Examining the Penguin’s 5-on-5 issues this season
Pittsburgh has struggled at keeping goals out of the net
In the midst of a few days off, we found an interesting topic regarding the Penguins and their goal splits with how the team performed while different combinations were on and off the ice.
While much attention has been given to Kyle Dubas’ first off-season in Pittsburgh back in the summer of 2023 went for his high-profile moves like signing Tristan Jarry and Ryan Graves and then trading for Erik Karlsson and Reilly Smith, it might get lost in the shuffle that Dubas had other important work to do as well at the bottom of the lineup.
One of the chief reasons that Ron Hextall was dismissed and why the Penguins missed the playoffs in 2022-23 was the degradation of the lower lines. As a refresher, here is the team Ron Hextall inherited in 2021 when the Penguins won the short-lived East Division.
2020-21 (56-game season)
With both Crosby+Malkin: 0 goals for, 0 goals against (0)
Crosby: 40 goals for, 31 goals against (+9)
Malkin: 20 goals for, 21 goals against (-1)
When neither Crosby or Malkin on ice: 66 goals for, 48 goals against (+18)
This team featured players like Jared McCann, Evan Rodrigues, Kasperi Kapanen (in his career-best season), Brandon Tanev, Teddy Blueger and Zach Aston-Reese providing a lot of horse power when No. 87 and 71 were off the ice. To his credit, Hextall even bolstered the group with the add of Jeff Carter.
Fast forward two years, all of the names above were either off the team or largely shells of themselves as players from two years earlier. It was a large contributing factor for why the Pens missed the playoffs in 2023, despite a monstrous season from Crosby.
2022-23
With both Crosby+Malkin: 1 goal for, 0 goals against (+1)
Crosby: 67 goals for, 51 goals against (+16)
Malkin: 53 goals for, 50 goals against (+3)
When neither Crosby or Malkin on ice: 47 goals for, 71 goals against (-24)
Dubas set to improve the Pens by adding a mostly defensive look to the squad. Veterans like Noel Acciari and Lars Eller were key adds to help attempt to restore lower-line competency, as were Matt Nieto and Jansen Harkins to bring more “blue collar” ethos to grind it out while the big boys were on the bench getting wind for their next shifts. Here are the final results:
2023-24
With both Crosby+Malkin: 3 goals for, 4 goals against (-1)
Crosby: 74 goals for, 70 goals against (+4)
Malkin: 54 goals for, 40 goals against (+14)
When neither Crosby or Malkin on ice: 48 goals for, 54 goals against (-6)
While the team performed adequately at 5v5, a lack of power play goals cost was a major factor in missing the playoffs last year.
The encouraging news for the Pens in Dubas’ first season was the third/fourth line GA went from 71 the year before down to 54 in 2023-24. While the lower lines were not game-changers, they helped limited the bleeding and a quietly used a very strong season from the Malkin line to help cement the Penguins as an above-water team in the aggregate at 5v5. That’s small potatoes compared to the impact the Graves/Jarry/Karlsson type of moves were intended to have, but worth pointing out just the same.
So for that aspect, it was probably a job if not well done, at least it was done. There wasn’t much flash and excitement from the Pens’ lower lines filled with cardio merchants, but the equation was getting towards being somewhat balanced and in a range a team could live with was accomplished.
That brings us to this current season, where some some drastic shifts have happened that we haven’t previously seen. For almost 20 years, the Pens’ formula could be described as the Crosby/Malkin lines outscoring the opposition and the rest of the team along for the ride, but that has gone out the window this year in a bumpy season.
2024-25 (through 49 games)
With both Crosby+Malkin: 9 goals for, 6 goals against (+3)
Crosby: 36 goals for, 39 goals against (-3)
Malkin: 16 goals for, 26 goals against (-10)
When neither Crosby or Malkin on ice: 34 goals for, 47 goals against (-13)
A troubling issue is that goal suppression with 87+71 on the bench has gone out the window this season with nearly as many GA (47) as games played (49). This number encompasses slightly more than it has traditionally, since Malkin has played a number of games with Crosby and missed four other games with injury, but that uptick is a disturbing trend regressing towards pre-Dubas times. It can’t be washed away completely with the explanation of shoddy goaltending either, the Pens have a .906 save% without 87-71 that holds up well (for them, anyways) against the situations.
But the goaltending does provide a large reason why the top lines are currently under water in 5v5 goal differential. Pittsburgh has allowed a tied-for-NHL-high 118 goals against at 5v5 this season (and at a rate of 2.95 GA/game is still among the worst), with a bottom-five save% and two goalies towards the bottom end of Goals Saved Above Expected. The puck has been going in the net with enough of an alarming frequency, no matter which players were on the ice, that it cost Jarry his spot in the NHL.
Overall, for Crosby offensively, it’s been as great as about ever. Last season he had one of his best 5v5 goal outputs of his career (74) and is on pace for 75 this season. For anything you can say about age declines, we haven’t seen it here with Crosby just yet (though it may be helped by the team’s top two wingers in Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell settling onto his line). The reason for Crosby’s sour 5v5 results is that they’ve been torpedoed by the .879 on-ice save% Crosby has gotten this year away from Malkin. That’s exploded his goals against to well above expectation, and an encouraging sign that his play has been better than 5v5 results suggest.
This data also illustrates the impact of losing Jake Guentzel - which for an extended time had Pittsburgh take the rare step to play Crosby and Malkin on the same line for a while to generate offense (they have 155 minutes of 5v5 time this season already, up from just 40 total in 2023-24). The loss of Guentzel has been filled by moving Rakell up with Crosby, but as we’re about to get to, that pain has trickled down to hurt the Malkin line’s goal outputs.
Because while Crosby’s offensive game hasn’t suffered this season, the same can’t be said for Evgeni Malkin. The team’s output with Malkin on the ice this season (25 goals in 45 games, .55 per game) is a measured step down from where it was last year (57 in 82, .69). Digging further, Malkin has been limited to 78 total shots on goal in those 45 games, a full season rate of 142 shots. That’s a far cry from the 199 shots he recorded in 2023-24 and very far off from the 240 SOG as recently as 2022-23. No matter what factors it’s chalked up to, there has been a stark and clear decline for the 38-year old this season.
Beyond the stars, the lower lines aren’t able or designed to pick up much of the slack created and the goaltending and defensive pieces of the puzzle haven’t done anyone any favors. (Which, to be fair, the forwards have to eat their share of the defensive inputs and responsibility as well).
Add it all up and that results in a team closer to a decent lottery pick than it is at making a genuine run for a playoff spot. This exercise shouldn’t be breaking news or reinventing the team’s outlook, but these splits from year-to-year can be important indicators to help explain performance and results.
Do the Penguins have the ability to improve over their last 30ish games? As always, the correct answer is that “it depends”. If non-Jarry goaltending provides an uptick it would help — but likely impending trade departures near the deadline (namely the best defender on the team in Marcus Pettersson) could work to undo whatever advantage is realized in net. Up front it doesn’t look like a talent infusion is coming anytime soon.
In the end, it could boil down to whether or not the team can somehow find a way to limit goals against and hope to see better results through not fishing out as many pucks from their own net as they did in the first half of the season. That hasn’t been a winning formula so far for this team, but presents the next set of challenges for Dubas to consider if he intends to quickly attempt to re-tool or make short-term competitiveness a priority.
While the bottom-six used to be a sneaky key for improvement, the new areas to seek gains will either come from more direct talent to support them, and/or better defense and goaltending to help limit the damage against and their production figures to taper off eventually.