Derrick Pouliot and Beau Bennett may be very close to returning, but it won't be tonight.
Same lineup tonight
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_Trib) April 24, 2015
The Pittsburgh Penguins will roll out the same lineup from Game 4 as they try to extend their season with a victory over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden tonight.
Each of the four games to this point have been one goal contests but with the exception of Game 2 it feels like the Penguins are climbing uphill at all times to generate scoring chances.
While the Penguins were the better possession team in the regular season they have not found that same success against the Rangers. Pittsburgh only has a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 47.3% this series. A far cry from their 53.5% from the regular season. Playing without their top four defensemen is the obvious culprit here.
So the Penguins no longer have possession as a means of defense but their goaltender has held strong. Fleury has an adjusted save percentage (weighted save percentage that takes into consideration high danger, medium danger, low danger shots) of .934 The problem for Pittsburgh is that Henrik Lundqvist has been even better at .946
Making matters worse for Pittsburgh is that they are not generating nearly as many scoring chances each game as they were in the regular season
Scoring chances per game via @war_on_ice: Pens reg. season: 28.0 Pens playoffs: 21.3 Rangers reg. season: 25.6 Rangers playoffs: 22.0
— Jason Mackey (@Mackey_Trib) April 24, 2015
Fact is that nobody generates as many chances in the postseason because of the league's willingness to ignore infractions, but you can see that drop off for Pittsburgh is a lot worse than it has been for New York.
Pittsburgh has the puck less, is generating fewer scoring chances, and Lundqvist is doing Lundqvist things.
How great has Lundqvist been against Pittsburgh? Ever since the Penguins took a 3-1 series lead over New York in the 2014 playoffs Lundqvist has allowed 1, 1 ,1, 1, 4, 1, 1 goals the last 7 playoff games against the Penguins. Ten goals in seven playoffs games is tremendous. Pittsburgh hasn't been able to generate anything against him.
Pittsburgh needs to crack the Henrik Lundqvist riddle or they are cooked.
If they can't overcome the above issues their season will end tonight.
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