The Pittsburgh Penguins have now lost the first three games of the 2015-16 NHL season, a feat they have only accomplished three other times in the past.
The first was in 1983-84 when they finished dead last in the league and drafted Mario Lemieux the following summer. Next was in 1996-97 when they fired head coach Eddie Johnston late in the season and Craig Patrick took them to a first-round playoff loss. The most recent was in 2001-02 when they fired head coach Ivan Hlinka just four games into the season but Rick Kehoe was unable to turn things around and the team finished last in their division, missing the playoffs.
Those weren’t the only times the Penguins began the season on a winless streak, just the only times they managed to not get a single point out of it. They had two losses and one tie in each of the 1970-71, 1978-79, 1982-83, and 2003-04 seasons; they had one loss and two ties in 1968-69; they had one regulation loss and two overtime losses in 2005-06; and three ties in 1969-70.
They missed the playoffs in all but two of those cases, reaching the second round of the playoffs in both 1970 and 1979, but the slow start in 2005-06 cost Eddie Olczyk his job. Coincidentally that season that Olczyk was fired was the worst start for the Penguins to date; they began the year 0-4-5 before finally winning their 10th game.
It may be too early to panic, the team has all the pieces necessary to be a strong playoff contender if they can manage to stay healthy, but sometimes it is difficult to bounce back from a rough start. The next game will be key, the only times the Penguins managed to go 0-4 to start the season were in 1983-84 and 2001-02, both of which resulted in the team missing the playoffs, and like Hlinka, an inability to pull off even a single point may very well cost head coach Mike Johnston his job.
Underlying stats Through the first three games of the season the Penguins have been outscored 8-3 but have managed to outshoot their opponents 98-93. When looking at just scoring chances the team was outshot 52-49, although this improves to 25-24 from the center lane and 20-20 from the slot. Unfortunately some of that may be due to score effects as teams tend to collapse into a defensive shell when maintaining a lead, giving the opponents a chance to take fewer quality scoring chances.
One big issue appears to be their subpar special team’s performances. The Penguins have been unable to score on the power play, going 0-9 through the first three games. This magnifies an issue that was already evident last season as assistant coach Rick Tocchet’s power play had numerous cold streaks throughout the year and finished 10th in the league. They have also been having issues with the penalty kill, starting the season 8-11 after assistant coach Gary Agnew led them to finish third last year.
In 5-on-5 situations the Penguins look a little more effective, they were outscored 5-3 but managed to outshoot their opponents 75-64. However they were just slightly behind in terms of unblocked shot attempts, 103-101 over the first three games. In addition when taking score effects into account and looking at just close situations the Penguins were outshot 42-41 and trailed in unblocked shot attempts 71-58.
So there are a lot of areas that need to be improved upon if the Penguins and Johnston don’t want to follow in the footsteps of Hlinka and Olczyk. They have talented enough players, it is just a matter of finding the right combinations and getting them to work together as a cohesive unit. They have 79 games remaining, so there is plenty of time to work things out, but if they don’t start getting points soon they will find themselves too far behind to mount an effective comeback.
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