#Pens trade Beau Bennett to New Jersey for 77th overall pick.

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) June 25, 2016

#Pens select defenseman Connor Hall from Kitchener of the OHL with the 77th pick.

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) June 25, 2016

I have a feeling that the Beau Bennett trade tree will be a short one. In 47 games in the OHL, Hall has an average of .19 points per game.

Given that most of the good defensemen in the NHL were racking up points in junior and college, that’s not a good sign:

Please show me all the good shutdown defenders that sucked at scoring in junior.
Thanks.

— Garret Hohl (@GarretHohl) June 23, 2016

@aud_mike Almost all good NHL defensive defensemen were not defensive defensemen in junior.

— Garret Hohl (@GarretHohl) June 25, 2016

This is what the Penguins Inside Scoop had to say about Hall:

. @daredlinereport on Hall: "Tough as nails. Loves to fight and throw bombs." I think Pittsburgh will love this kid -SK

— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) June 25, 2016

Hall is 6-2, 192 pounds. Still room to fill out. He's going to be a tank on skates -SK

— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) June 25, 2016

Sexton on if the physical play of Hall and Jones fits the #Pens speed system: "Absolutely" -SK

— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) June 25, 2016

* While Hall is from Kitchener, Ontario – where he plays major junior for his hometown Rangers – he actually grew up a big fan of Sidney Crosby and the Penguins.

“I enjoyed watching them through the whole playoffs and really cheered them on,” said Hall, who attended a couple of games at Mellon Arena when he was young. “Just overall, just love the city of Pittsburgh and really excited to join the Penguins organization.”

It helps that his current Ontario Hockey League head coach is Jay McKee, who spent his final NHL season in Pittsburgh back in 2009-10.

“He played for the Penguins a while back. He had a fun time there,” smiled Hall - funniest soccer commentator.

* Being such a fan of the team, it was surreal for Hall to hear his name called by the Pens and put on the brand-new Pittsburgh Gold jersey. He joked that his new sweater would fit right into the décor of his room at home.

“It’s an unbelievable experience,” he said. “Everyone always says that you never forget these moments and to be drafted by the Stanley Cup champions, it’s really a dream come true.”

It’s even sweeter after the season that he had, where Hall played just three games in the first half because of a 10-game suspension and a broken jaw sustained in a fight.

Ryan Wilson wrote a good post comparing this draft class to some recent Penguin defensemen . I took his idea and ran with it:

Now, maybe Hall will turn on the offense after dealing with a jaw injury. Maybe not. I’m always hopeful that the Penguins find a diamond in the rough, but in this case, I’m skeptical.

Updated: I added a graph that shows only the player’s first season in their respective youth league.

*All metrics below are 5v5 score-adjusted*

Following my last post, I wanted to take a look at how the coaching change in Pittsburgh impacted individual players.

First, let’s look at shot generation: The first line of Kunitz-Crosby-Hornqvist is the biggest beneficiary of the coaching change. The second line increased slightly, while the rest of the players experienced middling results.

The defense experienced improvement across the board, Letang most significantly.

The forwards experienced similar positive changes in scoring chance generation.

The defense followed the same path.

In terms of individual shot generation, Patric Hornqvist experienced the largest increase among forwards.

The second pairing of Dumoulin-Lovejoy increased their individual shot generation the most.

The changes in individual scoring chances followed the same pattern. Again, Hornqvist improved the most.

Now, let’s review shot and scoring chance suppression.

Most of the forwards had a distinct drop in shots against.

The defense also improved in shot suppression.

In scoring chances against, the same general pattern held for the forwards and defense. Curiously, Kunitz is the only member of the first line to have an increase in scoring chances against.

Defense:

Finally, let’s look at primary point production.

Crosby is the obvious standout here. I wouldn’t read too much into the other results because players go into slumps all the time for reasons we aren’t privy to.

Letang is the other standout in point production. Again, I wouldn’t read into the other players too heavily.

The main takeaway here is that Sullivan’s system is designed to let the top players be top players. Crosby, Malkin, and Letang are driving play at a much improved rate. Crosby’s current point streak indicates that his slump at the beginning of the year is over with. More importantly (for some), Sullivan’s Penguins are a lot more fun to watch.

Today, the NWHL for the entire league. This is an extremely progressive move that highlights how serious the league is in regards to engaging with their fans (ahem NHL).

I created a quick viz to show who the teams spent their money on, and from which country the athlete hails.