[ad_1]
The queues
The Penguins make two modifications to their range, one by choice and one by necessity. Unfortunately, Jared McCann (officially "daily with an upper body injury") is unavailable for the second game. Teddy Blueger takes his place in the formation and Zach Aston-Reese gets a promotion to the post of president. second line.
The change of composition by necessity is also unfortunate in order to improve the defensive performance of the last match that they put in the player with the worst statistics of shooting, luck and goals of the season. Fight the fire with gasoline, baby!
First period
Quiet start with a series of whistles, which is probably good for the Penguins. Jack Johnson with his first remarkable game, slowly playing a puck and returning it to his own zone at 4:35 pm, Casey Cizikas has a good chance at the tight but Matt Murray is here to stop him.
Evgeni Malkin takes the first power play of the game nearly 200 feet from his own net, getting his stick parallel to the ice and an Islanders player. A weak call but putting a stick in this position is just asking to be called. Pens do not kill her, however, which is remarkable since they have so many problems eliminating penalties lately.
Patric Hornqvist and Leo Komarov (basically the same super annoying person after the whistle) shoot each other in the penalty area with a scrum. Devon Toews puts a message on Murray during 4v4. Marcus Pettersson then returns the puck and Brock Nelson looks clear, but Murray makes a big stop this time.
Johnson then takes a stern penalty with 6:22 remaining in the period. The pens kill him. Johnson comes out of the penalty area and makes a decisive pass on the blind side to Adam Pelech, who does not have the puck. Johnson is back in the box for the second time of the period. Thank God for all the courage and hardness in the range!
Fortunately, it was not a direct contact between the shoulder and the head, nor a major penalty of five minutes.
With the 3-0 power plays for the NYI up to now, Anders Lee hangs on Erik Gudbranson at a level comparable to the one that Malkin had had against him earlier.
On 4v4, Nick Leddy divides Pens' defense and shoots Murray. Murray saves, Brian Dumoulin crushes in the net and Murray pulls off without too much reading, but it looks like Murray gets up slightly on one leg.
Pens do nothing with their abbreviated power play at the end of the period
Goals at the end finish 11-7 NYI, which is not so bad since the Islanders had 5:05 of time on the power play (at 1:05 for the Pens). 5v5 SOG are 6-5 PIT. However, the very dangerous 5v5 chances are 3 to 1 NYI and the Islanders' defensive structure continued to frustrate Pittsburgh up to 20.
Second period
Robin Lehner stops Garrett Wilson in the fourth line of the Pens, but the rebound goes to Matt Cullen. Lehner's leg emerges quickly to make a second stop in the sequence.
The fourth time in the NYI, Sidney Crosby scored a hook for an offensive zone, which did not create a chance for himself, nor even denied possession of the ball. Bizarre to call in series but cool. Then the shits continue to arrive with Erik Gudbranson Mathew Barzal and NYI receives a fifth call and 54 seconds in play 5v3. They get the time of the zone, but the PKers are standing.
Pittsburgh also kills the 5v4 and, one way or another, the Pens played 8+ outnumbered in the first 38 minutes of this game.
The first line of the pens regulates the situation and gets a little time in the offensive zone.
And finally, Pittsburgh hits. Malkin wins the zone passes to Gudbranson. Hornqvist has a great screen on Lehner and it is 1-0.
The Islanders fight back. Anthony Beauvillier goes through Gudbranson and Barzal steps on Marcus Pettersson. Murray stops one but Gudbranson flies over and the rebound is there for Beauvillier. 1-1 match.
In the chaos of the goal, the Pens get a numerical advantage when Barzal tries too hard. They do not do anything with that.
The shots in the second are 12-11 NYI, 5v5 shots are 11-9 Pittsburgh. The chances of 5v5 danger however are 4-2 NYI.
Third period
New lines with Malkin starting period with Hornqvist and Bryan Rust. Crosby then arrives (with Kris Letang in defense), as well as Dominik Simon with him and Jake Guentzel as usual. Zach Aston-Reese is now in third row with Nick Bjugstad and Phil Kessel.
In addition, the fact that most of these attackers were not mentioned in the first two periods of play before talking about their new lines in the third is a big problem!
Jordan Eberle runs ahead of Jack Johnson, Johnson can not stop Barzal's pass and Bailey gets a big setback before Schultz can conceal the mistake of making 2-1 in New York with 12:06 to go in the match .
Nick Leddy and NYI win their sixth power play of the game with a time remaining at 10:10. The Islanders make sure the Pens play with Josh Bailey who score from inside to finish at 3-1 with 8:22 remaining in the game.
Aston-Reese gets a good but hard luck in front of a centering effort from Kessel, but he misses it.
There are only 2:30 left for the residents who are attempting to attack Murray for an additional attacker. Lehner stops Kessel with the glove of the only glance they get.
And that's it, finish the scrum with Kessel, dropping his gloves and losing his helmet, Malkin hitting the guys left and right. Just a lot of frustration through two games for the star players of the Pens and a credit to the NYI that did not give them anything.
Some ideas
- The Pens only won 6 of the 25 first period matches and only 24 of the 57 (42%) in the match. Seems to be a tendency to run after play and puck since the very beginning.
- In the second period, for the first time to start a period, the pens flashed. As visitors during the first 5 periods (counting ergonomics), they sent Crosby's line and were conscientiously greeted by Cizikas. For this, they sent the Malkin group to start the period (a rarity for Sullivan, which usually starts with Sid) and Trotz did not delay in countering it by not sending Cizikas and keeping it fresh for the top of the Pens standings.
- Malkin was also going to start the 3rd and against Cizikas, which is interesting, Trotz gave in and just insisted on a good start trying to compete with # 87.
- Kessel scored 7 goals at the top of his team. It's good to see him shoot, but few people seemed so dangerous.
- The PK of the pens did a good job until the end, killing a good part of early. Yet they were too busy. Malkin and Crosby being penalized in the o-zone is bad, even though the calls were questionable.
- The power play of pens ranging from 0 to 05:05 is also disappointing. Pittsburgh are not going to win a lot of games when they lose the special teams battle in this series, and they lost it tonight. Lehner was very strong, but the players must know how to do it.
- The Islanders have cashed twice in the race. The pens have not managed to find much to gain space or to try their luck.
- Great to see Gudbranson score, but difficult for the next shift to over-skate and lose his guy in front of the net.
- And support players do not do much either. Rust, ZAR, Simon, all of these guys have to be contributors as the third opton on their lines. Tonight there was not much.
- The pens also flung themselves to the wall to see which sticks, Malkin and Kessel were reunited in the third period without any result. Between that and Johnson 's unsuccessful change, it would seem that Sullivan is pushing a lot of pimples, but none of them work for the moment.
- Speaking of: Johnson has an impressive 55% of Corsi for but decompose and there were 5 chances to score for, 9 against. 0 high risk, 5 very high risk, including a goal. As expected, trying to suppress Johnson to try to remove the opportunities and goals is a race for a fool.
- When Johnson was not on the ice, the chances of danger were 11 for Pens and only 3 against. What is the problem, why continue this momentum? See the GWG. All these chances are added sooner or later to the bad news and they ended up being earlier.
- NYI holds serve at home. This is significant, in the history of the NHL's seven-game series, when a team goes up 2-0 at home, it wins 89% of the time. The pens need to tie and do what they have to do to find a way to win the third match and see how it goes.
And let's see where we're going. Until now, the series has been battered by Pens, but she is about to return to Pittsburgh and start early as well. Maybe all the changes will bring about other changes. It can not be worse, right? The Pens are facing major challenges, especially as NYI's strengthened defense and strong goalkeepers are a formidable challenge. Will they attack or disappear? We are about to see what this year's team is all about.
[ad_2]
Source link