The Pittsburgh Penguins remedied their less than desirable loss to the Calgary Flames on Saturday by smoking the New Jersey Devils 6-1 on Sunday night. The Penguins win, coupled with Detroit's loss on Sunday, moves the Penguins into the first wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
I was comparing Saturday and Sunday's Penguins games and I while I agree that the loss to Calgary is a terrible result I don't think the team played as bad as most think. The perception of losing to a bottom-dweller like Calgary drove a lot of emotion-based takes. The games against Calgary and New Jersey were actually more similar than you would think from a process standpoint.
Anytime you are pumping out an xWin% around 70% you are doing pretty good. You may lose some of those games (hence the other 30%) but process will usually win out.
Evgeni Malkin scored two more goals yesterday and Sidney Crosby added a couple of assists. Crosby now has 143 two-assist games and he is in some pretty exclusive company
How lucky are the Penguins?
Tom Sestito made his first appearance of the year in the NHL. His "fight" with Jordin Tootoo resulted in a power play for the Penguins in which Malkin opened the scoring. The result of that sequence was good for the Penguins, but it wasn't intentional and doesn't prove Sestito's worth. Tootoo jumped Sestito, who slipped and then turtled, to avoid a beating. Like I said, good result but hardly intentional and part of some master plan.
Sestito played less than five minutes and had 0% possession. After the game he talked to Josh Yohe of DK on Pittsburgh sports and decided to call out Columbus forward Brandon Dubinsky.
I asked Sestito if he’s prepared to protect Crosby.
“Definitely,” he said. “If I can deter guys from taking runs at Sid, that’s my job. And if they’re taking runs at him, I’ll take runs at their stars. I’ll go after Dubinsky as much as I can.”
That's great and all but won't prevent anything. John Tortorella has last change because the game is in Columbus and Dubinsky is going to get four times the amount of ice time Sestito will. Then there is the whole dynamic of Dubinsky not actually having to engage with Sestito (and he won't).
Just take a look at an AHL example from this past weekend involving Patrick Kaleta of the Rochester Americans
Takes a dirty run at somebody, opposition tries to engage, he doesn't, refs get in the middle.
Hopefully the Penguins get over their Sestito fascination and return to playing bottom six players who can give around ten minutes of game action while not drowning in possession.
Derrick Pouliot drew out of the lineup in order to make room for Justin Schultz's debut. Schultz had a really nice assist on Bryan Rust's goal and did not get caved in defensively so all in all a solid debut. Only problem here was sitting Pouliot who has done a nice job since being recalled again.
Rust had a three-point night. He is a bigger and faster Tyler Kennedy and showed that off in front of the original.
Matt Murray had another quality outing. Six for six so far.
Pittsburgh has eight more consecutive games against Metropolitan Division opponents. The next one is Tuesday night against the New York Islanders.
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