Friend of the blog James Mirtle gave us a rough table of how much ice-time individual Penguins play, compared to their roles last season. It didn't translate well here, and I had to update it, so I'm pretty proud of it. Let's take a look of all the players who have played in these playoff and last year for the Penguins. Who's playing more, who's playing less, who's playing about the same?
|
Player |
GP |
G |
A |
PTS |
+/- |
PIM |
ATOI |
DIFFERENCE |
|
Alex Goligoski |
11 |
2 |
5 |
7 |
+2 |
2 |
20:38 |
10:17 |
|
Pascal Dupuis |
11 |
2 |
5 |
7 |
+6 |
4 |
16:52 |
8:29 |
|
Kris Letang |
11 |
4 |
1 |
5 |
-2 |
6 |
23:15 |
3:57 |
|
Sergei Gonchar |
11 |
2 |
8 |
10 |
+6 |
2 |
26:47 |
3:41 |
|
Mark Eaton |
11 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
-2 |
4 |
21:36 |
3:29 |
|
Brooks Orpik |
11 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
+4 |
12 |
22:39 |
2:35 |
|
Sidney Crosby |
11 |
5 |
12 |
17 |
+7 |
2 |
22:47 |
1:59 |
|
Craig Adams |
11 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
+1 |
15 |
11:19 |
1:35 |
|
Bill Guerin |
9 |
3 |
5 |
8 |
+5 |
2 |
17:57 |
0:59 |
|
Evgeni Malkin |
11 |
5 |
6 |
11 |
+1 |
6 |
21:44 |
0:47 |
|
Chris Kunitz |
11 |
3 |
6 |
9 |
+4 |
8 |
17:36 |
0:42 |
|
Matt Cooke |
11 |
4 |
2 |
6 |
-3 |
16 |
15:38 |
0:37 |
|
Maxime Talbot |
11 |
2 |
4 |
6 |
+3 |
11 |
15:07 |
-0:06 |
|
Jordan Staal |
9 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
-5 |
6 |
18:23 |
-0:50 |
|
Tyler Kennedy |
8 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
-5 |
0 |
11:54 |
-1:54 |
|
Ruslan Fedotenko |
6 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
-3 |
4 |
12:35 |
-1:56 |
What to make of this? Well obviously the triple over-time game may have skewed things, the Penguins only played about 38 minutes and change all of last playoffs, the 3 OT game is more minutes right there alone. That aside, some real trends have emerged.
--Alex Goligoski jumps off the page, more than doubling what he played last post-season. Recall though, Goose only played two games last playoffs when Sergei Gonchar was hurt, and the Penguins elected to dress seven defensemen in those games.
--Pascal Dupuis also pops, last season he was in healthy scratch territory, this year he's an intregal part at even-strength and short-handed situations.
--Stop reading this and go check out Gonchar's numbers again. I'll wait.
--Gonchar playing some big time hockey. He's producing at almost a point per game rate (like usual when healthy), he's got the best plus/minus for defensemen on the team, is top 10 in the league in time on ice per game. If as many suspect this is his last go-round with Pittsburgh he is going out with a bang.
--A big deal has been made about free agency departees Hal Gill (19:25 last spring) and Rob Scuderi (20:29). Every defenseman's numbers are significantly up. Again, I think the triple OT game may be factoring in, but Scuds/Gill also played 5:35 short-handed a night. In that area of short-handed play:
|
Player |
SH ATOI |
DIFF |
|
Kris Letang |
1:12 |
1:09 |
|
Mark Eaton |
2:26 |
1:04 |
|
Sergei Gonchar |
2:14 |
0:39 |
|
Brooks Orpik |
2:16 |
0:34 |
--Letang played almost no time last season short-handed and has a small role, Eaton's been bumped up to a full-time role and the big guns of Orpik and Gonchar have had to take on a bigger load here as well. It's been a team effort to replace the two big PK'ers of Gill and Scuderi.
--Kennedy fought a knee injury, but he's been ineffective and his ice-time (which he only plays exclusively at even strength) has taken a bump down. Ditto Fedotenko who now finds himself in street clothes.