For reasons beyond blaming a lone item or culprit, the Penguins have not been a very strong defensive team this season. A stretch of injuries damaging the blue line shouldn't be ignored in the matter, but the fact remains that they're not doing nearly enough to make life difficult for the opposition's attack on a consistent basis.
They rank 22nd in the NHL by allowing 2.73 expected goals against per hour at 5-on-5 and 27th by surrendering 32.2 shots against per hour. None of the teams with comparable figures in either metric are threats to go on a run in the postseason. Most of them won't make the postseason, or even come close to making it.
This might just be the weakest defensive team -- at least at 5-on-5 -- the Penguins have had in the stats era (since 2007-08). Offense is up across the board in the NHL this season, but that doesn't really account for the rise in quality chances against and shots against the Penguins are allowing. Both figures I just referenced aren't only the worst for any Penguins team in the stats era, but they're considerably worse.
Prior to this season, only one Penguins team since 2007-08 allowed 31 or more shots against per hour at 5-on-5, and only four allowed 30 or more against per hour. Accounting for quality, no Penguins team since then has given up more than 2.49 expected goals against per hour. The gap between this season and their previous worst season in that regard is striking (+0.24).
I'll repeat that these issues are stemming from multiple roots, but it's not to be ignored that both members of the top defense pairing, Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin, have had their own defensive challenges.
Letang hasn't been all that great defensively for several seasons now, but whether good or bad, it's always been offset by the high-end offense he brings to the table in addition to his ability to eat a ton of minutes while doing it. That said, his defensive impact the past two seasons went from the 24th percentile to the 16th percentile before falling to the 4th percentile this season, per JFreshHockey. Though his ability to positively impact the Penguins' attack against top competition remains, they're playing rather high-event hockey with Letang on the ice at full-strength.
On the other side of the ice, Dumoulin has steadied his game in the last month or so, but the current version we're seeing is nowhere close to the shutdown defender that contributed to back-to-back Stanley Cups. His offense and puck-handling are as limited as ever, and he's been guilty far too often of glaring mishaps that have directly resulted in chances or goals against. It's very fair to question -- even if his game improves further from where it's been all season -- if the Penguins can get to the playoffs and excel with him in such a prominent role.
I'd say it's also fair to question if continuing to use Letang in the true sense of a No. 1 defender is the best way to get the most out of him at this stage of his career. After all, he's been through so much this season and we're just reaching February. If the Penguins plan to keep the current defense pairings intact, it might serve Letang and the team well for him to take on slightly fewer minutes against lesser competition.
That's way easier said than done. With the chaotic, free-flowing nature of the sport, on top of not having last change when on the road, some matchups will be impossible to avoid. But, that doesn't mean a smaller role for the Dumoulin-Letang pairing can't and shouldn't be explored. It has been somewhat explored, if briefly.
When Letang returned to the lineup from a lower-body injury on Jan. 24 against the Panthers, it wasn't his pairing with Dumoulin that started the game against Aleksander Barkov's line, it was the Marcus Pettersson-Jeff Petry pairing. Every time Barkov's line hopped over the boards, Pettersson and Petry were out there in quick order.
I assumed this was a way to ease Letang back into the swing of things, but around halfway through the game that plan came to an end. It was Dumoulin and Letang against the opposition's top line more often than not the rest of the game and in the two following games leading into the team's bye week.
Part of the reason Petry was acquired over the offseason was because he can seamlessly slot into Letang's role as the team's No. 1 in the latter's absence. Pettersson has been the team's best and most consistent defenseman all season, and the two of them also form the Penguins' strongest pairing on the back end.
Why not actually use them as your first paring and predominantly match them up against the opposition's first line? This would allow Letang to further leverage his offensive ability against secondary competition while mitigating exposure to his pairing's defensive shortcomings.
It's possible this experiment was short-lived because the results from Pettersson and Petry matching up with Barkov's line weren't very good to that point, but I believe this deserves a longer look than half a game. If nothing else, now's the time to get creative and try things out before it's too late to tinker.
Not convinced? Maybe you will be after seeing the Penguins' results in 313 minutes with the Pettersson-Petry pairing on the ice at 5-on-5, per Evolving-Hockey:
• 11 goals
• 10 goals against
• 53.2% share of shot attempts (347-305)
• 56.2% share of expected goals (17.4-13.6)
Their plus-one goal differential doesn't scream excellence, but that has more to do with the Penguins' lack of finishing with them out there than anything else, as they're expected to have six more goals based on the quality of their chances. Not only are those strong results, but the sample size is large enough that you wouldn't expect their performance together to suddenly flip on its head.
Check out where, and how frequently, the Penguins are shooting with them out there, via HockeyViz:
HockeyViz.com
The darker the red, the more unblocked attempts taken from that area, relative to league-average. The darker the blue, the fewer unblocked attempts taken from that area, relative to league-average.
And on the defensive side:
HockeyViz.com
The darker the red, the more unblocked attempts taken from that area, relative to league-average. The darker the blue, the fewer unblocked attempts taken from that area, relative to league-average.
As mentioned, Pettersson's having a truly strong season in which his defensive work has been brilliant. The kicker is that, while he doesn't have many points to show for it, his performance is contributing to generating quality offense at an elite level during his ice time. I don't think it's absurd to suggest we're watching him peak right now. Take advantage of that.
Petry's injury that recently kept him out for a month hit so hard because he really seemed to be settling into his new environment right before the injury happened. He, too, was a bit inconsistent through the early goings, but started to look more and more like the piece Ron Hextall hoped he was getting in the offseason trade.
The one thing I'm sure the Penguins are looking for a little more of from Petry is the high-end offensive ability he displayed in Montreal. It's been there in flashes, but it seemed early on that he was rather tentative to try and make plays. He's more than capable of doing so, and I imagine it won't be all that long until he's both physically and mentally comfortable enough to bring it consistently.
Allow me to repeat that the Penguins' challenges, and their defensive issues, go far beyond any single problem or player. Same goes for how the defense pairings are deployed. I'm not going to tell you that all of this will drastically change the outlook of the team -- or somehow provide a pulse to the bottom six up front -- but you'd have a hard time convincing me this isn't worth exploring to try and maximize the performance of what they do have.
