The two points are two points and that’s a good thing, but the Penguins got torched at 5v5 last night.
I mean, Troy Brouwer was driving possession and that’s a good sign that things aren’t going your way. Helping the Penguins cause last night was Mike Smith’s injury
Calgary’s team save percentage is down to 0.884% (0.876 EVSV%) in the 11 games since Mike Smith went down.
— Pat Steinberg (@Fan960Steinberg) March 6, 2018
That’s not all on the goalies, but boy have things dropped off. #Flames
It hasn’t been a good stretch for the Flames in the goaltending department. Pittsburgh’s Tristan Jarry had a solid game given the amount of rubber he faced. He gave up three goals which was offset by a .921 save percentage. If you give up 38 shots and allow three that’s to be expected on most nights.
Evgeni Malkin still has a puncher’s chance at some hardware this year. There are a lot of good candidates for the Hart Trophy and Malkin is still one of the underdogs. He is three points behind Nikita Kucherov and three goals behind Alexander Ovechkin. For my money I believe Nikitia Kucherov is the front runner for the Hart Trophy. We still have a month left in the season and things could change although I don’t see Kucherov slowing down. He’s on one of the best teams and is having the best season to this point. It’s also worth noting that I despise the interpretation that some of the voters have with the Hart Trophy. The whole “most valuable to their team… thing is crap. It should go to the player who was the most outstanding plain and simple. Most valuable to the team has too many implications with how good or bad the general manager is. That isn’t the player’s fault nor do they have any control over it. A player playing on a great team shouldn’t have that held against them. Most years it isn’t an issue, but sometimes it is. Just keep it simple, most outstanding player.
The Flames second and third goal highlighted the importance of generating controlled zone entries. The plays differed stylistically and had the same end result.
Michael Frolik does a great job on his entry. Instead of skating into the defensemen and closing his own gap he stops to create time and space and maintain that gap. This freezes the timing of the defensemen just enough so that when the puck gets distributed to Mikael Backlund he has the ability to make a move and gain his path to the goal. Yes, Kris Letang got dusted. These are the kinds of plays that nobody forgets. These are the plays that lead you to believe he’s not having a great year. The real breakdown on this play was in the neutral zone. Conor Sheary and Tom Kuhnhackl have a handle on their assignments. Riley Sheahan got beat up the ice by Frolik and did not close in on him fast enough. The damage was done. Letang is capable of making a better play there, but isolating him on this would be willfully ignoring why his gap was the way it was. Letang did make up for his mishap by scoring a goal of his own later in the game.
Troy Brouwer not only had a good night with possession, he also scored a goal, his fifth of the year. This zone entry was the result of the three forwards getting caught down low. The result was a 4v2 and when Olli Maatta lost a step to the Flames player wide it was only a matter of time until TJ Brodie found somebody who was open. With three seconds in the period you can only blame the forwards for being so careless and allowing that situation to fester.
All was not lost, the Penguins made it to overtime and put their closers out on the ice. Phil and Geno once again teamed up to generate a game winning goal in overtime. This time it was Justin Schultz closing the game out
We love 3-on-3 OT.
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 6, 2018
We love it so much.
And we're all so lucky to be Penguins fans. pic.twitter.com/oX2JNuixhh
Phil and Geno burning teams in overtime yet again. Never gets old.
Thanks for reading!