Penguins Power Play Shake Up Proves Some Changes Can Be Good

During the beginning of the local broadcast of the Penguins vs Montreal game, Penguins TV commentator Josh Getzoff mentioned something that Mike Sullivan said in a pre-game interview. Nothing is off the table when it comes to the lineup or the powerplay.

#Pens HCMS:
- Tristan Jarry starts against Montreal
- Would anticipate «anything» being on the table as far as lineup/PP configuration, etc tonight pic.twitter.com/i7AjhO2nLw� Josh Getzoff (@JG_PxP) January 27, 2024

That appeared to be true as we saw a continuation from a late game change against Florida with the top line consisting of Kris Letang and Valtteri Puustinen instead of Evgeni Malkin and Erik Karlsson.

The Penguins powerplay unit is horrible this year with a 13.1% success rate. It has easily been the weakest area for the team to deal with. It looks like Sullivan is ready to change things up.


The new two units were given fairly equal time over the weekend, with the top unit playing 3:21 and the second unit playing 2:39. It is a very small sample of what the units can do, but optically the difference was big. Just watching the first unit against Montreal on their first powerplay you can see the shot first mentality.

The numbers seem to be matching the look, with the Penguins' shot attempts (3.5), shots on goal (1.3), and scoring chances (1.8) per minute. This is a very large increase over their previous month's performance per Natural Stat Trick.

We will have to wait and see if Mike Sullivan plans to run these two units again after the All-Star break. But it does appear the new pairings have started to ignite something in a tired powerplay.

You can listen to the full assessment from the Hockey News below:


As Read On: The Hockey News - Penguins Get Early Return on Power Play Change