Pittsburgh Penguins

Metropolitan Division, Eastern Conference · 24 reports in the 2022-23 edition.

This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read, written from that season alone. Read the 2026-27 club page →

The club

2021-22 · 82 games · 260 for, 226 against

How it played

Shot attempts share, five-on-five: 52.1% 10th of 32
Expected goals share, five-on-five: 53.5% 7th of 32
Power play expected goals per sixty: 7.50 9th of 32
Penalty kill expected goals allowed per sixty: 6.71 6th of 32

Where the record lies

Finishing goals scored above what the chances were worth: -2.9 22nd of 32
Goaltending goals prevented beyond what the chances allowed were worth: +5.8 9th of 32

Pittsburgh Penguins finished close to the chances underneath them at both ends. The record is roughly what the play deserved.

Roster shape

Points-weighted, so these are the ages and origins of the production rather than of the sweaters.

Average age: 30.5; weighted by points
From 33 and up: 38.2%; of skater points
From under 26: 13.4%; of skater points
Homegrown: 56.9%; drafted by this club
Continuity: 66.3%; of last season's five-on-five minutes

The read

the numbers, and the eye

Four of the twenty-eight softest chairs of 652 skaters and two of the fifty hardest, all on one roster — and the 3rd-best power play in hockey.

Who this names 12 of 24 on the roster · 63% of their five-on-five minutes details

Both columns above are searched, and a name counts on the same terms the page links it: in full always, by surname only when one man in the edition wears it. Nothing here says who ought to be named — only who was, so the weighting can be seen rather than guessed at.

Not named here: Casey DeSmith, Brian Dumoulin, Mark Friedman, Danton Heinen, Tristan Jarry, Kasperi Kapanen, Drew O'Connor, Marcus Pettersson, Ryan Poehling, Ty Smith, Dustin Tokarski, Jason Zucker.

What the Quant Says

46-25-11, 103 points, 12th in the league. 272 goals for, 11th; 229 against, 5th.

And 10th in attempt share, 7th in chance share, 8th in expected goals per 60 at even strength, 7th in expected goals against. Every process column is better than the record.

Finishing rated 22nd at minus-2.9 and goaltending 9th at plus-5.8. The five-on-five ledger: goals for 180 against an expectation of 182.9, goals against 153 against an expectation of 158.8. Three short in front, six saved at the back.

Nothing in this club's season was luck in either direction. It was a top-eight process club that finished 12th, and the reason is that the process was concentrated in a very few men.

Sidney Crosby is 35, Evgeni Malkin 36, Kris Letang 35 and Jeff Carter 37. All four produced. Crosby played sixty-nine games and Malkin forty-one, and Bryan Rust, the club's next-best forward, played sixty.

What the Scout Says

This roster is the most deliberately sorted in the batch and possibly in the league.

Four of the twenty-eight softest chairs among the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts belong to Pittsburgh. Evgeni Malkin started 65.4 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end — the 13th-highest in hockey — Sidney Crosby 63.1 at the 25th, Rickard Rakell 62.8 at the 26th and Jake Guentzel 62.4 at the 28th.

And the other end is just as extreme. Teddy Blueger started at 29.5 per cent, the 17th-lowest of the same 652, and Brock McGinn at 35.6, the 48th-lowest. Jeff Carter took 39.9 per cent, the 87th-lowest.

Two men absorbed the hard starts so that four could take the soft ones, and both of them came out at or above the break-even line. Blueger took 50.2 per cent of the expected goals out of the 17th-hardest chair in the league. That is the whole design and it worked.

What it did not fix is age. Crosby 35, Malkin 36, Letang 35, Carter 37, Petry 34, Rutta 32, Ruhwedel 32. Seven skaters at thirty-two or older, four of them the best players on the club, and two of those four missed at least thirteen games.

A 103-point club with a top-eight process and the 5th-fewest goals against is not a club with a problem. It is a club with a calendar.

Who this names 8 of 13 forwards · 72% of their five-on-five minutes details

Not named here: Teddy Blueger, Brock McGinn, Drew O'Connor, Ryan Poehling, Jason Zucker.

What the Quant Says

272 goals, 11th in the league, off the 8th-ranked expected-goal rate at even strength (2.826 per 60). Finishing rated 22nd, so three or four places were given back.

Jake Guentzel scored forty goals off 264 shots and produced the 27th-best even-strength point rate of 393 forwards. Sidney Crosby eighty-four points in sixty-nine games at 35.

Bryan Rust took fifty-eight points from sixty games and Evgeni Malkin forty-two from forty-one — a seventy-nine-point pace and an eighty-four-point pace. The three best per-game scorers on the club played 69, 60 and 41 games between them.

Danton Heinen scored eighteen goals at 12:43 a night off the 20th-best expected-goal share of 393 forwards.

Evan Rodrigues has gone to Colorado; Rickard Rakell arrives having scored twenty in seventy games between Anaheim and here.

What the Scout Says

Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel played 1,878 five-on-five attempts together and 487 and 269 apart. Together they took 54.8 per cent of the expected goals; Guentzel apart from Crosby managed 48.0 across his 487. Neither man has a readable season away from the other and the book will not pretend otherwise.

Evgeni Malkin gave the puck away more often per 60 than any of the 393 qualified forwards and took it away 4th-most. Nobody else in the league is at both ends of that ledger, and it is the clearest single description of how he plays.

Kasperi Kapanen has the 17th-fastest top speed of 365 forwards and the 7th-hardest shot — and the 29th-lowest slot share of 393. All that velocity, fired from thirty feet.

Danton Heinen took the 20th-best expected-goal share of 393 forwards at 12:43 a night and scored eighteen goals doing it.

Jeff Carter still shoots 97.4 mph at 37, the 94th percentile, and sprints at the 77th.

Who this names 7 of 8 defencemen · 96% of their five-on-five minutes details

Not named here: Mark Friedman.

What the Quant Says

229 goals against, 5th in the league, off the 7th-ranked expected-goals-against rate at even strength (2.450 per 60). The structure and the result agree, which on this list of clubs is unusual.

Kris Letang played 25:47 a night, the 4th-heaviest of the 202 qualified defencemen, and produced the 8th-best even-strength point rate at the position.

Marcus Pettersson gave the puck away 0.75 times per 60, the 2nd-fewest of the 202, and Chad Ruhwedel 1.05, the 7th-fewest, on the two smallest workloads on the blue line.

Brian Dumoulin and Letang shared 2,042 five-on-five attempts, the largest pairing on the club, and took 52.2 per cent of the expected goals — against 48.2 for Dumoulin apart and 51.1 for Letang apart.

John Marino has gone to New Jersey and Mike Matheson to Montreal. Jeff Petry, Jan Rutta and Ty Smith arrive.

What the Scout Says

Kris Letang at 35 played the 4th-heaviest workload of 202 defencemen, produced the 8th-best even-strength point rate, took the 93rd-percentile takeaway rate and covered the 14th-most ground of the 192 the tracking measures. Four top-of-the-position figures in a sixteenth season.

Underneath him the blue line is the most careful in the league. Marcus Pettersson gives it away 0.75 times per 60 — 2nd-fewest of 202 — Jan Rutta 0.87, 4th-fewest, and Chad Ruhwedel 1.05, 7th-fewest. Three of the seven most careful defencemen in hockey will play on this roster.

And then there is Jeff Petry, whose 4.27 giveaways per 60 is the most of all 202. The club has assembled the three most careful and the single most careless defenceman in the league on one blue line.

Rutta is stranger still: the 2nd-fewest takeaways of the 202 as well. The puck spends almost no time on his stick and he almost never loses it.

Pettersson is 6-5 and 174 pounds — the lightest defenceman in this book six-foot-five or taller by twenty-one pounds — and he took the hardest chair on the blue line and posted its second-best share.

Who this names 3 of 3 goaltenders details

What the Quant Says

9th in the league at plus-5.8 goals saved above expectation, from two goaltenders separated by five points of save percentage.

Tristan Jarry posted .9193 across 58 games and 1,711 shots, 6th of the 53 who played twenty-five. Casey DeSmith .9142 across twenty-six, 16th of the same 53.

Jarry is 27 with 4,570 career shots at .9149 and his last two full seasons are his two best. DeSmith is 31, undrafted, and has finished every one of his four seasons between .9116 and .9213.

Ninety-seven points of career spread on one and a hundred and twenty-five on the other — after Carter Hart's four hundred, this is what a settled crease looks like.

Dustin Tokarski arrives from Buffalo at .8989 across 900 shots, 42nd of the 53, as a third goaltender rather than a second.

What the Scout Says

Tristan Jarry is 27, has faced 4,570 NHL shots at .9149, and his four real seasons read .9083, .9091, .9208 and .9193. The two best are the two largest and the two most recent.

A hundred and twenty-five points of spread across four samples is what a settled goaltender looks like, and it is worth putting beside Carter Hart's four hundred in Philadelphia and Anton Forsberg's four hundred and seven in Ottawa.

Casey DeSmith is 31, undrafted, and has never played more than thirty-six games in a season — and has finished all four of them between .9116 and .9213. His career .9153 is fractionally above Jarry's .9149.

Both figures were produced behind the 7th-best chance suppression in the league and the 3rd-smallest penalty-killing workload, so neither is a portable claim and both are real results.

Dustin Tokarski arrives at 33 with 2,184 career shots spread across thirteen years and a .8989 in Buffalo. A .8989 behind the 26th-ranked chance suppression is not the same object as a .8989 behind the 7th, and he is unlikely to play enough games for anyone to find out which he is.

Who this names 10 men details

The data does not say who takes these minutes, so there is no denominator to hold this against — a count of names is all it can honestly be. Both columns above are searched, and a name counts on the same terms the page links it.

What the Quant Says

3rd in the league at 7.787 expected goals per 60, over 4:42 a night — the 20th-largest workload. Only Edmonton at 8.333 and Toronto at 8.106 produced at a better rate, and both of them did it on less ice — Toronto on the 3rd-smallest workload in the league.

Evgeni Malkin took 3:46 a night, the 98th percentile among forwards, and scored nine of his twenty goals there in forty-one games.

Jake Guentzel 3:33, Kris Letang 3:29 at the point — the 98th percentile among defencemen — Sidney Crosby 3:20, Bryan Rust 3:26.

2021-22 · 82 games

Measured from shift charts at five-on-five, not projected. Units are built from the strongest partnership outward and ordered by how much they were used; the percentage is the share of the first player’s five-on-five ice time spent alongside each linemate. A low number means the club never settled on a combination. Players who have gone are marked — either to another club, or off an NHL roster altogether, which covers retirement and an unsigned summer alike.