The Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers are set to start their third series in as many years on Wednesday night. Here is the full schedule.
And away we go. Pens get a Wed-Sat start pic.twitter.com/NtUSUIGlu6
— Meesh (@HockeyMeesh) April 11, 2016
This schedule favors the Pittsburgh Penguins in my estimation. While it isn't fun as a fan waiting two days in-between playoff games it will help injured players return. Pittsburgh has more injured players heading into this matchup which include Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury, Matt Murray, Olli Maatta, Bryan Rust, and Beau Bennett. The Rangers have a pretty big injury with Ryan McDonagh that this schedule will help as well.
I know this sounds crazy but there were actually some positive injury updates for the Penguins today.
Evgeni Malkin took the ice with Bryan Rust before the Penguins practice today. He was shooting pucks and according to firsthand accounts he looked pretty good
Evgeni Malkin is on the ice. Working on shooting the puck. And he looks pretty good.
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_PGH) April 11, 2016
Looking like a good bet Malkin will play sooner than later.
Pittsburgh also saw the return of Marc-Andre Fleury and Olli Maatta to official practice duty. Maatta is a good player but Fleury is the important variable here. Things sound pretty good. I would be incredibly surprised if he didn't make the start in Game 1 on Wednesday.
Fleury in good spirits. Feeling good. Symptom free last few days.
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_PGH) April 11, 2016
Here are the Rangers updates
McDonagh is definitely out to start the series, Vigneault confirms. Girardi expected to practice tomorrow and if all is good will play
— Pat Leonard (@PLeonardNYDN) April 11, 2016
McDonagh will probably play at some point this series but playing with a broken hand isn't something that is easy to do. Dan Girardi's return to the lineup is actually good news for the Penguins. He is their Rob Scuderi. Here's the evidence which includes Girardi's five most common players he shared the ice with.
Poor McDonagh. Girardi is just a complete dumpster fire. Only four more years at 5.5M...
Here is a snapshot of how teams around the NHL have been playing to close out the season
Pittsburgh is among the best and New York is the worst team in the playoff field. Possession had been a strength of the Rangers the past few years, but it is not at the moment. Sustainable playoff success is driven by the ability to control play at even-strength. Here are the past champions since possession stats were collected
As you can see possession is the main driver of playoff success. While you can ride great save percentages or shooting percentages in a short sample IE: seven game playoff series it seems like possession is the way to go. Half of the champions were the best possession teams in the league. Six of the eight champions were in the top five. Tough to dispute that.
There are two exceptions to the rule here. Pittsburgh's Stanley Cup run was fueled by Evgeni Malkin (36) and Sidney Crosby (31) scoring the most postseason points by any players in the cap era. Boston's 2010-11 Stanley Cup run was backed by Tim Thomas' all situations save percentage of .940 which is one of the best single season playoff performances of all time. Henrik Lundqvist is the best goalie of his generation and he should never be counted out, but the Bruins at least cracked a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of better than 50% which is something the Rangers cannot claim.
The long winded point being that you better be getting some incredibly special individual performances by your star players if you can't drive play.
We saw the possession metrics now here are the 20 game rolling averages for both even strength shooting and save percentages for Pittsburgh and New York this year.
Pittsburgh was one of the worst shooting teams to start the year and New York was one of the best. Since then things have evened out and both teams are tracking similarly with Pittsburgh having the slight edge.
In a little bit of a surprise it is the Rangers who have more peaks and valleys than the Penguins on this front. Right now things are pretty even heading into the playoffs.
Here are the 5v5 adjusted save percentages for the three most likely goalies to see action this series
Here's a breakdown of different team level statistics from Dom Luszczyszyn
2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs first-round preview: Pittsburgh Penguins vs. New York Rangers: https://t.co/Hs4JDIbTT5 pic.twitter.com/BjJlbrSAto
— The Hockey News (@TheHockeyNews) April 11, 2016
Rangers are the clear underdog in this series but the NHL is the one professional league that sees more underdogs find success than any other league. It is what makes the NHL's first round of the playoffs the most entertaining time in sports.
Tomorrow I hope to give my thoughts on all the round one matchups from around the league.
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On the brand new Hockey Hurts Podcast we decided to put idea of top seeds picking their playoff opponents to the test and we also broke down the actual first round series. You can find that here
Thanks for reading!