It has aged tremendously. Nearly everything I said would happen has occurred.
Last November, I published The Pittsburgh Penguins Forgot How to Hockey, detailing the team’s decline over the last five years and highlighting why it will continue. It’s certainly worth a click, even more so now that we’ve seen the predictions come true. It also provides further context to much of this article.
I told my readers this team couldn’t score. Months into the season, they had the worst shooting percentage on high-danger chances in hockey.
The power play is on pace to be one of if not the worst in the history of the franchise.
Jake Guentzel became the seventh Penguin all-time to record seven 20-goal seasons.
Jake Guentzel is now a Carolina Hurricane, traded before the deadline.
The Penguins essentially traded multiple players (Mikael Granlund, Jeff Petry, Jan Rutta, Casey DeSmith), a first-rounder, a second-rounder and chucked Jake Guentzel into the river for a 33-year-old defenseman on a $10 million contract for the next four years, three more after this campaign.
In addition to being bad, the Penguins have also ruined their cap situation. They have no money.
Outside of Sidney Crosby, Guentzel was the team’s best offensive weapon. As of this writing, he’s nearly a point-per-game player (474 in 508 games).
Kyle Dubas decided Karlsson was more valuable than Guentzel this summer. His exorbitant contract made it impossible to extend Guentzel. #59 was on his way out as soon as Karlsson’s flight landed. The fan base should have been booing the move from the start instead of celebrating on Twitter.
By the way, Kris Letang as of this writing has six fewer points than Karlsson in the same amount of games while costing almost $4 million less against the cap. Letang, as I said then, is on a team-friendly, high-value contract and demonstrates how awful the Karlsson acquisition is.
You paid $4 million for six extra points?
But in fairness to Karlsson, it wasn’t just him that Dubas chose over Guentzel this summer. He also chose 31-year-old Noel Acciari. Dubas gave him a two-year, $6 million contract. Acciari has seven points in 53 games.
Acciari’s specialty is defense. He wasn’t expected to produce points but the Pens need goal scorers, not expensive fourth-line defensive forwards.
He chose Matt Nieto, who missed over half the season with injury because when you’re over 30, you’re more likely to get injured.
The Penguins also chose Ryan Graves, a now third-pair defenseman who has never been a point producer and at least this season, hasn’t been good at guarding his net either.
Dubas’ first move was Reilly Smith, making $5 million for the rest of this year and next year. Don’t forget about the Jarry extension this summer either.
In the years before Dubas, the Penguins signed Rakell and Rust to long-term extensions.
Of Karlsson, Acciari, Nieto, Graves, Smith, Jarry, Rakell and Rust (didn’t even mention Lars Eller), exactly none of them are currently better or more valuable to the Penguins than Jake Guentzel.
Guentzel was the second-best player on this team outside of Crosby. Pens management knew the bill for him was coming due and decided to throw their budget at lesser fair.
The problem with this team, as it has been for years, is they cannot score goals and now without Guentzel, they’ll score even less.
The goaltending has been excellent outside of the last month. I told readers it wasn’t the problem with this team.
And they will continue to not score until they find players under the age of 30.
Since the turn of the calendar, the Pittsburgh Penguins are one of the worst teams in hockey.
Legs feed the wolves and the Penguins have no legs. Come March, this team would be out of gas, I said.
It is March. They are out of gas, stomped by the Washington Capitals at PPG Paints Arena 6-0.
As of this writing, they are 3-8 in March and winless on the road. They are a dead man walking.
Does it get old, being right?
No. No, it does not but it does get old watching your professional sports teams exhibit the intelligence of a bag of rocks and continue to persistently choose to be that unwise.
What I write and research is not the outcome of an archaeological discovery. It is not the result of new statistical models or innovative financial practices or data mining.
I am not a scout, I’m not a hockey historian. Hockey isn’t even my most knowledgeable sport.
I’m just a guy who watches the games, looks at the same publicly accessible numbers as everyone else and draws very simple, straightforward conclusions from them.
People, especially in the sports realm, hate math. They hate the analytics community because people like myself never played even amateur hockey and therefore can’t possibly understand the game at the same level as old-school minds. They believe numbers diminish people, unfairly criticize them.
They don’t. Math is objective where people are subjective. Math can remove biases from evaluation and math, unlike people, knows when it’s wrong.
Two plus two does not equal five. Math knows that but the Penguins have been arguing a false premise just like that for multiple years now. It’s why their current reality is so predictable.
I wrote last fall the team had reached the point of no return. It is not a salvageable situation. They have lost, dug themselves such a large hole of asset mismanagement that not even Crosby, Malkin and Letang can save them. Crosby is a legitimate MVP candidate this season and the Penguins will miss the playoffs despite his efforts.
Coach Mike Sullivan should not last till October. I still believe it is the team’s failings, not his own, that have continued this playoff win drought but 2018, their last playoff series victory, is a long time ago. That’s six years ago. The historically bad power play should be a fireable offense on its own (Karlsson didn’t fix that either.) Sullivan has done himself no favors.
Coaches often feel the fire for management’s mistakes long before those most responsible do. Kyle Dubas, despite a horrendous first offseason that absolutely contributed to this team’s failure and to shipping out the Jagr of the team, will still be the general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins come summer.
Will he learn from his mistakes, from the horrors of Ron Hextall, from the chaos of Jim Rutherford?
The math suggests not.
wordsofwistim 