Another late goal and another blown lead. This time the path led to victory as the Penguins survived in Nashville after Sidney Crosby’s game winning shootout goal on Pekka Rinne. The game was close on the scoreboard, but the Penguins probably deserved to win this one with some room to spare instead of scraping for it in the end.
There are a lot of blue names to the right of the 50% line and that includes a dominating territorial performance by the third line. The third line isn’t putting up points at the present moment, but they aren’t giving up any either. Playing at this level the offense will come.
Offense hasn’t been a third line problem the last few games. It has been a team wide problem. They only have five goals in their last four games. They have somehow made their way to overtime to earn some standings points and even earn a victory with scoring only a single goal. The reason this has been possible is the play of Matt Murray.
His overall save percentage is .918 this year and that is pretty amazing considering how the first 11 games went, an .879 save percentage giving up 39 goals on 317 shots. Since then? He’s stopped 984 pucks out of a possible 1,058. It amounts to a .930 all situations save percentage which would be impressive for at 5v5 let alone all situations. He’s playing at the same level he did during his playoff runs. If you combine the 2016 and 2017 playoff runs his all situations save percentage was .928. Even the samples are similar in size 32 games played in the playoffs runs to 31 right now.
The late goals are an annoyance created by the lack of goals. Criticizing a goaltender who has stopped 101 out of the last 106 shots is misguided. The real question is why is giving up a single goal in a game such a problem?
I want to take a look at the lone goal the Penguins scored last night. It looked like a nothing play, but Sidney Crosby is so good that he can play through minor mistakes and still back the defense off. Unfortunately, the highlight clip cuts off the beginning part of Crosby’s rush
Crosby was motoring through the neutral zone and went to make a cut move. The puck went off his stick unintentionally and he had to change his path to go wide. The lion’s share of players would panic because of a hiccup like that and dump the puck in. Crosby sticks with it even with a forward pinching him towards the wall. Most defenseman would read the back pressure by their forward and step eliminating the play. Crosby commands so much respect that he draws them both in and drops the puck to Bryan Rust. It looks like a whatever sequence, but very few players would get a controlled entry out of it. Without it the Penguins don’t have a single goal.
Pittsburgh is now tied for second in the Metropolitan Division with the New York Islanders. They have played one more game so they are technically the third place team for the moment. Finishing second and playing the Islanders is a best case playoff scenario for the Penguins.
Looks like the shine is coming off the PDO train and that isn’t good when you’re a 47% score-adjusted Corsi team. The Islanders strength this year has been goaltending and right now the Penguins have that as one of their strengths as well.
Things aren’t looking so hot for the Columbus Blue Jackets right now.
They are on the outside looking in again. Not great when you are all in. Here is what the schedule looks like for Montreal
They are going to have to navigate through some tough teams down the stretch. The blessing is they have a game with Columbus.
Columbus’ schedule looks like the better of the two
Needless to say the Penguins are in a much better spot than those two teams. They travel to Dallas to face the Stars on Saturday.
Thanks for reading!
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