Penguins – Lightning Series Outlook
Team of Destiny? Stanley Cup Favorites?
All of that talk surrounds the Pittsburgh Penguins who have not won more than 8 games in a post-season since their Stanley winning season in 2009.
It’s not just Vegas, the pundits and fan base that are extremely confident of the Penguins winning the Eastern Conference.
The Penguins as a group have not looked this confident during a playoff run since the 2013 post-season when they thought they were going to roll through the East and believed they were on a collision course to face Chicago.
With the Lightning starting this series without Steven Stamkos and Anton Stralman, Pittsburgh is no question the favorite and deservedly should be. That said this is a Lightning team very capable of upsetting the Penguins.
They have a Vezina level goaltender in Ben Bishop, the critical ingredient of having a game altering No. 1 shutdown defenseman in Victor Hedman and offensively they are so good at scoring off the rush, they’re the type of skilled team similar to the Penguins that can be getting outplayed and score two game changing momentum goals in a three minute span.
It’s a potential tough matchup for the Penguins even without Stamkos who may or may not return later in the series because the Lightning can play the Penguins way.
“We are two teams that like to play a similar style, a speed game. We will play to our strength’s,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said on Thursday.
To beat the Penguins, you need speed/skill, mobile defenseman & strong goaltending. A check mark can be put next to all of those for Tampa.
The Lightning are not as good as Washington, but because they are so similar to the Penguins, they could emerge as an even tougher opponent if Pittsburgh’s game slips a bit.
Matchups – Edge Pittsburgh
The Lightning won the Eastern Conference last season because they were a four line scoring team that overwhelmed the opposition with matchup problems.
Do you put your top guys against the Stamkos line or the Triplets?
This is where scouts, coaches I’ve talked to feel should alter the series in Pittsburgh’s favor.
No Stamkos at least to start the series gives Pittsburgh the opportunity to create almost every favorable matchup, in a way the Lightning were able to do to others last season.
Now the script is flipped for the Lightning with all of the talk coming into Game 1 about how do the Lightning decide to defend the HBK line. This is where no Stamkos is going to be felt as somewhere the Penguins project to get a favorable line matchup from one of their top-3 lines.
The Lightning defensively are more mobile than the Capitals and much more equipped to matchup against the Penguins depth than the Capitals were, especially with the likelihood that Stralman returns by Game 3 at the latest.
Tonight they’ll dress a top pairing of Victor Hedman – Matt Carle, second pairing of Jason Garrison – Andrej Sustr, third pairing of Slater Koekkoek – Braydon Coburn. This is not facing the likes of Nate Schmidt, Taylor Chorney, Dmitry Orlov or Mike Weber.
Even when Evgeni Malkin was going better than Crosby during the time this season when the Penguins faced Tampa Bay, Lightning coach Jon Cooper still went with the Hedman matchup against Crosby and there’s no reason to think he won’t go for that again.
Same with Pittsburgh as Mike Sullivan looks to go strength for strength and projects to likely to put Crosby against Tyler Johnson.
This is a formidable Lightning group on the backend even without Stralman but the presence of the Bonino line creates the type of dilemma that has made the Penguins so tough to beat.
Giving Evgeni Malkin a third pairing and a bottom-6 line is a risk for the Lightning but when you factor in his wingers, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the Bonino should be looked at as the second line when it comes to defending them.
If I’m Tampa, I’m going with the Killorn-Filppula-Drouin line against Hagelin-Bonino-Kessel.
“They have a deep lineup throughout,” [hide] Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said. “It’s not just Crosby and Malkin. You can see from Game 6 against Washington, the Kessel line was really good. We know we’re going to have our hands full. It’s going to be a challenge, but these are the types of games you love to play. You have to be at your best and perform at your best.”
How the Lightning attack the top three lines is one of the biggest storylines and this is where most evaluators see the loss of Stamkos being felt.
Now it’s on Pittsburgh to take advantage. [/hide]
Malkin is awful. He looks like he could care less.
How much less?
I’ve defended Malkin on ths site for 5 years. cant do it anymore. I’m not expecting goals but for the love of God show a pulse. Win battles, be dangerous. Play like you’re 6/2 210. Take the puck to the net, challenge defensemen.
I don’t think bitching about fleury non stop somehow equates to “defending Malkin”
Bishop was dialed in from the start. If that dude comes back in the same form the Pens are sunk
He was definately the hot goalie.
Impressive to see on TV so many empty seats in the lower bowl with 2 minutes left in the cnf finals. Just a bunch of fat turds wearing yellow and sitting on their hands. No wonder why mario wants to sell. He priced the blue collar fan out of the arena.
And filled up with bandwagon fans
Fuckin hotdog scuffing clowns!
Bigger bag of shit, Crosby or Malkin? Im going Malkin.
Double decker. Both need to realize they are 4 wins from the cup final and need to wake the F up. Malkin at least took shots and went to the net tonight. I give malkin a 2/10 tonight while sid gets a 1/10.
Letang belongs in that conversation tonight. God awful.
Time to sit Maatta. Nice kid, love the beat cancer story but he’s a pylon.
Pouliot ready? I bet dumo is out next game.
Trade to th Oilers along with the Russian
Rather get that $12 mil off the books.
Fleury should get the net next game
Agreed
Do you guys think that that would make sid show up?
Who?
Why, it wont help Crosby and Malkin
I actually think it will help Sid. He and Fleury are buddies and knowing his performance will help his buddy keep his job will motivate him more.
Really? Do you believe in unicorns?
I believe in the guy that played like a turd for 3 months to get a coach he didn’t like fired. Then magically he turned into a beast. I believe sid will throw gamed to get what he wants.
Murray was bad tonight
Yeah Murray was the problem, they scored 1 goal. Murray should learn to defend a 3 on 1 better.
Wasn’t the problem, but you hope he can make a big save for you on the 1st goal and his rebound control on the 2nd was poor. Team left him hung out to dry on the 3rd. I wouldn’t say he was BAD…but I wouldn’t say ge was GOOD. He was average.
He made a big save on the Kucherov nreakaway. How many is he supposed to make?
and a break away
Stamkos cancelled out Sid tonight.
Best line tonight was the 4th line worst line was malkin line they had no proper cycle in the offensive zone the puck was quickly out and was in pens zone thanks to his solo selfish plays
Who didn’t see the PP failing?
Letang has been a joke tonight.
He’s Depres bad tonight.
He left a huge turd out there…mother icng at the end was the pinnacle.
Sestito time
Friday the 13th
What a bizarre Gane
Hey Stan got to love what Glenn Healy just said. We are in this wonderful building and I don’t know if the seats are painted yellow or these are people. Because these people are not feelling that they are going to win tonight
What’s felling?
Nothing neutralizes Crosby like the playoffs.
I think Murray has given the most soft goals in this 2016 playoffs so far . Trade Fleury Yoda
Well you’ve watched two series. So that makes sense.
It’s enough in short period of time. No?
Hey Stan Americans and blues begging Canadians to watch the playoffs I guess they need ratings an once NHL gets that they’ll probably say best American playoffs using Canadian views and count as theirs typical frauds
Apparently blues will play Canadian National anthem in their game 1.
Unfortunately Canadians forgot hockey season was going on because an entire country’s worth of teams stopped playing a month and a half ago
Every year there is somehow a Cinderella team this year it’s the year with cinderalla goalies Jones, Murray elliot all don’t have much playoff experience
Every year there is an excuse as to why sid sucks balls in the playoffs.
How’s malkin and chubby doing?
Chubby leads the team in point production. So good to very good? #america
And shots missed when he gets the puck
Malkins line has been very good tonight. Malkin has a ton of shots. Are tou even watching?
Half of them was on the power play set up by sid so no need to get exited what Russian did. Based on his shots people forget his dumb penalty
Malkin 6 shots. Sid 1. Way to be a dominating force best player in the world.
Fleury for 3rd period?
Yes. Potential emotional boost and if nothing else, he gets work for when he starts game 2.
Sid with a primary assist. Holy shit are you guys recording this?!
Highlight reel intangibles.
He looked like someone told him it was a couple’s skate.
What is nice pass by sid while chubby gets fluky point as well
3 goals on 17 shots.
Fleury should play the 3rd and prepare for game 2.
They have 15 shots. Rube
Hot goalie?
They leave everything they had in the last series?
Emotional letdown. Not suprised we lose, but we don’t have the ability to score on a short handed team, their backup playing, and all the PP time we had? That part is dissapointing.
It looks like we’re pkaying an afternoon game and the team is still sleep walking.
This consol museum is as loud as bell center when there is nobody.
Hey Yoda Imagine Murray plays 60 games a season I bet he would have worst collapse then Fleury
Trade Fleury guys
Good job malkin
Was wondering where is malkin this period
There is our Russian penalty in the offensive zone
Bishop and Johnson going down sort of evens the playing field with Sid not dressed again.
America is falling
Sure hope not. We’ve proven them to be necessary in elimination games. Canadians don’t show up.
Mattaa traded yet?
Karma’s a ***** you faggots!!!
Where is npl? Must be on tampax insiders site
Callahan is a total piece of dog shit!
No? We love him and that play? Fucken retard
Anybody playing besides Malkin?
Letang goes SPLAT!
Party at stan’s letang is down
Better pray letang is back or else pens series might be over
Typical of this frog
Typical American goalie pages from dipietro
Sure hope we can win the series without unreliable letang.
Any chance Vogelsong will be at the game tonight replacing Cole as the #1 fan?
I have faith in Fleury!
Murray in net
Won’t be for long. His game has been on a decline lately. He’s played too many games this year, so it’s expected.
beerman
Cheers
beerman is now a hockey god. i like the pens chances