Penguins Usage Chart: March 19

First up, the original Corsi chart.

Click to embiggen.

• Trends continue. Pascal Dupuis continues to rise like cream to the top of the chart and he's killing it out there in the process. If you think that's scary, check his numbers on the PK.
• Bylsma has been putting Tanner Glass out in the defensive zone more often lately, but has been doing it (smartly) against weaker competition. Unfortunately for number 10, it hasn't helped much.
• Beau Bennett has gotten off to a pretty good start to his career. He's played half the games that Tyler Kennedy has but has passed him on the scoring chart, is winning possession battles all over the ice albeit in somewhat favorable conditions, is a +8, and the team is 13-3 in games that Beau has appeared in. Convinced? I definitely like what I see, although his PDO is pretty high right now at 1096.
• With all the attention now on Sidney Crosby while Evgeni Malkin is out of the lineup, Chris Kunitz is still quietly doing his job, however quietly someone with 18 goals can do his job.
• The Penguins need Kris Letang back.

Click to embiggen.

• This chart is far more flattering to Paul Martin, who enjoys a slight possession advantage over his opponents when normalized for zone starts.
• Defensive-minded forwards Brandon Sutter, Craig Adams, Joe Vitale, and Matt Cooke also show significant improvement when viewed in this light.
• The biggest winner in this case is Brooks Orpik, who begins to look a bit more like we'd expect him to look.
• Despite having so many defensive zone starts, Sidney Crosby actually loses the most ground of anyone on this chart. I'm not sure why that would be.

This is the last time you can embiggen in this post. Do it!

• The biggest winners here, again, are the fourth liners, Brandon Sutter, and Brooks Orpik.
• Biggest loser, and it's not close, is Simon Despres. However, you can still see the vast difference in size between his bubble and Deryk Engelland's because we have the good fortune that they've been used in almost exactly the same role, thus superimposing the bubbles. The size difference is consistent across all the charts. It really is a no-contest contest at this point.