The Penguins and Rangers will face off at 7:00 p.m. tonight at Madison Square Garden for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.
Get caught up by checking out Monday’s discussion on the Penguins reliance on young defensemen to shut down a deep Rangers attack and yesterday’s break down of the reasons for the Rangers’ success in 2014-15.
Part one of today’s two-part series preview, in which I discussed the Penguins and Rangers playoff history, and went over news about the big screen can be found here.
THE 4077: Defensemen Christian Ehrhoff and Derrick Pouliot both skated in today’s optional morning skate, but neither is expected to dress tonight for the playoff opener.
That leaves Taylor Chorney and Brian Dumoulin on the third defensive pair for the Penguins.
“As we mentioned before, those guys have played together before, they’ve played together a lot through the year,” head coach Mike Johnston said after morning skate.
Coach Johnston said that in conversation with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach John Hynes and assistant coach Alain Nasreddine, who runs the defense for the Penguins top farm club, that Dumoulin and Chorney would be the best combination for the big club.
“Putting those two together is a natural for us, and keeping the (other) pairs as we had them last game, now we can get into set pairs,” Johnston added.
TONIGHT’S OPPONENT: The Rangers, contrastingly, are almost completely healthy. Star forward Rick Nash, who missed practice on Wednesday with flu-like symptoms, practiced in full today and is expected to play.
The only player the Rangers will be missing is defenseman Kevin Klein, who is close to returning from an arm injury, is not quite ready to go, but he could return at some point this series.
PREDICTION: The Penguins have spent much of the 2014-15 tantalizing and frustrating their fans.
They were one of the hottest teams in the league in the early part of the season, going on a seven-game winning streak in early November to run their record to 13-3-1 at one point.
Sidney Crosby was in contention for the Art Ross trophy until the last day of the season, finishing three points behind the Dallas Stars’ Jamie Benn.
Marc-Andre Fleury had a career year after signing a contract extension in the fall, posting a 2.32 GAA and a .920 save percentage while leading the NHL in shutout.
Kris Letang seems to have completely recovered from the scary stroke that shortened his 2013-14 season, and had a Norris-trophy contending season, setting or matching career highs in goals (11) and points (54). He finished seventh in the league in scoring amongst defensemen
Top prospect Derrick Pouliot made a successful transition to the NHL, scoring a goal in his first game and finishing the season as one of the team’s most-reliable blueliners.
Despite all the positives, the 2014-15 regular season will leave a sour taste in the mouth of most Penguins fans.
The season came off the tracks in late in 2014, when the team had to announce, in rapid succession, that winger Pascal Dupuis would miss six months with blood clots in his lungs, up-and-coming defenseman Olli Maatta would miss the rest of the season with his second shoulder surgery in less than a year.
Then the team suffered a litany of minor injuries, including and the mumps of all things. Still, the Pens were in fairly good shape at the trade deadline: three points behind the Islanders and 12 points clear of the playoff bubble.
The team’s downfall since that point has been equally frustrating for the players on the ice and the fans in the stands.
The source of their failures has been hard to pinpoint. Some have questioned the moves made at the deadline – specifically the acquisition of Ben Lovejoy from Anaheim. Others believe the blame rests with the tactics of first-year head coach Mike Johnston or the leadership of Crosby. Some look at the list of walking wounded – particularly on defense – and throw their hands up.
The reality is that the Penguins have been a losing team for the last month and half because they can’t score enough goals. It isn’t for lack of trying.
Remember that seven-game winning streak in November? In that seven-game stretch, the Penguins had 212 shots on goal, for an average of 30.29 shots per game. That’s good, but hardly in groundbreaking.
Those 212 shots, however, resulted in 33 goals, for an average of 4.71 goals per game and a 15.57 shooting percentage. Those numbers are, of course unsustainably good, and the team cooled off from that ridiculous hot streak.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, over their final seven games, the Penguins took 245 shots, for an average of 35 shots per game, but converted only 14 times for a paltry two goals per game an a criminal 5.71 shooting percentage.
Those numbers are just as unsustainable as their earlier ones were. The question for the Penguins has become when will the pendulum swing? Will they shoot five percent against Henrik Lundqvist and get swept by the Rangers, or will they light up the scoreboard like they are capable of and send the top seed packing?
My prediction is that the Penguins will show their fans the talent that has brought them to this point and take at least a split of the games in New York, heading back to Pittsburgh with some momentum and home-ice advantage.
But just as many leads have slipped away from the team going down the stretch, I expect the Pens to be unable to capitalize on an early advantage. The Rangers are a deeper team with excellent goaltending and one of the best coaches in the NHL in Alain Vigneault. The Penguins patchwork defense and sub-par scoring depth just won’t be enough to overcome New York.
For Penguins fans, I expect the end of the 2014-15 season to come the way most of the rest of the year has: disappointingly. The Rangers will win in 6 games, with the Blueshirts celebrating on Consol Energy Center ice and advancing to the second round.
Photo credit: USA Today
