ST. LOUIS — Ryan Graves’ adjustment period remains ongoing five games into his Penguins tenure.
The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Graves inked a six-year contract on the first day of free agency, with it appearing abundantly clear at the time that he’d take over long-tenured defenseman Brian Dumoulin’s role as Kris Letang’s defensive partner. Even after the Penguins traded for Erik Karlsson a little over a month later, that remained the case, with Graves and Letang deployed simultaneously throughout training camp and the preseason.
Speaking after the team’s Wednesday night loss to the Red Wings, which preceded Saturday evening’s defeat at the hands of the Blues, Graves discussed his acclimating to the Penguins’ playing style — and Letang’s in particular.
“I think it's been better each game, to be honest,” Graves said. “There’s a learning curve to it. I think there’s been a learning curve for me coming to a new system that’s been very different than the system that I played in [New] Jersey. Jersey plays a system unlike any other team in the league.”
To Graves’ point, the offensively driven Penguins are dissimilar in many ways to the Devils, the team he laced his skates for the previous two seasons after starting his career with the Colorado Avalanche. Unlike the Penguins, one of the oldest teams in the league last season and this year, the Devils are a youthful squad that plays a defensive-oriented game.
Graves, who’s known more for his defensive work than bringing the puck up the ice or for his vision, seems a natural complement to Letang for this reason. It’s not terribly dissimilar to how the steady Marcus Pettersson fits well opposite Karlsson.
But with how much the Penguins want to lean on their offensive identity, Graves has looked hesitant at times. He chalks up any growing pains while operating to Letang’s left as being the result of him learning the ways of his new team.
“Regardless of where I went to, it's going to be a big adjustment and there's been a learning curve for me,” Graves said. “But it's getting better each game and it's coming along. As long as we're trending in the right direction, there's positives to take from it.”
The basic on-ice results have been in the tandem’s favor so far. The Penguins have outscored their opponents at 5-on-5 with both Letang and Graves on the ice, per Natural Stat Trick. The advanced metrics, though, suggest there’s some room for improvement.
The Penguins’ expected-goals-for rate is 44% when Letang and Graves are out there; that figure jumps to over 60% when they’re not. The Penguins have let up nearly twice as many high-danger scoring chances with the duo on the ice, with three of them turning into goals in roughly 72 minutes of shared ice time.
“I think it's a work in progress,” coach Mike Sullivan said about the pairing. “Those guys, they have moments when they're, I think, in sync, and then others where they haven't been as much.
“But I think part of it is just getting to learn each other's tendencies. And so we’ll continue to work with them to try to expedite that process. But I think for the most part, it's been a pretty good process for us”
Part of what made Dumoulin so invaluable for several years at his peak was how seamlessly he was able to play off Letang, who has a propensity for going rogue in the offensive zone. It’s a key attribute of Letang’s that while maddening at times has allowed him to craft a career that could secure him a spot in the Hockey Hall of Fame one day.
In the Penguins’ latest defeat, though, Graves showed that he’s still learning when he needs to hang back, like when failing to break up a 2-on-1 rush that led to a point-blank Blues scoring chance.
The Karlsson-Pettersson pairing, meanwhile, has been humming from the outset. The Penguins have nearly doubled up their opponents’ high-danger scoring chances when Sullivan has turned to that pairing.
Speaking about both Karlsson and Letang in a broad sense, Sullivan discussed how each player’s “unique” style contributes to their partner needing time to learn how to play off them.
“We're encouraging both Erik and Kris to trust their instincts, and we're giving them the latitude to do what they do best, so to speak, within the confines of our team framework,” Sullivan said. “But as a partner, I think it's important that they understand their tendencies, and that's a little bit of a process that takes place.”
That period of getting up to speed has by all indications been a smoother one for Pettersson than Graves. Pettersson perhaps had an advantage or two, having spent the last few seasons with the Penguins and already having some experience skating alongside a similar player to Karlsson in Letang.
But after back-to-back road losses and a pair of tough Western Conference opponents looming in the Stars and Avalanche, it would behoove the Penguins to have Graves’ comfort level with the team’s systems and Letang increase quickly.
Andrew Destin: adestin@post-gazette.com and Twitter @AndrewDestin1
First Published: October 22, 2023, 4:59 p.m.