(1) What should we make of the Ben Lovejoy trade?
The Pittsburgh Penguins don’t match up well against big, physical teams. Â Don’t let their Saturday night (Sunday morning) overtime victory against Los Angeles fool you.
The Kings carried the play and exposed the same weaknesses that Washington and the New York Rangers have been targeting all season.
That said, I think trading away Simon Despres and Roberto Bortuzzo last week made sense.
Sure — Despres and Bortuzzo were arguably Pittsburgh’s most physical defensemen. But neither were playing particularly efficient defense.
Despres was the feel-good story this season — a former first round pick who finally escaped the anti-youth bias of former coach Dan Bylsma and got a chance to prove himself.
I might be in the extreme minority on this: the praise wasn’t totally warranted.
Despres stepped up his physicality but often at the expense of over-pursuing opposing forwards in the corner. He was prone to critical mental mistakes and even though he’s still only 23, I’m not sure if the upside is there.
Ben Lovejoy brings more reliability and a different style of defending — one that fits better with the current identity of this Penguins team. Lovejoy isn’t the same player that went to Anaheim for a fifth-round pick two years ago.
He played bigger minutes in bigger situations for the Ducks and finally got a chance to gain experience without the one-mistake-and-you’re-benched pressure he struggled under in Pittsburgh.  Despres might evolve in a similar way, but the key word is might.
Lovejoy is a known quantity at this point.
He’s improved his side-to-side mobility — I suspect he’s lost weight since his last stint in Pittsburgh — and uses his stick to effectively defend in the style of Paul Martin. Lovejoy will also ease the burden on Kris Letang, who should see his penalty killing minutes reduced down the stretch.
At worst, this trade was a lateral move in the short-term.
At best, it gives the Penguins a more reliable group of defensemen. Â And reliable defense wins a lot more hockey games than hits do in the playoffs.
(2) What should we make of the Ian Cole trade?
A lot of the same points could be made about the Roberto Bortuzzo for Ian Cole trade.
I’ve always liked Cole. Â He played most of his minutes alongside Barret Jackman in St. Louis this season and Jackman plays a simple, shutdown game like Rob Scuderi. Â The Cole-Scuderi pair makes sense, although I do have concerns about Cole’s ability to quickly adapt to the Pittsburgh system and the Eastern Conference.
Lovejoy definitely has that advantage over Cole, coming back to a team that still has many of the same defensive and breakout characteristics that were in place when he left.
Cole has looked out of sorts so far and won’t get big minutes or a lot of practice time to get comfortable.
That’s always the risk in acquiring players with 20 games left in the season. Coach Mike Johnston has definitely simplified the Penguins’ strategies — almost to a fault at times — but it’s still a challenge being traded to a new organization for the first time in your career.
Matt Niskanen struggled mightily in the same situation a few years ago. It wasn’t until he had a full offseason and training camp that he said he finally felt comfortable in Pittsburgh.
Being paired with Scuderi will also mean Cole is going to be under heavy pressure in his own end. This is something to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.
(3) Is obstruction making a return to the NHL?
This weekend’s Pittsburgh-Los Angeles game was very tight-checking, a trend we typically start to see as teams prepare for playoff hockey.
I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about officiating and obstruction lately though.
This chart speaks volumes:
*Stats via hockey-reference.com as of Mar 8, 2015
Powerplay opportunities per game have been steadily declining in the NHL since the 2004-05 lockout and are even significantly lower than the pre-lockout obstruction days.
I don’t think players are suddenly more well-behaved.
Perhaps allowing more obstruction is the NHL’s way of slowing the game down after the concussion crisis dominated headlines the past few seasons?
Regardless, the hockey isn’t nearly as entertaining and more obstruction means bad things for a Penguins team that relies on speed — not size and strength — to win games.
(4) Is Mike Johnston an NHL-caliber head coach?
I used to always get asked: Is Dan Bylsma a good coach?
My answer: I don’t know.
We make a lot of characterizations about coaches based on limited insight into what actually goes on behind closed doors.
So much of coaching at the NHL level is managing individual personalities and making tactical adjustments on the fly. Â We see very little of that as viewers of the game.
And even if a coach pulls all the right strings, the goalie can make or break his reputation.
Adam Gretz at CBS Sports recently touched on the reputation of Minnesota head coach Mike Yeo as the Wild have suddenly become the hottest team in the NHL after acquiring Devan Dubnyk less than two months ago:
“Can you imagine what would have been said and written about the Wild coaching situation had they actually fired Yeo back in mid-January and still received the Dubnyk-driven improvement in goaltending? Yeo would be vilified for not getting the most out of the roster while the new guy would probably be getting talked up as a coach of the year candidate for fixing the mess.”
I always felt that we wouldn’t know the answer on Bylsma until a new head coach came in and took a shot at the Stanley Cup with this Penguins core.
Is Mike Johnston going to be up to the task?
(5) How incredible is Matt Murray’s run in the American Hockey League?
Penguins prospect goaltender Matt Murray set a new American Hockey League record this weekend by going almost five games without allowing a goal. Â A record like that is impressive at any level of hockey and Pittsburgh fans are understandably excited about Murray’s potential.
On the other hand, it was interesting to read the article Ryan Wilson linked to in this piece that indicates AHL success has little predictive value of NHL success.
Either way, I went back into my notes this weekend and found comments from Penguins Director of Amateur Scouting Randy Sexton at the 2012 draft.
“He has some things he has to work on but we like his size, we like his athleticism,” Sexton said of Murray at the time.  “We’re excited about him. He has a ways to go but he’s got lots of tools and lots of opportunities to get better.”
Sexton and the Penguins obviously felt Murray was a project and have to be pleasantly surprised at his rapid progress.
I maintain that the Ray Shero bad draft narrative was overblown.
I won’t argue that Shero drafted well either — it takes many years to evaluate whether a draft is successful or not in hockey.
His first few drafts can be safely considered a failure at this point, but that was also after inheriting a skeleton staff from the former Penguins regime.
Shero made a number of changes to personnel and scouting coverage in recent years and late round surprises like Murray and Oskar Sundqvist are just scratching the surface of their professional hockey careers.
All we know at this point is based on current GM Jim Rutherford’s all-in trading mentality this season, Sexton and staff won’t have many more opportunities to rewrite the narrative.