Breaking Down the Numbers: Penguins vs. Jets

After a flat first period for both teams, the Penguins came out firing to start the second, and really, never looked back.

The Penguins under Mike Sullivan still continue to find ways to impress me, repeatedly piling on shot attempts on opponents, not being outshot very often at all.

Looking at the games with positive vs. negative differential is insane.

He has them firing offensively, and it makes you wonder what this kind of system can do to inspire play and turnaround what has been a disappointment for Justin Schultz.

Lines and Pairings

Welcome back to the lineup, @malkin71_ and @NickBonino! pic.twitter.com/EG3BHCBEMZ

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) February 27, 2016

Highlights

Positives

Carl Hagelin. Two goals. One re-direct, the other just using his speed to find space and finishing a great pass.

Derrick Pouliot. He's racking up assists, looking calm and collected the more he plays.

Evgeni Malkin's and Nick Bonino's return to the lineup causing a great trickle down effect. Bonino pushes Matt Cullen back to his natural position on the 4th line, pushing Kevin Porter out of the lineup.

Scott Wilson just keeps scoring. It's kind of hilarious.

Negatives

Slow start. It didn't end up harming them, because Winnipeg started slow too, and it's become expected for these afternoon games, but they turned it around for the second.

Stats

	Jets	Penguins
Goals	1 (Wheeler)	4 (Letang, Hagelin, Wilson, Hagelin)
Shots on Goal	28	33
5v5 Corsi For Percentage	47.4%	52.6%

Analytics

Even Strength Shot Attempts

Four even strength goals from the high-danger areas is a great thing to see.

Power Play Shot Attempts

Nothing going for the Penguins offensively, good work by them on the PK save for the nice tip-in goal that Blake Wheeler scored from Dustin Byfuglien's shot.

Shot attempt charts provided by War on Ice.

Expected Goals

A refresher of the key for these charts:

More information and description/analysis of Expected Goals can be found here on Hockey Graphs.

In the previous post here using these charts for the first time, I mentioned how it factors in things like shot quality. A more detailed list of what factors into that shot quality is below:

Expected Goals map provided by Don't Tell Me About Heart.

Head-to-Head Shot Attempts

A basic description on how to read these charts: Cross reference a player from each team, and that box shows how many shot attempts each team had while those two players shared ice time. The + and - are from the home team's perspective.

For a refresher on how to read these charts, a write-up with descriptions of what colors mean, which lines to read, and more: H2H Corsi Chart Primer

H2H Chart via Muneeb Alam from Japers' Rink

Individual Shot Attempts

Individual Shot Attempts Charts via War on Ice

A few Penguins on the negative side, a few Jets on the positive side. Otherwise, what would be expected for how the game looked for the most part. Brian Dumoulin is just becoming more and more of a joy to watch.

Ice-time vs. Possession Charts via Sean Tierney

The Penguins are off today, and host the Arizona Coyotes tomorrow evening, with perhaps some more trade deadline acquisitions coming for Pittsburgh, though they likely would not be in the lineup by then.