The NHL has graciously provided some information about round one for the Penguins and Islanders, how nice of them.
Things will kick off… Sunday at noon. I’m not a huge fan of noon games in the month of May. After a long winter and suspect spring being indoors feels dumb on a nice weekend day. I can’t blame people for complaining about the game time for a reason like that. If you are complaining because you think the Penguins don’t play well in the afternoon, well, I just don’t think there’s any teeth to that argument.
This doesn't include the season finale 1-0 victory over the Sabres so it is actually 6-0-1 in their last seven afternoon games.
Can the Islanders win on Sunday? Of course they can! It won’t be game time related, though. It will be because of hockey things.
As far as the matchup goes it is tough to ignore the before and after effect of losing Anders Lee for the Islander. Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but the numbers are definitely different with Anders Lee and without.
Before Lee’s injury:
CF% 50.21
xGF% 53.97
After Lee injury:
CF% 47.02
xGF% 50.19
About a 3% drop for both after Lee was ruled out for the year. This was a big blow to the Islanders. I thought their logic to replace him was sound. They acquired Kyle Palmieri to try and pick up some of the scoring slack. Palmieri had a large sample of being a successful goal scorer, but it just hasn’t been his year. The trade hasn’t yielded the fruit Uncle Lou was looking for. This is the difference between Lee and Palmieri this year
Quite the difference. Now watch Palmieri go all Mike Cammalleri 2010 on the Penguins this round.
One of the matchups the Penguins will have to be mindful of in this series, especially at home, is how they use Sidney Crosby and the top line against the Islanders pairing of Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock. They have been an outstanding pair this season.
Ryan Pulock leads the Islanders with 22.5 minutes a game with Adam Pelech right behind him at 21 minutes per game. If you are looking to avoid a defense pairing it is a little more difficult than a coaching trying to avoid a forward matchup due to the sheer amount of ice time defenseman get vs forwards. It is easier for Mike Sullivan to avoid playing Crosby against let’s say Boston’s top line than it will be to get him away from this Islanders pairing. Does it even matter if Mike Sullivan tries to get Crosby away from this pairing? I think it does.
Out of every skater Crosby went up against this regular season nobody was on the ice against Crosby more often than Pulock (82:48) and Pelech (83:03). This is the largest sample we have of any opponent versus Sid this year. How did it go?
vs Pulock
CF% 46.38
xGF% 48.54
vs Pelech
CF% 44.37
xGF% 46.81
There are two ways to go about this. Just let Crosby eat the top pairing of the Islanders and let the second and third line get the easier matchups. Or Sullivan can try to get away from this and hope the top line feasts on some other pairing. Both paths have merit now that the Penguins scoring depth is much improved mostly because of Jeff Carter, but also Kasperi Kapanen’s and Jared McCann’s career high shooting percentage.
I think it is fine if the Penguins start the series feeding Crosby the Pelech and Pulock pairing, but if Barry Trotz hockey is ruling the day (nothing happening on the ice) then Mike Sullivan will need to free his top line and make the most of the best trio he has in favorable matchups.
Perhaps the biggest issue facing the Penguins is after they slog through Trotz’s traps they will have to beat Semyon Varlamov. He is a little dinged up at the moment, but should be good to go. He had a great season. He led all East Division goaltenders in goals saved above expected
Tristan Jarry isn’t in the image because you’d have to scroll down further. He was ~-10 goals saved above average on the year. Although, you have to remember how awful the start to his year was. He has certainly played a lot better in the recent samples than the beginning of the year.
The Penguins are going to need Jarry because...
Only 48 more hours to go
Thanks for reading!
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