Well how about that. What a way to kick of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Pittsburgh Penguins outlasted the New York Rangers in triple overtime to secure a Game 1 victory. Things were dicey early on and then the Penguins put the pedal down.
Despite being the older team, it was the Penguins who looked fresher in the overtime periods. It was Evgeni Malkin who tipped in a John Marino shot from the point to end things
The goal bucked the trend of losing in overtime in Game 1 each of the last three seasons. I don’t need to tell you how those series went. It was a huge victory. It was led by their star players. It was a historic performance
Evgeni Malkin had the game winner and had a wonderful assist on Bryan Rust’s power play goal during a 5v3. A 5v3 where they moved the puck with a purpose coming off of a timeout. They even tried their own version of the play the Leafs used for Auston Matthews the other night which is a good idea (free Malkin up for one-timer).
The Crosby line was on fire. They were amazing. They owned the Rangers. Jake Guentzel scored the first two goals for the Penguins. In 52 playoff games since becoming a Penguin Guentzel has 28 goals. Only Alexander Ovechkin, Brayden Point, and Brad Marchand have more goals in the playoffs. His goals per 60 at 5v5 is 1.50 in the playoffs and nobody has been better since he has joined the league. This is somehow the same guy people call soft.
Jake Guentzel’s second goal was a textbook example of how to win a 2v2 battle on the rush. Sidney Crosby showed amazing patience in keeping the defenders above the tops of the circle allowing Guentzel to sneak behind them.
That’s how you do it, kids.
As a line Guentzel-Crosby-Rust played 25:25 together in Game 1. As I said they owned the Rangers. They out-attempted their opponents 44 to 16 with an xGF% of 80.05. Just an amazing effort from the players who the team really needed. This of course doesn't hurt the cause
Let’s talk about goaltending. Both teams received a great effort on this front. One was somewhat predictable (Igor Shesterkin) and one was an absolutely wild ride. Casey DeSmith played as well as you could have wanted. He stopped 48 out of 51 shots, but then he stopped. He pulled himself from the game in the middle of an overtime period. A shocking moment. Enter Louis Domingue fresh off the bench after three or so hours not being active in the most volatile environment possible. He stepped up and gave the Penguins a 17 out of 17 performance and earned the victory. An amazing moment for Domingue who earns his first postseason victory. He might be in line for his first ever postseason start depending on how Casey DeSmith is doing.
We will see how things go there. Not a ton of information has been made available as of writing this. The one thing we know is that it is a lower body injury.
As wild as the Penguins situation was Igor Shesterkin was a show stopper in his playoff debut. The Penguins flooded the net with attempts. Shesterkin finished the game stopping 79(!) out of 83 shots for a save percentage of .952. How about these numbers
The Penguins are going to keep needing shot volume because the likely Vezina winner seems dialed in. They also need to stay in front of the net. They did a great job in Game 1.
We had a couple of sketchy calls during the game, one going against each team. The first one happened early in the game. Rickard Rakell was hit with a clear head shot. Somehow the referees used replay and dropped the penalty from a five-minute major to just a minor. I have no idea how you reach that conclusion. It was pretty obvious. But this league is this league. The Rangers did really well here. They’ll take their meaningless $5,000 fine while Rakell left the game after only 4:28 with a likely concussion. While the Rangers lost Game 1 you do have to wonder how the Penguins will bounce back after exerting themselves the way they did considering the core’s age. If they are down both Rakell and Zucker it really neuters the Penguins attack. Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby each played 29 minutes. They only played 18 seconds together at 5v5. The game had 98 minutes of 5v5 time. So Malkin or Crosby was out for 58 out of the 98 minutes. How many games can you lean hard into that usage. Especially, with Malkin who now has Kapanen on his wing out of necessity. It isn’t an easy ask.
The other sketchy call was the goaltender interference from late in the game in what would have been a likely Rangers game winning goal. Personally, I think the bump Dumoulin gave could have been interpreted as enough to make Kaapo Kakko go deeper and as a result causing his cut back to run into DeSmith. It wasn’t a huge bump, but I think it did change his trajectory even if it was slight. Dumoulin was fortunate because he would have been the goat, and not the good kind. It was his bumbling turnover at the blue line that caused this situation to start in the first place.
We know that goaltender interference calls are a coin flip. They don’t follow logic at times. The Penguins were fortunate to get the call they got. Those are the breaks in this league.
How about a shout out to Kris Letang who led all skaters in 5v5 time at 41:01 and 46:30 in all-situations. He could have fooled me. He looked like he had only played ten minutes deep into the third overtime. He is an athletic freak. Without him the Penguins aren’t able to sustain the things they did well last night. He finished the game with an xGF% of 67.18. A dominating performance from a guy they absolutely needed to have. During the ESPN broadcast they mentioned both Letang and Malkin’s contract situations and how the hang up is term. Just give both these players their term and move on. Who freaking cares? You aren’t going to be spending to the cap in a full rebuild anyways. Letang has multiple great years left in him.
Speaking of the ESPN broadcast this game was on the flagship station. What a great game to give what I would think is a lot of casual viewers tuning in. These are the kinds of games that deserve a spotlight and the league’s new TV contract should be able to provide a better platform for them.
The Penguins will have a day to collect themselves and rest their legs. They will be right back at it tomorrow night against a Rangers team who will be ready to go.
What a start for the Penguins.
Thanks for reading!
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