News Article: Barry Trotz (among many other things) breaks down the Pens' success

[cygnus47]

I guess Trotz should know, but I disagree with half of his assessment. We weren't making uncontrolled plays and winning races defensively, we weren't just throwing it out when we got it. We were stopping them from getting controlled entries by our speed and positioning and making smart controlled zone exits before they could set up. Between that, our speed and our depth we got more scoring chances so we won.

 

[DoobeeDoobeeDoo]

I guess Trotz should know, but I disagree with half of his assessment. We weren't making uncontrolled plays and winning races defensively, we weren't just throwing it out when we got it. We were stopping them from getting controlled entries by our speed and positioning and making smart controlled zone exits before they could set up. Between that, our speed and our depth we got more scoring chances so we won.

Considering the Capitals signed a player like Lars Eller & gave away a player like Thomas DiPauli, I'm not certain that they know why they lost to us in the playoffs. Pretty obvious to everyone except the Caps that speed & depth made all the difference.

 

[FDR]

I thought the only team that could keep pace with us the entire playoffs was TB. We could have easily lost that series. Their speed was significant and i can see a rivalry brewing for the foreseeable future.

The icing on the cake for me personally was everyone picking SJ to win the cup because they were too big and heavy for us to overcome. That series could just as easily been a sweep in our favor.

I don't see the Caps as being an issue for us. TB is the real threat.

 

[DoobeeDoobeeDoo]

I thought the only team that could keep pace with us the entire playoffs was TB. We could have easily lost that series. Their speed was significant and i can see a rivalry brewing for the foreseeable future.

The icing on the cake for me personally was everyone picking SJ to win the cup because they were too big and heavy for us to overcome. That series could just as easily been a sweep in our favor.

I don't see the Caps as being an issue for us. TB is the real threat.

Agreed, Lightning are basically our mirror image, like The Flash vs The Reverse Flash...

 

[DoobeeDoobeeDoo]

I originally excused the Capitals for signing a player like Lars Eller over a speedster (Lars Eller is still an upgrade from Mike Richards), I could excuse them for letting go of a speedster like Thomas DiPauli (their roster is pretty much set), but with Trotz providing so many excuses for why the Capitals lost without mentioning "speed" tells me that the Capitals are either completely clueless or in complete denial of why they lost to the Pens in the playoffs. Even someone as dense as Mike Milbury picked up on the fact that the Pens speed was so overwhelming that no team had an answer for it. I guess Trotz knows that he can't do anything about the roster, so he has to say that it was the way we approached the game, but the fact is that we just outskated the competition, and there's really nothing the Caps can do about that.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

Trotz is not an idiot. Sometimes coaches say things that they know to be untrue for whatever reasons. I refuse to believe that he simply couldn't understand what went on on the ice.

 

[Shockmaster]

Trotz is not an idiot. Sometimes coaches say things that they know to be untrue for whatever reasons. I refuse to believe that he simply couldn't understand what went on on the ice.

He may not be an idiot, but he's also not this elite coach everyone makes him out to be.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I originally excused the Capitals for signing a player like Lars Eller over a speedster (Lars Eller is still an upgrade from Mike Richards), I could excuse them for letting go of a speedster like Thomas DiPauli (their roster is pretty much set), but with Trotz providing so many excuses for why the Capitals lost without mentioning "speed" tells me that the Capitals are either completely clueless or in complete denial of why they lost to the Pens in the playoffs. Even someone as dense as Mike Milbury picked up on the fact that the Pens speed was so overwhelming that no team had an answer for it. I guess Trotz knows that he can't do anything about the roster, so he has to say that it was the way we approached the game, but the fact is that we just outskated the competition, and there's really nothing the Caps can do about that.

To be fair, they didn't let DiPauli go any more than Nashville let Vesey go. They wanted to sign him, but he didn't want to sign.

 

[BeautiPhil]

It was weird. Tampa certainly has speed to keep with the Penguins, but for some reason they were content with just chilling in their own zone for 45 minutes per game. They never really tried to push the pace, and instead just tried to counterattack. With their speed and skill, they were dangerous at counterattacking, but I feel like if they opened it up a little, they could've done more damage. Perhaps they played that way because Vasi was in net and they wanted to be more conservative to insulate him, but i don't know.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Tampa is good, but man if Sid and Geno weren't snake bitten in that series, Tampa wouldn't even have won as much as they did. Some would day well if Stamkos was in, it'd be different too, but not to the magnitude of Sid and Geno.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Tampa is good, but man if Sid and Geno weren't snake bitten in that series, Tampa wouldn't even have won as much as they did. Some would day well if Stamkos was in, it'd be different too, but not to the magnitude of Sid and Geno.

Tampa was missing Stralman too, who was crucial to their defense.

If the shoe were on the other foot and a Tampa fan tried to argue that their superstars being snakebitten was worse than Pittsburgh actually missing two key guys, I'm sure we'd give them a hard time.

 

[Speaking Moistly]

It's weird. Washington played them the closest but Tampa took them to the brink of elimination.

 

[OnMyOwn]

That Tampa series was only close because of their ridiculous NHL 16 back door passes they got off for 80% of their goals on the rush.

The pens dominated them outside of scoreboard.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

That's the thing. Ignore who won, ignore the scores, and dust off the old eye test.

Going into every series a few of us told every fan base that we faced that the overall speed and and the bottom six scoring would be the difference in their coming series, and backed it up statistically.

And in not a single series was the opposing team better than the Pens for just those reasons. Every team tried hitting the Pens into submission and completely abandoned the strategy within two or three games as the Pens gained odd man breaks because of it and refused to be baited. And the bottom six vastly outscoring the opposing bottom six was always the difference.

No one had the answer then.

None do now.

The Pens could have lost series, came close against Tampa Bay. Those are the bounces. But in no series were they the inferior team.

 

[plaidchuck]

Yeap TB series only got close because the pens had two straight bad games.from their goalies.

 

[WayneSid9987]

Yea, i found Tampa relying heavily on it's top 2 lines and most times they dressed 7 D until Stamkos came back for game 7.

They tried to conserve energy mostly by sitting back and waiting to counter.
I found they just ran out of gas by games 6 and 7 while the Pens rolled it's 4 lines.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I dunno about "snakebit" or even "amazing goaltending." I think the Penguins were having the same problem they had the vast majority of the playoffs -- for all their speed, possession, shot totals and depth... they are pretty damned stone-handed, as a team.

 

[BeautiPhil]

I dunno about "snakebit" or even "amazing goaltending." I think the Penguins were having the same problem they had the vast majority of the playoffs -- for all their speed, possession, shot totals and depth... they are pretty damned stone-handed, as a team.

I agree with this. We have a lot of skill, but we really don't have a lot of "hands". Not many elite shooters, especially with Malkin playing seemingly injured and with bad linemates through most of the playoffs. Our wingers have blazing speed and Tyler Kennedy's hands, other than Kessel. Tampa had much more finesse and skill, but less of the rugged determination, relentless forechecking and dominance along the walls that we had.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I agree with this. We have a lot of skill, but we really don't have a lot of "hands". Not many elite shooters, especially with Malkin playing seemingly injured and with bad linemates through most of the playoffs. Our wingers have blazing speed and Tyler Kennedy's hands, other than Kessel. Tampa had much more finesse and skill, but less of the rugged determination, relentless forechecking and dominance along the walls that we had.

I think that's a pretty good breakdown, particularly against Tampa, yeah.

People often mistake when I say the Penguins lack hands for saying they have no skill. You can still be skilled and lack finish. That's most of this team. And like you said... the team was missing one of it's best shooters all playoffs in Malkin. Or, at least, Malkin was missing most of his elbow.

The team had problems, in particular, with lifting the puck. My god... if they could have just simply elevated a few golden chances, some of these games or even series' would have not been nearly so close. I know it's easier said than done... particularly in tight. But this team simply seems to lack players with that high-level finish. Putting the puck where you want it, in other words. As opposed to simply whipping it on net... which is what I feel they were doing much of the time. Most NHL goaltenders worth their salt will gobble 98% of those chances up. It's like the Penguins were counting on that other 2% by way of sheer volume.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I dunno about "snakebit" or even "amazing goaltending." I think the Penguins were having the same problem they had the vast majority of the playoffs -- for all their speed, possession, shot totals and depth... they are pretty damned stone-handed, as a team.

Exactly. That's one aspect of scoring that analytics doesn't put much stress on, even though shooting ability is usually a pretty big factor in determining whether someone's gonna score. So much is geared towards quantity rather than quality, but Kucherov shooting from the top of the circles and Hornqvist shooting from the exact same spot is not the same thing...at all.

Tampa's "opportunistic" because they have a lot of guys who can snipe. Just because other teams had a greater edge in possession doesn't mean TB got lucky by any stretch. They prioritize skill.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

And I'm not trying to sell Vasilevskiy short, that series. He was very, very good. I'm a little surprised at how hard a some of his team's fans came down on him, actually.

 

[billybudd]

I don't think the Tampa series was near as close on the ice as the Washington series. Only reason that series went 7 is that they got better goaltending than we did. If Murray/Fleury had played against Washington the way they played against Tampa, we don't make it to the conference finals.

 

[Speaking Moistly]

I dunno about "snakebit" or even "amazing goaltending." I think the Penguins were having the same problem they had the vast majority of the playoffs -- for all their speed, possession, shot totals and depth... they are pretty damned stone-handed, as a team.

They went through some great goalies and performances, but if they'd been eliminated I think we would have been complaining about how they struggled to finish. Some of it was players not having amazing hands and some of it was players missing **** they should have had. Even the skilled guys were frequently doing that. Idk if I'd call it being snake bitten but the finishing wasn't where it should have been a lot of the time.

Obviously Phil had hand surgery after the playoffs and Malkin was playing with his elbow, but still. I think Phil lost the CS in game five when "he could have had a hat trick in the first period" happened and he never scored, tbh.

 

[cygnus47]

They went through some great goalies and performances, but if they'd been eliminated I think we would have been complaining about how they struggled to finish. Some of it was players not having amazing hands and some of it was players missing **** they should have had. Even the skilled guys were frequently doing that. Idk if I'd call it being snake bitten but the finishing wasn't where it should have been a lot of the time.

Obviously Phil had hand surgery after the playoffs and Malkin was playing with his elbow, but still. I think Phil lost the CS in game five when "he could have had a hat trick in the first period" happened and he never scored, tbh.

Yeah it's hard to say how much of the difficulty scoring was going against great goalies and how much was us not taking advantage and/or taking bad shots. We easily could have scored more goals I think, but you don't win the Cup because of a run of high shooting%. It bodes well for this year that we were able to run through so many great goalies and still comfortably win every series except for the Tampa one.

 

[flaneur]

Interesting breakdown by Trotz. Don't agree with all of it but the comment about the Pens fourth line rang true -- during the series there were many instances (often in critical times of the game) where Cullen's line went out and Trotz countered with Backstrom's line -- and Sullivan basically shrugged and went IDGAF.

The Washington series was the toughest one for the Pens. Although Tampa pushed the Pens to the brink of elimination, the Caps games felt closer and was the only series where the Pens didn't dominate the majority of the series.