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The Pittsburgh Penguins spent Wednesday night’s game against the Detroit Red Wings fine tuning some details as the playoffs draw closer. The Penguins did leave with the 4-3 victory but I believe that was secondary to some of the things that they were trying to do.
First things first, how great was it to have Kris Letang back in the lineup? This Penguins team is night and day when Kris Letang and Paul Martin are both able to contribute. The Penguins finally have 3 competent defensive pairings. Each pairing has at least one quality puck distributor as Letang, Martin, and Niskanen are spread amongst each pairing. The “bottom pairing” actually has two puck skilled defenseman with the combo of NIskanen and Maatta.
Kris Letang wasted no time showing off what the team has been missing with his skill set. His skating skills were on full display. He created the Penguins 3rd goal out of nothing. It was Letang’s agile skating at the Penguins blue line that led to his controlled zone entry. There was some luck involved with the rebound that Jokinen popped into the net but the puck isn’t in the Detroit zone if not for Letang’s dynamic ability. Try telling Engelland or Bortuzzo to do that.
Letang was able to juke away from the forechecker and get to top speed in 3 strides, very impressive.
Letang is still going to make some mistakes but his positives far outweigh the negative, the last 2 months are absolute proof of that.
As for the actual game the Red Wings outplayed Pittsburgh for most of the game at even strength. Normally that wouldn’t be an ideal result but I found some positives in the game that can make me ignore the even strength play for now.
The Penguins were practicing their approach in defeating the trap.
This has been an issue in the past and last night I saw signs of true adjustments being made in order to combat that trap. By having the forwards coming down low in the zone the Penguins are able to make short 10 foot passes and force the Red Wings to commit, this opens up possibilities. Another reason these 10 foot passes are available is because the defensemen who can move their feet can change the angle of the passing lane which opens up these opportunities. The players who can’t move their feet are forced into hard rims that play into the teeth of the trap.
Penguins are known for their stretch passes and when you force stretch passes against a trap the other team does not have to commit, they can just wait for you to come to them. By coming down low and generating speed this freed up space in the neutral zone. This was good to see. All of this is made possible by having puck moving defensemen playing on your team. This doesn’t work with unskilled puck movers. As mentioned above the Penguins have a guy who is capable of making proper plays like that in every pairing now.
James Neal scored two power play goals last night and they were both very nice. The issue isn’t James Neal on the power play though, its James Neal at even strength right now. James Neal is a good player who works hard but he lacks the dynamic ability to create for himself. He does an excellent job of finding soft spots to let his excellent shot go and he also battles hard on the forecheck. But he isn’t the same player when he is lacking Evgeni Malkin by his side. James Neal cannot be James Neal without that center support.
Last night on a few occasions I noticed that Dan Bylsma put James Neal up with Crosby and Kunitz. The reason I noticed is because James Neal was noticeable again. I believe this was a good move and I do believe if Malkin misses a few games to start the playoffs that Neal should play with Crosby and Kunitz. You need to get the most out of Neal and playing him with a top center is how you do it. Beau Bennett can temporarily drop down and play with Jokinen and Gibbons.
Beau Bennett will probably be just as effective on that line as James Neal would be and Neal can be freed up to reach his potential ceiling again by playing with Crosby. In a perfect world Malkin will be back and this is not necessary.
When Evgeni Malkin does come back this roster gets a lot better. The top 6 is solid and the third line becomes playable with Sutter, Stempniak, and Gibbons. The 4th line is still unplayable. They stink. Not much to add there.
If the Penguins can take care of business in the 1st round and allow enough time for Marcel Goc to get back they will finally have something to work with.
The Penguins power play scored twice and that was nice to see, especially on a night where they were not playing all that well at even strength. However I still have to nitpick certain things about it. For some reason Crosby is still finding himself on the strong side half wall and for the past month nothing has been generated when he has played there. The two goals that were scored were not out of that particular set piece. The first goal was on the rush where Crosby worked his way to the center of the ice and made a beautiful dish pass to Neal and the other goal was when Crosby was down by the goal line with a better skilled shooter in James Neal playing in that spot. I don’t understand the fascination with Crosby on the strong side half wall, I never will.
Given that the Penguins could potentially be playing the Red Wings in round 1 I’ll just leave this little tidbit of information here
Case and point
Last and certainly not least I have to discuss Marc-Hasek Fleury. Fleury made the best save of the season on Daniel Alfredsson in the shootout. Fleury used his slinky spine and did his best Dominik Hasek impression as he executed the jaw dropping save.
Marc Andre Fleury is not the best goalie in hockey, but he is the most exciting.
Fleury has been playing like one of the best goalies in hockey lately. He has played splendid in the past 2 games and has a .928% save percentage in his last 6 games (h/t @MadChad412). Last night he gave up 3 goals and I’m not sure any of them can be traced back to some sort of mistake Fleury made. 1st goal was a Joe Louis Arena bounce off the back wall, 2nd goal Orpik cross checked a guy into him, and the 3rd goal was tipped through a screen and went over Fleury’s head. Fleury was at the top of the paint where you want to be when fighting off a screen shot, you can’t plan for a tip shot being popped up in the air like that.
Penguins were kind of lucky to win the game last night but winning isn’t the goal right now, fine tuning things is what matters. I saw some things that in last night’s game that point to the Penguins trying to fine tune their game for the playoffs and that is a good sign.
Keep adjusting and get Malkin back and it should make for a very successful round 1 of the playoffs.
Thanks for reading!
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