Penguins Usage Chart: March 2

(See here for more information. The position of the bubble is determined by the coaching staff; the size and color of the bubble are entirely up to the player.)

Hey, why is it that nobody called me out that all my chart filenames had 2012 in them instead of 2013?

To the Bat-chart!

Click to embiggen.

• Okay, so Mark Eaton playing one game kind of broke the chart temporarily. I'm sure that if he gets further playing time with Paul Martin out that this will rectify itself quickly.
• I suppose the biggest change to note this week is Dustin Jeffrey. The man is solidly positive for the first time this season. Let's hope he stays there.
• Matt Niskanen's early-season heroics may have been overstated a bit. He's still positive but he's begun his slow ascent back to earth. Kris Letang as well, but not as sharply.
• Brooks Orpik has finally passed Dylan Reese for the biggest bubble on the team. Too bad both of them are the wrong color. Tanner Glass and Joe Vitale are right on his heels, though, and Glass doesn't have much of an excuse.
• Right in the mix there is Sidney Crosby, hugely positive. If he keeps playing the way he's been playing, his bubble may engulf all those around it like some sort of advanced statistic black hole.
• Beau Bennett is, strangely enough, establishing himself as a pretty decent two-way forward. He's getting some of the toughest competition on the team, behind only Brandon Sutter (I'm not counting Eaton for now), and handily outplaying them. The only easy part of his assignment is where he's starting from. It remains to be seen whether he'll ever be a star, but I like what I'm seeing so far.
• Honorable mention goes to Craig Adams, who starts 39.1% of his shifts in the offensive zone yet ends 53.5% of his shifts there. Joe Vitale has similar numbers, but a bit less pronounced. Boo to Robert Bortuzzo, who starts more than half his shifts in the offensive zone, but ends up outside it more often than not.
• Striking to me is Pascal Dupuis. He continues to make a case for why people should think of him as the true defensive forward on the team. He did get a bit of love from Selke voters last year—including one first-place vote—just not enough to crack the top 3 for a trip to the awards ceremony. Not only is he getting tough competition in tough situations, he's outplaying them and pushing play into the offensive zone more often than not.