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Tonight, the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs kick off for the Pittsburgh Penguins. They will be the underdog in their first-round series against the Presidents' Trophy winning New York Rangers, but it is not an unwinnable series for the Penguins.
A big part of the playoffs are about matchups and how a coach will allocate his player’s ice time especially at home with the last change. Are there any matchups that the Penguins should be OK with? And are there matchups they need to stay away from?
I am going to take a look at how some of the players on the Penguins have done against certain Rangers matchups (50:00 minimum ice time against one another) over the past four seasons. Why four seasons? Because that is the largest sample I can pull while including 2014-15 data.
*All data taken from Hockey Analysis*
Sidney Crosby
Due to Crosby’s various ailments over the past four years these are the only players on the Rangers he has shared the ice with for 50:00 or more.
As we can see if the Rangers want to utilize their top pairing of McDonagh/Girardi on Crosby that would probably be a welcomed sight for Head Coach Mike Johnston. Crosby has had his share of success against those two forwards as well.
Famously last year it was Marc Staal guarding Crosby with isolated moments of brute force. Crosby still wins the territorial battle against Staal but is not nearly as successful against Staal as he is with McDonagh/Girardi.
Evgeni Malkin
As you can see the idea of Dan Girardi being in a top pairing for the Rangers is a good thing for the Penguins. His results against both Crosby and Malkin are less than ideal. However, Ryan McDonagh has a lot more success against Malkin than he does with Crosby (48.3% vs. 44.0%). Geno crushes Marc Staal.
If given the choice Mike Johnston should try and get Crosby out against the McDonagh/Girardi pairing and allow Geno to continue to make Marc Staal’s life difficult.
Brandon Sutter
There aren’t a lot of true surprises here, but the one thing that needs to be taken from this is that BRANDON SUTTER IS NOT A SHUTDOWN CENTER. Do not match him up against Rick Nash. You would be setting him up for failure in that situation.
Paul Martin
Paul Martin has been a solid defenseman for quite some time and right now he is the only true top pairing guy the Penguins have given all the injuries. These numbers are encouraging except for one of them. Rick Nash has his way with Paul Martin.
Christian Ehrhoff
And here is the wild card for the series. The Penguins really need Christian Ehrhoff to make a legit push against the Rangers. He has mild success against most of his Rangers matchups however the big one that stands out is him getting the better of Rick Nash. Even though the sample size isn’t large it is encouraging to see Ehrhoff with a CF% of 52.0% against Nash. Ehrhoff is probably their best option to take away the Rangers best goal scorer. Pittsburgh will be without Ehrhoff for at least game 1. Can Ehrhoff come back and be effective? Might be the difference between making this a series or if the Penguins go quietly into the offseason.
So for a quick summary:
Geno owns Marc Staal and Dan Girardi while Ryan McDonagh seems to slow him down the best. Derek Stepan has found success against Malkin.
Sid owns the McDonagh/Girardi pairing. Does OK against Marc Staal. Crosby excels against Derek Stepan.
Keep Brandon Sutter away from Rick Nash.
Paul Martin finds success against most Rangers players except for Rick Nash.
Ehrhoff has mild success against most Rangers players and is the only one who has a territorial advantage over Rick Nash.
Mike Johnston has some options to try and maximize the Penguins success. It will be interesting to see how Johnston will try and allocate his player usage against the Rangers.
Thanks for reading!
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