The difference in a season: Comparing rosters from one year ago

Cycling back through some old stuff, thought this would be a fun little look on an off day. The Penguins played a game a year ago to the day last October 27th. Let’s look at the lineup, and some of the details of that season and see how things have either stayed the same or changed since this point last year.

Pittsburgh downed St. Louis 6-3 last October 27th, to improve their record on the season to 7-2-1. Here was the lineup on the night.

Then, now and as ever, there were some injury absences. Rickard Rakell’s name isn’t seen above, he was out injured. Kevin Hayes, Rutger McGroarty, Caleb Jones and Jack St. Ivany were others unavailable due to injury. Connor Clifton and Philip Tomasino were healthy scratches for the game one year ago today.

What’s changed in a year? Certainly the blueline. Four of the six defensemen who dressed one year ago today for the Pens aren’t currently on the NHL roster, three of them are out of the organizational completely. That’s more than the three forwards who have departed the team.

That brings up a common theme with the Penguins: what in the world are they doing with the plan for their defense? That question is only going to grow now that Erik Karlsson is in the final year of his contract. It’s nice the team has added some pieces like Declan Carlile and Kaeden Korczak, but they have a lot of heavy lifting and building to do in terms of adding big-time talent to this spot. That’s been the case for a while, still remains the same today. It’s going to be interesting to see in the next 1-2-3 years what the Pens do to replace Karlsson and Kris Letang for players to take key roles. Presumably, the answer to that question has not been found yet.

Some pieces and faces have changed with the forwards, but it’s easy to see how that group is more or less the same in theory as it was 12 months ago. You’ve got Crosby leading a line, Malkin doing the same, Kindel on a third line and then Dewar+Lizotte as the core of a fourth line. That’s exactly how things have remained this year when everyone has been healthy at the same time, though Malkin has now shifted over to a wing position as his role evolves with age to add a slightly new twist to the mix.

This lineup shows some of the non-linear progression of young players, Koivunen played (as he would in many more NHL games this season) but didn’t have a lot of success at carving out a niche or much production. Fast forward a year and it looks like the pieces are slowly starting to come together for him now. Brunicke was getting his first taste of NHL action and has journeyed from the WHL to AHL in the last 12 months, slow progress but progress nonetheless for a young defenseman. McGroarty, hurt at the start of last season, has experienced similar stops and starts that have so far defined his young career. Ben Kindel, after the Oct 27th game last year, had two goals and no assists in the first eight games of his career – it very much wasn’t known at this point he would go onto be a key player as an 18-year old for a full season but he’s been on the steadiest path of all the young players in the organization.

Overall, it was a team led by veterans last year, as it remains this season. One commonality is a red hot start for Evgeni Malkin. At this time last year, Malkin had 16 points (3G+13A) in the first 10 games. Those numbers are down a bit this season, but Malkin (6G+3A) is the highest scoring forward on the team again on October 27th. Sidney Crosby was off to a better start last year (7G+7A), though it may be worth pointing out that Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell had 15 points in 19 combined games between the two of them last October 27th. Those two veteran wingers only have 10 combined points in 19 games to start this season. Erik Karlsson has been similarly productive, last October 27th he had 9 points (all assists), this year Karlsson has a goal and 11 assists in the first 12 games of the season.

In other news, Crosby scored his 1,700th NHL point a year ago today. He’s up to 1,768 now. This was also the game where a fan fell from the upper concourse of the arena (hope things are well there!) in a story that seems like it happened both just the other day and also 5+ years ago simultaneously.

Last year the Pens were 7-2-1 on October 27th, out to a surprising start. This year the results have lagged with a 5-6-1 record that gives them a lot of work to do following an 0-4 road trip. You can’t really take that trip away and hold the rest up as similar, it counts just the same, but it does show perhaps some hope for the present day that this team can find a way to keep moving through the year in a positive manner like they did last season.