Mitigating defensive problems by cleaning up in the O-zone

Last season's Penguins struggled defensively, but it wasn't always because of what happened in their own end.

There’s no use in bemoaning what ultimately transpired with last season’s Penguins.

It’s over and done with. And as a result of failing to make the annual big dance for the first time since Facebook went public for registration, the franchise was infused with a desperately-needed breath of fresh air thanks to the hiring of Kyle Dubas and his subsequent acquisition of the reigning Norris Trophy winner in Erik Karlsson.

No, the Penguins aren’t suddenly Stanley Cup contenders again. But after it looked like they might limp through the Core’s twilight years, it now appears the opportunity to make some noise has been extended.

To seize that opportunity, though, it would be wise to take lessons from previous falters. After all, we learn more from our failures than our successes.

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When one of Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin weren’t on the ice last season, the Penguins didn’t score enough. That, by and large, was why they missed the postseason.

Not to be slighted from the discussion is the collective defensive performance that was turned in.

The Penguins have always established their identity around offensive skill. That was bound to happen considering a laundry list of the game’s greatest and most-gifted players have donned the black and gold. Still, Mike Sullivan has done well over the years to morph his club into one that generally does a respectable job of keeping the opposition’s attack at bay.

Here’s the Penguins’ NHL rank in expected goals against per hour (xGA/60, a rate metric that accounts for shot quantity and quality, independent of goaltending and shooting talent) during 5-on-5 action from 2019-2022, per Evolving-Hockey:

• 2019-20: 7th (2.2)

• 2020-21: 14th (2.23)

• 2021-22: 5th (2.29)

Last season? They ranked 22nd, allowing 2.76 expected goals against per hour at full strength. While scoring and the frequency of quality shots notably rose league-wide in 2022-23, it’s the worst mark they’ve posted in the stats era (since 2007-08) by a large margin.

That, as evidenced by the following heat map from HockeyViz, was partly due to surrendering a high number of unblocked shot attempts in the low slot and right on top of the crease — you know, the most dangerous area of the ice. (The darker the red, the more unblocked shot attempts the Penguins allowed in that location, relative to league average. The darker the blue, the fewer unblocked shot attempts they allowed in that location, relative to league average):

Anyone who watched the Penguins with regularity last season doesn’t need a fancy visualization to show them that mitigating high-danger chances against was a persistent struggle.

The goal here isn’t to rehash what’s already known, but rather: What caused the problem and what can be done to address it?

Defense in hockey is predominantly thought of as what happens when a team gets into coverage in their own zone. Keeping the opposition to the perimeter, clogging cross-slot passing lanes and blocking shots come to mind. Those are, indeed, important elements, but they only account for a fraction of the equation.

As last season wore on, I was especially critical of the Penguins’ in-zone defense for being too reactionary. There wasn’t nearly enough anticipation and, as a result, they were often flat-footed and a step slow to their checks. Although that most definitely contributed to their disappointing defensive results, they were also hurting themselves at the other end of the rink.

How, you ask? Take a look:

In an immensely important late-season road game against the Devils, Crosby sharply cut to the middle just inside the offensive blue line after entering up the left wing. Utilizing Jake Guentzel as a decoy on the right side of the ice, Crosby aimed to pull John Marino out of position before reversing a pass to Bryan Rust, who was dashing into the play behind him.

Ideally, Crosby’s maneuver would have yanked Marino right out of the lane Rust was about to fly into, paving the way to a dangerous rush opportunity. In reality, Marino caught on to what was happening fairly quickly (probably from years of seeing it in practice) and stopped himself from getting pulled all the way over to his partner’s side.

Even if that hadn’t been the case, Crosby’s reverse pass to Rust was a touch behind and failed to connect. The puck then drifted toward the boards:

You’ll notice that, even though the Devils were primed to snatch the loose puck first, Crosby and Guentzel remained in decent position to stay above the puck and hop on the backcheck upon a change of possession. They didn’t do that.

Instead, both Crosby and Guentzel continued drifting through open ice on the weak side as Nico Hischier managed to gain inside positioning on Rust before arriving at the puck:

See the issue?

Hischier was merely a stride away from the puck before he could spring his linemates, Tomas Tatar and Dawson Mercer, with a pass, yet Crosby and Guentzel seemed to be holding out hope that Rust would not only win the battle for possession, but then improbably thread the puck to one of them.

Of course, that didn’t happen and the Devils had numbers speeding up ice while all three Penguins forwards were stuck behind the play. If not for P.O Joseph surfing across the ice and stepping up on Tatar to slightly delay the transition attack, it’s safe to assume the Devils would have generated a more dangerous chance than the one Ryan Graves ended up with:

The Penguins’ first line kept playing with fire later in the same period. They weren’t fortunate enough to avoid getting burned this time:

This sequence developed much differently than the first. Just outside the blue line, Crosby got the puck deep with a half-slapper. Doing his best to stay tagged up until the puck entered the zone, Guentzel stumbled a bit on his way downhill and ended up being a couple steps late on the forecheck.

That, combined with the dumped puck taking an unfavorable bounce right to Vitek Vanecek, put Guentzel in an interesting spot. Had Guentzel maintained his speed and momentum, his timing would’ve been just about right to flush the puck off Vanecek’s stick by skating behind the net. But Vanecek had all the time in the world to process the fact that Guentzel wasn’t an imminent threat, and he smoothly slipped the puck to Graves under no duress.

The behind-the-net pass to Graves occurred soon enough in Guentzel’s route that he should have been able to see how pointless it would be for him to continue forth on the same path rather than adjusting and cutting in front of the net to stay in the play and with Hischier, who was swinging with the puck as support.

Guentzel still opted to go behind the net. Before he’d even made it halfway around, the puck had momentum in the direction he just came from and the Penguins, once again, had all three forwards caught below the puck:

Guentzel’s route is hardly the only thing to make note of here, though. Rust didn’t have a ton of speed as he came low to forecheck Graves, nor did he take the greatest angle, which allowed the big defenseman to advance the puck up the wall with relative ease.

To boot, Crosby took far too long to recognize that Jeff Petry’s pinch at the point wasn’t going to save the day. He should have been sprinting back through the middle as soon as Guentzel went behind the net, but he didn’t get on his horse until Joseph was faced with an imminent 2-on-1 rush between Hischier and Mercer:

This time, the lack of structure and attention to detail from the Penguins’ forwards led to a goal against:

During a must-win game exactly a week later against the outwardly-tanking Blackhawks, similar issues resurfaced in crunch time:

After losing an offensive-zone faceoff, Rickard Rakell hounded Seth Jones behind the net while Malkin stayed near the boards on the weak side in anticipation of a potential reversal.

As that unfolded, Jason Zucker made an ill-advised decision to try and overload Jones in the corner. Look, they needed a goal with their season on the line, but Zucker simply had far too much ground to cover to completely abandon the middle of the ice in the fashion that he did.

Unsurprisingly, Jones was able to advance the puck before Zucker converged on him. This left all three Penguins forwards stuck well behind the play yet again with no back pressure to compensate for Brian Dumoulin’s pinch to try and hold the zone:

Off to the races, and the end of 16 consecutive postseason appearances:

I’m not highlighting these things to assign blame or even call anyone out. For starters, this is to display that the Penguins’ struggles went beyond the performances of a couple bad apples.

Additionally, this specific aspect of the game is something that can be addressed and course-corrected with consistent intent and focus. If improvements are made, it will have a positive ripple effect on their ability to limit quality, back-breaking looks against and their ability to control play as a whole.