The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the New York Rangers by a score of 4-3. They were led by two goals from Sidney Crosby as well as some goals from two other guys who need to chip in for Pittsburgh to win games (Sutter, Kunitz).
Winning Game 2 was huge for Pittsburgh. It buys them more time for Ehrhoff and Pouliot.
Sidney Crosby continues to drive possession against the New York Rangers and last night he had tangible offensive success as his reward. Crosby continued to make mince meat of the McDonagh/Girardi pairing. Sid was at a CF% of ~66% against the both of them in Game 2.
Chris Kunitz apparently found his hands again. His pass on Crosby's second goal was a rewind the clock kind of moment. Those kind of plays used to happen on a regular basis. Him finding loose pucks near the goal mouth successfully is also something that used to happen on a regular basis. Both those things happened last night and the Penguins were better for it. Kunitz finished with a goal and two assists.
GIF: Crosby scores again, puts Pens up 3-1 pic.twitter.com/4WTQFpnEgz
— Stephanie Vail (@myregularface) April 19, 2015
Brandon Sutter is serving up healthy servings of recency bias but scoring goals and producing points is what it is all about. If he is somehow able to continue to score goals it will help alleviate his CF% of 38.7% that he has so far this series. Bad possession + goals = people can look the other way a little bit. Bad possession + no goals = bad situation.
Daniel Winnik is having a rough go of it so far in the playoffs. Normally reliable for his strong possession game he only has a CF% of 30.3%. This needs to be way better. He is way more capable than what he has done in Games 1 and 2.
Malkin didn't any points but that save he made at the goalline was amazing.
GIF: Geno Malkin saves a goal by shooting the puck out of the crease with his stick between his legs pic.twitter.com/HSQbs3OX8y
— The Cauldron (@TheCauldron) April 19, 2015
Taylor Chorney and Brian Dumoulin have been thrown into a tough spot. AHL players for the entire season and they are thrown into the fire against a very good New York Rangers team. Brian Dumoulin has a CF% of 54.55% and Taylor Chorney is at 54.05%. You can't really ask for much more whether these two are being sheltered or not.
Pittsburgh continues to take penalties against the Rangers and mostly all of them are well deserved. The Penguins have taken 12 penalties in the first two games of the series. The good news is that the penalty kill was successful six out of their seven opportunities last night.
If you are trying to make sense of the discrepancy of penalties in a series where possession is reasonably close don't bother.
There is literally no correlation between possession and power play opportunities. Logic dictates there should be, but there is not.
The Penguins have shown that this will not be just a one sided series. With the series shifting back to Pittsburgh for Games 3 and 4 Mike Johnston will be afforded the last change. I look forward to seeing how he allocates his ice time for matchup purposes.
Each team will get a rest today and they will resume play on Monday night. Will Ehrhoff and Pouliot be available?
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That fart noise you heard last night around 8:15 EST was the Oilers winning the lottery for Connor McDavid. One huge positive of this is that nobody will spew out the lottery was rigged. Edmonton has some really fun pieces and they literally have no excuses anymore.
McDavid being out West means that his impact on the Pittsburgh Penguins will be very minimal.
Hey, at least it wasn't New Jersey.
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