

They're also blocking more shots than last season.



The Penguins finished 21st in that category last year. On a per-game basis, the Penguins are seventh this season.



Johnston said the Penguins are employing a different defensively philosophy this season by asking their defensemen to block more shots.

Part of it is by design, coach Mike Johnston said. Entering Tuesday, the Penguins were tied for the NHL lead in goals-against at 1.82. Their centers are entrusted with more defensive responsibility than ever.



“Sometimes, yeah, it may take a couple points off because we don't let (Crosby) blow the zone early,” Johnston said. “But that's good defensive play that's going to help you win games.”

The 2015-16 Pittsburgh Penguins aren't scoring nearly as many goals as people thought they would (25th in goals per game 2.20) and they aren't nearly as interesting to watch as people thought they would be either.It's been a real blah start to the season. Now that we are about 25% done with the year you can start to formulate some opinions with the 2015-16 sample.One thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that the 2015-16 Penguins aren't going anywhere meaningful if they don't change how they operate. They are a bottom half playoff team in the Eastern Conference. Not exactly where the team should be considering they have all of the hardest parts to acquire on a roster.The most frustrating part is that they showed just last year how good they could be until the injuries hit. Even when those injuries hit they were still better than the current version of the Penguins.On March 28 Kris Letang's season ended after Shane Doan hit him into the end wall. Christian Ehrhoff's season was over by that point and Olli Maatta's, too. Evgeni Malkin also missed time for injury and was forced back into the lineup prematurely in order to clinch a playoff berth. To cap things off the team was also playing with only five defensemen during this time period due to cap mismanagement. Despite all that their underlying numbers were still better than this year's team.From March 28th until the end of the season (7 games) Pittsburgh had a very impressive Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 54.7%. Their shot attempts against per 60 at even-strength was only 50.4. Fast forward to this year and you have a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 48.3% and a shot attempts against per 60 of 56.8.Could the drop in numbers be as simple as players underperforming. That seems like a logical place to start, but as you'll see the likelihood of that being the reason is very small.The word system gets thrown out quite a bit when criticizing coaches, but a lot of the time it is used as a generic buzzword. Does criticism of Mike Johnston's system fall under that category?Did Coach Johnston's system actually change this year?According to him it did. Here are two specific examples of Mike Johnston talking about the changes.It isn't just a couple points off and the team is worse defensively than they have been in years IE: since the Michael Therrien era.As a result of this new system Sidney Crosby is scoring at a career low rate and getting a lot of attention because of it. Is this a Sidney Crosby problem? Doesn't look like it.Every single player on the Penguins is down from their previous three season average in 5v5 points per 60 with the exception of the offensively challenged Rob Scuderi. Every. Single. Player. This screams that there is something wrong with their process. There is no chance that all of these players are simultaneously coming up short from their previous standard all at once.By most accounts Evgeni Malkin is playing some really good hockey this year. It still isn't as good as the level he was at the previous three years. Patric Hornqvist, David Perron, Chris Kunitz, Pascal Dupuis, Eric Fehr, and Nick Bonino have all seen dramatic drop offs. Sure some of that can be age related for the Kunitz/Dupuis combo, but it still doesn't explain the other four who aren't old and have all come from outside organizations in recent years.A few days ago I compared possession rates from the three previous seasons to the current one. Same thing. Almost every single player is coming up short of their previous standard.Mike Johnston's 2015-16 system isn't working. All of his players are playing worse than they did prior to the 2015-16 season. The system is also an eye sore to watch as it is incredibly boring.Ditch the status quo. The front office is tired of it, the players are tired of it, and the fans are certainly tired of it.Thanks for reading!Follow me on twitter Follow @GunnerStaal