The Penguins’ most damaging power play games of the season

The Pittsburgh Penguins power play has been bad all season. These games have been especially bad.

It is no secret that the Pittsburgh Penguins power play has been terrible all season. Not just disappointing for the talent that it has to work with. Terrible. Objectively terrible.

They enter play on Tuesday with the 30th ranked power play in terms of success rate.

They have allowed six shorthanded goals, with several of them coming in game-changing and game-deciding moments.

That unit is one of the single biggest reasons they find themselves nine points out of a playoff spot and likely headed for a second consecutive non-playoff season. It is one thing to just simply look at the numbers and say, “wow, this group sucks and is really holding them back.”

It gets even worse when you look at the individual games the power play has cost them and how many were right there for the taking with even a competent performance from that unit. Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Kings was, in some ways, one of those games.

Yes, the power play did score the Penguins’ only goal of that game, with Sidney Crosby blasting a one-timer from Erik Karlsson into the net to give them a 1-0 lead. But the unit not only failed to add to the lead later in the game, it gave up a crippling shorthanded goal in the final five minutes to give the Kings a game-winning goal. Giving up a shorthanded goal in that spot — late in the third period of a tie game — simply can not happen.

Not only did it happen, it is not even the first time this season that situation played itself out.

• On Oct. 30 the Penguins and Anaheim Ducks were tied 3-3 late in the game with Penguins getting a two-man advantage in the final two minutes. At the very least getting to overtime and recording a point should have been the bare minimum in that spot. They not only failed to reach overtime, they gave up a shorthanded goal to Mason McTavish with 13 seconds to play and lost 4-3 in overtime.
• Then on Sunday the Penguins gave up the game-winning shorhtanded goal to Adrian Kempe with 3:10 to play in regulation.

No other team has had that situation happen more than once this season.

Outside of them it has happened only seven other times in the entire league.

Giving the Penguins a power play late in a tie game used to be a near automatic two points for them because you just knew they were going to capitalize on that situation and convert it. Not the case anymore. Yes, father time might be catching up to some of the players. But there is still no excuse for giving up goals here. Not one goal. Especially not two goals.

The Penguins have also had two games this season where they had a power play, with the lead in the third period, and allowed a shorthanded goal to tie the game.

• That first happened Dec. 2 against the Philadelphia Flyers when they allowed a shorthanded goal to Scott Laughton, turning a 2-1 Penguins lead into a 2-2 tie with just a little more than 12 minutes to play in regulation. The Penguins would end up losing that game in a shootout.
• Just a couple of weeks later they gave up a shorthanded goal to Brad Marchand three minutes into the third period to turn a 5-4 lead into a 5-5 tie. Fortunately the power play was able to later redeem itself with a Sidney Crosby game-winning goal.

There have only been seven instances of a team giving up a game-tying, shorthanded goal in the third period of a game this season.

The Penguins, again, have two of them.

Between those four games in the two groupings the Penguins power play has probably cost them a minimum of three points in the standings, and potentially as many as six.

Imagine how much different the season looks right now if they are only three-to-six points out of a playoff spot and still having games in hand on the teams ahead of them. Might change your whole outlook. It might change their whole outlook.

But those are just the games where they gave up a late, game-changing shorthanded goal. That is a very specific situation.

What about the games where the power play was just flat out bad and didn’t take advantage of enough situations?

They have had three games this season where they went 0-for-5 on the power play. Two of those games have turned into one-goal losses. That includes the aforementioned Flyers game where they allowed the shorthanded goal to Laughton late in the third period.

They also lost a 1-0 game to the New York Rangers on the night before Thanksgiving where they went 0-for-5.

That is potentially at least one more point left on the table.

They have also had four games this season where the power play had at least six opportunities in a game and scored just a single goal on them. That is a success rate of only 16 percent.

Those games included...

• A 5-4 overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators on Dec. 23
• A 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Jan. 8
• A 3-2 shootout loss to the Florida Panthers on Jan. 26
• A 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Feb. 9

Three one-goal losses.

Two losses in overtime or a shootout that could have potentially been regulation wins.

That unit has simply left so many points on the table in the most baffling ways that it is almost impressive, especially when you consider the individual talent on the ice.

I still go back to the need for a Patric Hornqvist or Chris Kunitz type of net-front presence. But the lack of urgency, the stagnant nature of it, and the overall sloppiness also play a big role in it.

The power play is not the only issue here (as I highlighted yesterday, the offseason additions have been awful offensively and the bottom-six can not score a goal in any situation), but it is certainly one of the biggest.

It is not just bad. It is awful. It is too often awful in big situations that could swing a game in their favor.