For better or worse the Pittsburgh Penguins will not be making any changes to their lines as they enter a huge Game 5 contest against the New York Islanders. Mike Sullivan is banking on these combinations being the best he can come up with.
Same lines and pairs at #Pens morning skate as we've seen the last two games:
— Mike DeFabo (@MikeDeFabo) May 24, 2021
Guentzel – Crosby - Rust
Zucker – Malkin - Kapanen
McCann - Carter - Gaudreau
ZAR – Blueger – Tanev
Dumoulin - Letang
Matheson – Ceci
Pettersson – Marino
Mike Sullivan is very rigid when compared to the other Penguins Stanley Cup winning coach of this era. Dan Bylsma certainly had his own set of issues (many created by Ray Shero), but one of them wasn’t his flexibility in how he used his lineup. Bylsma would organically create mismatches throughout a game including putting Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin out together at 5v5 frequently among other in-game adjustments.
It would be one thing for the Penguins to head into tonight’s game with the same exact lineup if Mike Sullivan had a history of deviating from the lines during a game for certain situations. He does not. Classically speaking Sullivan sticks to what he goes into the game with. During the regular season I have less of an issue with it because your opponents are constantly changing. Even in a season full of back to backs you still get different matchups frequent enough. In a playoff series you need to be willing to adjust and make changes to counter what the other team is doing. I don’t think Sullivan has done a great job of this and it is a big reason why the Penguins, despite being the higher seed the last three years, have struggled to put away their round one opponent. This year more than the past two the Penguins have decent depth. There are a lot of interesting options to go with. He doesn’t seem interested in trying any of them. He doesn’t appear to make an effort to avoid matchups the other team wants even when on home ice.
Can the Penguins win with this lineup? Yes, they've done so twice. Is it the best path forward?
There are really no excuses for the Penguins to lose this series. The roster is plenty good enough. Is the deployment?
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