The script for the Penguins’ 6-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night featured some recurringscenes that have become all too familiar to Penguins fans over the course of the last few weeks.
The Penguins score a few goals early, park the car and stop for coffee, and the opposition storms back to tie the game or, even worse, take the lead.
What’s nice about tracking shot attempts as a proxy for puck possession is the ability to watch this play out on paper. Take a look at what happened from a shot-attempt perspective after the Penguins scored their third goal in the first period against the Avalanche:
The box score doesn’t just tell us the story of this game, the shot-attempt chart does as well. The Penguins scored their goals, took their foot off of the gas, and opened the door for the Avalanche to walk right back into the game.
It seemed as if the Penguins would once again drop points from an advantageous position (inherently the worst way to drop points). But, in the third period, Patric Hornqvist registered the fastest hat trickin team history, and the Penguins were back off to the races. The shot-attempt chart shows us that, after a bottom-out period to start the third, the Penguins fought back and re-took control of the game as the third period went on. The result was three goals and staunch defensive performance to hold the lead.
The trend of allowing teams back into the game isn’t new for the Penguins. Let’s go back a few weeks to see how the Penguins handled a 3-1 lead against the Buffalo Sabres on Nov. 19.
Different game, same story. The Penguins take a lead and completely exit the building. The Sabres take over, start scoring goals, and the rest is history.
This isn’t a situation where the opposition is getting a little bump in shot attempts because the Penguins are defending a lead. This is a complete reversal of the flow of the game; it goes beyond one team pushing harder to try and play catch-up. This isn’t just true from a data perspective; it plays out on video as well. The Penguins become lackadaisicalwith the puck, their forecheck gets turned off, and defensive miscues abound. In short, they look like a completely different hockey team.
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What’s important about the Hornqvist hat trick is what happened behind the scenes to make the goals possible in the first place. While Hornqvist’s efforts were certainly herculean, the Penguins as a whole played to their fundamental strengths. It’s as if a switch flipped and the entire team remembered what system they were supposed to be playing.
This awakening in the third period from a systematic perspective is what created the opportunities for Hornqvist to make an impact on the hockey game. They’re the fundamentals of Mike Sullivan’s system taking over a hockey game before the other team has an opportunity to realize what’s going on.
Let’s take a look at the video to highlight these areas. Today, we’re going to focus on the forecheck. More often than not, when the Penguins get into trouble defending a lead, you will not find them forechecking effectively as the other team attempts to break the puck out of the zone. What should be tempo-setting, aggressive forecheckings becomes passive, handing out skating lanes like you’re favorite neighbor hands out candy on Halloween.
In this clip, pay attention to what happens leading up to Hornqvist’s goal, rather than watching the goal itself. This is the key to understanding how the Penguins can buck the trend of giving up leads.
Look at how the Penguins forecheck this puck retrieval breakout by the Avalanche. Hornqvist and Tanner Pearson are two strong into this play. Their presence, speed, and pressure force the Avalanche to make a few uncomfortable passes. Ian Cole, the defenseman responsible for turning this puck over on the neutral zone pass, is forced to make the play because Pearson is breathing down his neck.
This is what controlling and dictating the pace of a hockey game looks like on video. This is how you go out and change the tide of a hockey game. The Penguins forecheck is relentless in this clip. Pearson’s work, specifically, is rather well done. He flies into the zone to put pressure on the play developing behind the net and then loops over to the boards to put a secondary level of pressure on Cole.
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This is what a full-court press looks like in hockey. I’ve often said that this forecheck is a barometer of how the Penguins are playing from top to bottom. This pressure up ice sets the tempo for the rest of the team. To be frank, the Penguins are not good enough defensively to do anything but this. If they shell up or provide teams lanes to skate the puck into their zone, they’re going to be in trouble. With this forechecking structure, the Penguins can prevent issues before they manifest by dictating how the game is going to be played.
Let’s move on to Hornqvist’s third goal for another great example of how pressure up ice can impact the game.
In this clip, Malkin applies the pressure on a loose puck race, and the rest of the team is in behind him with speed. The Avalanche defense is essentially relegated to spinning around in circles from a stopped position once this play matriculates in the offensive zone.
Again, this focus here is on the pressure up ice. It’s taking the initiative to force the opposing team to make a decision rather than letting them make decisions on their own terms.
It’s this element of the game that goes missing when the Penguins get into trouble. When they’re forechecking effectively, they’re not only mitigating potential damage in their own zone, they’re creating opportunities to score goals.
This is such an important element to the game that you can almost tell what’s going to happen next based on the video. If the Penguins are in a tight game and they aren’t exhibiting this up-ice pressure, things could get ugly. Conversely, if you see them pressing the other team and getting up ice, expect good things to come in the future.
(Photo: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
Jesse Marshall is a contributor for The Athletic Pittsburgh. Previously, Jesse provided Penguins coverage for Faceoff-Factor and The Pensblog with a focus on analytics, the draft and video-based analysis. Follow Jesse on Twitter @jmarshfof
