The Pens Were Set Up To Tank. Now They're Drafting 9th. What Happened?

The Pens *seemed* like they'd collapse down the stretch, but did the complete opposite.

On March 7th, the NHL’s trade deadline, the Penguins had the 6th worst record in the league by points percentage. They traded away Marcus Pettersson, Drew O’Connor, Cody Glass, Anthony Beauvillier, and Michael Bunting. They recalled Tristan Jarry from his second stint in the AHL. The Pens had nothing left to play for in an obvious rebuilding season. And they finished… three spots better than they started at the deadline.

How did the Pens, who were fully set up to tank down the stretch, end up winning so much when they weren’t even that good to begin with? Here are the 5 main reasons:

1. The Goaltending Played MUCH Better

For the first third of the season, the Penguins were completely sunk by two factors: 1) They were a bottom-5 defending team (with most metrics backing up the VERY FRUSTRATING eye test), and 2) They were getting some of the league’s worst goaltending. They had other issues with depth scoring, finishing, and special teams early on, but when you’re a bad defending team in front of bad goaltending, that basically wipes out everything else no matter how much you’re scoring.

From October to his January waiving, Tristan Jarry had an .884 save percentage; after his recall in March, he was a .904 goalie (the league average was .900.):

Alex Nedeljkovic didn’t receive as much criticism as Jarry because he wasn’t as overtly “broken,” but he struggled for the bulk of the season too, posting a well below-league-average .891 SV% from October to February. From March on, he was at .905:

Both Jarry and Nedeljkovic were near dead last in the league in MoneyPuck’s Goals Saved Above Expected metric for most of the season, but rebounded significantly down the stretch. Among 61 goalies who played 20 or more games, Ned and Jarry finished 40th and 44th in Goals Saved Above Expected per 60 — not great numbers, but significantly better than some of the badly struggling goalies who dragged teams like Philly, Seattle, and San Jose to the bottom of the standings.

Basically, the Pens went from having some of the league’s worst goaltending for 2/3rds of the season to getting solidly above-average goaltending down the stretch. That big of a swing can make any team immediately look better. So in a way, fans CAN still be mad at Jarry if they want…

2. The Power Play Was Very Good All Season, And Especially Down The Stretch

Remember last year when we said, “y’know, if this Penguins team had just played exactly the same way and been a little better on the power play, they would’ve been a playoff team?” Well, they did not hold up the first half of that hypothetical this year, but they were more than “a little” better on the power play: They went from having the 3rd worst power play in the league in 2023-24 to having the 6th best power play in the league in 2024-25. That’s a remarkable turnaround that paved over a bunch of the Pens’ other developing cracks.

From March 1st on, the Pens had the second best power play in the NHL, clicking at a monstrous 30.8%. Only Colorado’s was better (and they don’t even have Matt Grzelcyk!) They finished the season just a tenth of a percent behind Tampa Bay’s power play — a team that’s almost entirely built around winning games with the man advantage.

Any team that scores on more than 30% of their power plays for an extended stretch is going to accumulate some points.

3. Pucks Really Started Going In For The Pens

The Penguins have had some well-documented issues turning their scoring chances into actual goals for a few years now. They finished 27th in the NHL in team shooting percentage last season, and from October to March of this year, they were 24th, scoring on 9.99% of their shots (the Capitals, by contrast, scored on 13.18% of theirs.)

From March 1st on, though, the Pens scored on 11.55% of their shots, good for 13th in the league. That’s not an outlandish improvement, but it is the first extended run of “good finishing” the Pens have experienced in a long while. The jump is probably attributable to a couple things: the power play really clicking, opposing goalies struggling, teams taking the Pens a little lightly down the stretch, and good old fashioned puck luck. But whatever the cause, when a full 1.5% more of your shots suddenly start finding the back of the net, it adds up.

4. The Pens Never ‘Collapsed’

Back in November, during the lowest point in the Pens’ season — a hapless 6-1 loss to Utah that dropped them to 7-12-4 — there was lots of talk about firing Mike Sullivan. I’ve personally felt for a while that the next truly competitive Pens team won’t have Sullivan behind the bench, but that as long as they’re rebuilding, there was no reason to change coaches unless the wheels really came off and things got embarrassing. After that Utah game, I really did think we were heading down that road.

From that point on, though, the Pens never lost more than four games in a row for the entire rest of the season. They did lose 8 of 9 in late February / early March, which seemed to put them on the fast-track to Tank Town, but they re-stabilized from there and went 10-5-2 from March 9th to the end of the season. By contrast, the Bruins had a 10 game losing streak and went 6-14-2 after the trade deadline, and the Flyers went 7-13-2 and fired John Tortorella in the midst of losing 12 out of 13 games.

Mike Sullivan and his staff, to their credit — or detriment? — never let the Pens get fully out of control. They weren’t competitive every night, obviously, but they were a weak defensive team that traded their best defensive defenseman and had nothing to play for for months, and they never slipped into a truly hopeless post-deadline funk, even if it would’ve been completely understandable (and draft-wise, preferable) if they had.

5. Sidney Crosby Is Good

Want someone else to blame for the blown tank? How about #87, ol’ Sid-ME Crosb-ME, more concerned with SCORING POINTS and WINNING GAMES than with marginally improving the Pens’ draft position 🙄.

Your NHL scoring leaders from March 1st on:

Note that #2, David Pastrnak, was on a team that did completely fold down the stretch, and Panarin’s Rangers didn’t fare much better. So the end stretch wasn’t just Sidney Crosby scoring so much that he forced the Pens to reluctantly earn a bunch of points — no one player can do that single-handedly. But he was clearly the biggest factor.

Therefore, if Kyle Dubas really wants to tank next season for the Gavin McKenna draft, we now know that calling up Jarry, trading Marcus Pettersson, and keeping Mike Sullivan aren’t enough. He’s simply going to have to exile Sidney Crosby to the Springfield Mystery Spot.