the heart of the slot in the offensive zone and generating plenty of quality chances relative to league average when he's out there.
Of course, with Matheson's aptitude to skate the puck and jump up in the offensive zone, you'd think that's always been the case, but it hasn't -- and this season's offensive results put every other campaign of his to shame.
You can also note the excess shots coming from the left circle, a product of Matheson barreling into the zone after an end-to-end rush and firing away, or even activating during the cycle to utilize his heavy shot:
After making several plays at the blue line to maintain possession in the offensive zone, the Penguins worked the puck low and Matheson essentially "got lost" at the point.
His magnificent edge control allows him to be constantly moving without exerting a ton of energy, as well as the ability to change direction on a dime.
For a moment, it appeared Montreal was going to obtain possession. As the weak side defenseman, Matheson subtly slipped below his own blue line in the event his partner would get burned. As he did so, the Penguins hopped on the puck and sent it low. Because Matheson was so far out of harm's way, Montreal's defenders paid him no attention ... at least until it was too late.
As all five Montreal defenders were fixated on a seemingly harmless puck in the corner, Matheson confidently took the open ice in front of him and received a pass in stride.
He promptly blew it to the back of the net.
Now, Montreal doesn't exactly embody stellar defensive play this season, but Matheson is so comfortable on his edges that he can create and take open ice in an instant:
He's always looking for opportunities to pinch. It does come back to burn him on occasion, but that comes with the nature of taking risks. The encouraging part is that the on-ice results are finally justifying his decisions to do so.
Watch how he purposefully put himself in a sub-optimal position to receive the puck after pinching in order to bait the defender to come after him, only to make a fool of poor Alexander Romanov with a beautiful spin move that propelled himself toward the net. Immediately after came a couple of backhand-forehand shimmies before dropping a dime right out front for a glorious look.
Only problem?
Dom Simon was the one receiving the feed.
It's not just his offensive results that are inspiring, either.
While his on-ice defensive metrics graded out roughly average last season, there was a clear uptick in shot attempts against from right in front of the Penguins' net. It was something the team as a whole struggled with, especially early on in the season, but Matheson's consistent turnovers and over-aggressiveness definitely played a hand in it.
Those mistakes haven't been entirely eliminated from his game this season, but they've been happening less frequently, and when they do happen, it hasn't been nearly as costly:
HockeyViz.com
When Matheson is on the ice, the opposition tends to generate their looks from the high-slot and above the circles, not really getting near the most dangerous area of the ice with any sort of regularity.
A significant factor in those results has to do with the way he defends the neutral zone and the blue line:
Nearly everything loops back to his skating.
While San Jose broke out of their zone, Matheson over-leveraged to the outside, opening up the center lane. This went against the standard for defensemen to keep attackers to the outside, but because he's such a gifted skater he was able to slide right over to the center lane and step up on the pass to the middle before the opposition even got on his side of center ice.
It takes a ton of confidence in your abilities to play that way, and he's consistently able to use the inverse strategy of over-leveraging to the middle and riding an edge to seal the puck carrier off at the blue line along the boards.
Here's how his five-on-five on-ice results stack up against the Penguins' other five regular defensemen, per Evolving-Hockey.com:
- Goals for percentage: 58.7% (3rd)
- Expected goals for percentage: 57.7% (2nd)
- Shot attempts for percentage: 58% (2nd)
The Penguins would be nothing short of ecstatic for those numbers to remain as gaudy for the duration of the season, and it would go a long way toward getting what they're paying for.
Matheson has played the best hockey of his career with the Penguins, and has only gotten better this season. I have my doubts that this will hold up for the entirety of his contract, as he's signed through the end of the 2025-26 season, but at that point, it likely won't matter.
Realistically, the Penguins have this season and next to compete for another Cup with Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang.
So why not pay nearly $5 million a season for a niche defender to play on your bottom pair -- especially if you can insulate him in an environment that caters to his strengths and masks his blemishes?
After all, the Penguins are never boring, and neither is Matheson.