The Pittsburgh Penguins will be facing their first, and hopefully not last, elimination game this evening as they try to extend their first round series against the New York Islanders. Tristan Jarry is obviously a main topic because he has directly blown two games while the Islanders have turned to Ilya Sorokin who has been lights out. Small samples and goaltending is the way the NHL playoffs go. It also doesn’t help when the team in front of the goalie lays a complete egg like the Penguins did in Game 4. It leaves you with minimal wiggle room for games where another goalie steals a well-played game from you. This is the situation the Penguins earned and they will now have to get out of it.
Some things the Penguins have going for them as they head into Game 6 is that overall they’ve played fine and at other times have played great. Game 5 was a clinic on playing great playoff hockey. The only thing you can do is to try and repeat that performance with some more finishing. If Ilya Sorokin is going to do his best to be the early Conn Smythe favorite the only thing you can do is keep throwing rubber his way and not make it any easier than it has to be for him. Game 5 was one of the best Penguins playoff performances in years. As a player you have to trust that if you put up a similar performance in Game 6 the result will be in your favor. If you don’t have this mindset you probably aren’t going to come close to replicating the things that went well.
Another thing which will help the Penguins is if Mike Sullivan coaches with some desperation. So many times the past few years the Penguins are trailing or need a goal in an elimination game and Sullivan is just rolling the lines like everything is normal. It’s not normal. You need goals and you need the players who are good at the goal thing to perhaps play a few shifts together with clever deployment. The fourth line has been great this postseason, but they probably aren’t the tool you want from the toolbox with two or three minutes left in the game trailing by one. This actually happened against Montreal last summer. Sorokin is off to a great start again? Why use a two-headed monster when you can use a three-headed monster? Throw Crosby, Malkin, and Guentzel out there. You can still come back with McCann-Carter-Rust and then the Blueger line. Please don’t just blindly roll the lines. Try and maximize your offensive players’ opportunities for success. It is basic level stuff.
None of it matters if Tristan Jarry can’t stop the puck, though. Right now the Penguins effectively do not have a backup goalie. If there was ever a time to go to the backup it was after Jarry’s second horrible performance of the series. Max Legace is only getting in if there is an injury and I’m pretty sure it is the right call even with Jarry playing like he is. Legace has 18 NHL games played and an .876 save percentage. The Casey DeSmith injury has really put the Penguins in a spot.
Don’t miss the start of the game. A nice wrinkle NBCSN has decided to throw at us is the game will “begin… at 6:30 and not at 7:00. Enjoy what very well could be the last game of the season.
Thanks for reading!