Mark Madden: From power play to structure, Penguins are far from playoff caliber

The Stanley Cup playoffs are showing what’s wrong with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and not just in terms of talent and depth.

Edmonton is converting on the power play 57.1% of the time during the postseason, an absurdly high rate. Like the Penguins, the Oilers’ man-advantage unit has mega-stars — even a bit more mega, truth be told. The Oilers’ PP had a success rate of 32.4% during the regular season, an NHL record.

The Penguins’ power play converted 21.7% of the time, 14th in the league.

The Penguins’ power play was mostly a mess. Foiled entries, clumsy structure and a nonstop search for backdoor tap-ins that came just frequently enough to keep them dedicated to the wrong pursuit.

The Oilers simplify. As often as not, they just blast away. Evan Bouchard plays up top. He’s got a cannon and uses it, not always deferring to bigger names. The open man shoots with no hesitation.

The Penguins just will not simplify. Ever. They won’t next season, either. Their approach will be identical.

The Penguins’ power play lacks a legit quarterback. That problem could be solved.

Put Sidney Crosby on the right half-wall. He could use that spot to function as the reset point and primary distributor. Crosby is the man for both jobs.

But that’s where Evgeni Malkin wants to play. Not to re-set or distribute, but to blast his one-timer. Problem is, he too rarely is teed up properly for it.

Crosby plays down low, deferring to Malkin.

Crosby is excellent down low. But he’s mostly wasted there. The power play would be better with him on the right half-wall. (Crosby misses out on at least 10 points per season by not playing the half-wall. It’s a stats spot.)

As the Penguins decline, decisions must be made without consideration for egos, feelings or pecking order.

The rationalization for the power-play’s flawed method is that players rotate through spots, nothing is rigid, it’s fluid, blah, blah, blah.

That’s excuse-making. Mario Lemieux set up on the left half-wall every game of his career and performed the same function Crosby should but with better finishing flair. It was as exact as possible.

The New Jersey Devils also provide a frustrating comparison.

The Devils are one of the NHL’s fastest teams, as fast as the Penguins during their speed heyday in the Cup-winning years of 2016 and ’17 and certainly much faster than the current Penguins. Pace is New Jersey’s trademark.

But when the Devils led the New York Rangers, 2-1, in the third period of Game 4 in their ongoing first-round playoff series, the Devils trapped the Rangers into submission, escaping Madison Square Garden with a 3-1 victory and a two-games-to-two stalemate. (The Devils won Game 5 on Thursday to take the series lead.)

The Devils are fast but slow things down when it makes tactical sense. They settle for winning.

The Penguins did that once. It was in Game 3 of last spring’s first-round series vs. the Rangers. The Rangers had overcome a 4-1 deficit to draw level at 4-4, but Danton Heinen scored to give the Penguins a 5-4 edge with a little less than nine minutes left.

The Penguins trapped for the game’s balance, cycling down low when they had the puck. They settled for winning. Two empty-net goals accounted for the 7-4 final.

That’s the last time the Penguins did that, even though circumstances dictated they should in Games 5, 6 and 7 of that series. The Penguins led by two in Games 5 and 6. They led by one with less than six minutes remaining in Game 7.

The Penguins doggedly stuck to their high-octane attacking style despite using a minor-league goalie in Games 5 and 6 and Tristan Jarry playing on one foot in Game 7.

The Penguins lost all those games, and the series.

Nobody’s saying the Penguins should trap for 60 minutes like the snooze-fest Devils did in the ’90s. But it absolutely should be part of their tactical arsenal depending on score and situation. The Penguins just aren’t that fast now.

The explanation for the Penguins’ approach is the whole league plays fast, you’ve got to skate fast, think fast, blah, blah, blah. But I saw what the Devils did in Game 4 at MSG. There should be a Plan B.

Watch the playoffs. You’ll see plenty of reasons why the Penguins aren’t playing. It’s not all because they’re not good enough.