When you have read articles and heard interviews over the last few days, a constant theme that kept coming up is "grit" and "character." The Pens were missing that from this team. They were missing the guys who would go to the dirty areas, finish their checks, lighten up the room when things got a little too tight, essentially do the little things that help you win. A major reason they did not have that was because the biggest character they DID have was watching from a press box. Dupuis went down with a major knee injury December 23 in Ottawa. He hoped rest would do it, but ultimately had to have ACL and MCL surgery in February. He was lost for the season.
So that being said, allow us to take a look at the impact Pascal Dupuis made on this team in the mere 39 games he played. Honestly, it should be 38 games because he only played 1:10 in the Ottawa game before being lost, but we are going to do a lot of nit-picking here so let's just go with 39. Then we will look at the 43 games the Pens played without him and compare the numbers.
In 39 games for the Penguins this season, Pascal Dupuis scored 7 goals, had 13 assists totally 20 total points. He was a plus-6 and had 97 shots in those games. Pretty decent numbers through 39 games. Now, the telling fact is in those 39 games the Pens were 27-12 overall (OT losses are just losses in this case). In those 27 wins, the Pens had 6 different stretches were they won at least 3 games in a row. Pascal Dupuis went down v. Ottawa on December 23rd. In the 43 regular season games the Pens played without him, their record was just 22-19 and only ONCE did they manage a stretch of at least 3 wins in a row. What does that show me? It shows me the Pens are a far more consistent team with Pascal Dupuis on the ice. Now, do you want to chalk up the last 43 game struggles to injuries? You can, but these numbers show that the biggest injury may have been Duper's. In the 39 games Dupuis played, the Pens played without at least Letang, Neal, Orpik, Martin, Scuderi, Glass and Bennett on a nightly basis. In the 43 games without Dupuis, the biggest injuries to affect the Pens were Letang and Martin; everyone else was healthy enough to play for the most part.. So play the injury card if you want, but the Pens were more consistent those first 39 games.
Now, another area where Duper's impact was sorely missed was on the top line. The Pens were completely unable to find someone comfortable playing beside Crosby and Kunitz after Dupuis went down. Brian Gibbons did a very good job, but he did not have the scoring touch of Dupuis. Lee Stempniak was ok, but he didn't have the speed to keep up with that line. So what were the numbers for Crosby and Kunitz with Duper in and out of the lineup?
Let's start with Sidney Crosby. In the first 39 games with Duper in the lineup, Crosby tallied 20 goals, 32 assists for 52 total points. Thats roughly about 1.5 points per game. He was also a plus-10 rating and had 132 shots. Now, there really is not much of a drop off in production statistically, but he was far less consistent without Duper. In the 41 games Sid played without Duper, he scored 16 goals, tallied 36 assist for 52 points. He was only a plus-8 and had 127 shots. Those numbers seem pretty equal overall. However, if you look at the individual games over the two spans, you will see that Crosby was more consistent (aka fewer games without a point) with Dupuis than without.
As for Chris Kunitz, the splits are similar to Crosby but he had a bigger drop without Dupuis. In those first 39 games, Chris Kunitz scored 20 goals, had 19 assists for 39 points. He was a plus-16 and had 116 shots. In the 39 games Kunitz played without Dupuis, he only scored 15 goals, had 14 assists for 29 points. He also was only a plus-9 in that stretch and had 102 shots. Like Crosby, Kunitz was far more consistent playing WITH Dupuis than without. He was averaging a point per game with Duper in the lineup, while he was more streaky and averaged less than one point per game the last 39 games.
The numbers tell the story. The Pens were a far more consistent team with Pascal Dupuis in the lineup than they were without him. Again, you can use the injury argument, but if you look at the breakdown, the Pens were without more of their big guns when Dupuis was still in the lineup than when he wasn't. And their better stretch of hockey was with more injuries to the big guys with Dupuis in the lineup, than the stretch where the big guys were relatively healthy and Duper was gone. Now, I am not saying that Pascal Dupuis is the only reason we aren't still playing, but he most certainly is a big reason why that is the case. The numbers don't lie and they prove that Duper really is rather Super.
Photo courtesy of Dave DiCello via Flickr.