When it comes to star talent, no team may be as loaded as the Pittsburgh Penguins. With two of the best players in the world in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, as well as Kris Letang, Marc-Andre Fleury and Chris Kunitz, the Penguins have it pretty good when it comes to skill players.
However success isn’t solely based on how many star players you have at the top of the lineup, but how the bottom of it is put together as well. If all you needed was star players, the Penguins would have more than the one Cup victory since 2009.
While he was the general manager, Ray Shero did a good job of masking the deficiencies of their depth by having their top-tier talent and plugging in experienced veterans at the trade deadline.
But when the draft picks dried up due to trading so many of them, the team didn’t have the depth to compete with the top teams in the East.
With Jim Rutherford now in charge, more of an emphasis was put on building real depth behind Crosby and Malkin. Instead of having one 40-goal scorer in James Neal, Rutherford elected to move him for two players that – while not able to produce at the same rate as Neal – added something very different up and down the lineup.
Patric Hornqvist hasn’t wasted anytime getting comfortable in a Penguins’ jersey, but his teammate from the Nashville Predators – Nick Spaling – has yet to make an impact, at least on the score sheet.
In fact, the Penguins have one goal so far from their bottom six – from Blake Comeau. That goal came in the season opener against the Anaheim Ducks. Since then it hasn’t been any different than any other year with the skill players carrying the team offensively.
Against Anaheim, the Penguins bottom-six was credited with ten shots on net – including Comeau’s goal. The same group has only totaled 12 in the three games since then. Even with some great offensive shifts, they have not even been able to translate that into shots on net.
The team’s fourth line led by Zach Sill is more of your ‘traditional’ bottom line, so scoring isn’t at the top of their priority list, but Steve Downie and Comeau both have had a 20-goal season in the past. More of that is needed out of them going forward.
Four games in with only one goal is nowhere near a cause for concern. Even with the lone goal in the opener, Comeau is still on a 20-goal pace, and if Downie and or Marcel Goc were to score in their next contest that would put them on a 16-goal pace – both great numbers for third liners.
The cause for concern is the collective lack of a scoring presence thus far from the bottom six. With three games in a four game span, now would be a good time for the third and fourth line to start chipping in.
Since 2009, the Penguins have continually shown that they need more production outside of Crosby and Malkin if they want to return to the Cup. Hornqvist is currently on an 82-point and nearly 600-shot pace, something that cannot and should not be expected to continue, so when his pace slows the scoring is going to have to come from other places if the Pens are going to continue to win.
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