Despite the return of Evgeni Malkin and two goals from Phil Kessel, the Pittsburgh Penguins came up short as they lost to the New York Rangers, 4-2.
The tables had completely turned between the first game and the second. The Pittsburgh Penguins all but imploded in a contentious competition, dropping it to the New York Rangers 4-2 and allowing the series to draw even with one win apiece.
Both Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust rejoined the lineup today, expected to be major boons to their team. Geno made his presence felt early, setting up several plays.
While those two were back in, Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray were still scratched – giving Jeff Zatkoff the start again. Coming off a stellar performance in game one, Zatkoff looked strong early on. He made quite a few athletic saves and stoned Derek Stepan on an early breakaway (and seconds later, also stopped Kris Letang‘s accidental shot on him).
There were immediate differences between these games, however, other than these lineup changes. The refs called the game very tightly on Wednesday, giving the officials in the penalty boxes a constant workout. Through the first period today, they seemed content to let everything go – intentionally or otherwise.
The heated nature of the game was evident from before the first puck even dropped, when Patric Hornqvist and Chris Kreider exchanged pleasantries. Heavy hits, a few unnoticed cross-checks, and what looked like a decapitation attempt by Dominic Moore characterized the first.
Missed opportunities were also a pretty common occurrence in the initial twenty minutes. Even when the Pens converged on Henrik Lundqvist and faked out the Rangers in front of him, they missed a few passes and were often out of position to get rebounds.
Head coach Mike Sullivan mentioned during an in-game interview that his team missed a few chances to shoot; interestingly, he decided to scratch one of his defensemen who shoots nearly every chance he has. Justin Schultz was out of the lineup in favor of Ben Lovejoy, which was an… interesting move, to say the least.
Maybe Schultz is a little banged up; maybe Sullivan expected they wouldn’t need that extra offensive-mindedness on the back end with Malkin and Rust back in. I can’t claim to know what Sullivan’s thinking, especially with how evasive he has been about the lineup as of late.
Though his team demonstrated the fast pace that has become characteristic of them, Sullivan switched up the lines and moved Malkin up to play with Sidney Crosby and Hornqvist fairly early on. The “Two-Headed Monster” took a few shifts to get in stride, but having them on the ice at the same time is always dangerous.
The Rangers too are a speedy team, primarily on the front end, and the game was all back and forth. Both teams struggled to control the puck at times, focusing more on following through with hits and trying to beat their opponents down the ice.
With 3:35 left in the first period, the Penguins went on the powerplay as Kevin Hayes went to the box for cross-checking Hornqvist. The Pens’ powerplay hasn’t been great without Malkin, but the good news is that the Rangers’ penalty kill is even worse.
This powerplay looked pretty shabby, though: the Pens spent too much time passing when they could barely control the puck as it was. The Rangers didn’t so much break up their cross-ice passes as the Pens dug their own grave.
As the period wound down Hornqvist and Mats Zuccarello got into a major battle by the Rangers’ net. Zuccarello looked like he even tried to kick Hornqvist’s side as they wrestled each other’s helmets off – Zuccarello even seemed to throw a sucker punch in there, right in front of a ref.
Both received roughing minors with barely a second remaining in the first stanza. The Pens outshot the Rangers 10-7, but their overall game didn’t really look as strong as New York’s.
Bad news: the Rangers out-hit the Pens 22-4 up to this point. Good news: if you have the puck, you don’t need to throw as many hits. Bad news: the Pens didn’t really even have the puck under control enough to rationalize being out-hit by this kind of margin.
Zatkoff was forced to be on top of his game only seconds into the “sandwich stanza,” as Rick Nash powered down the ice and launched the puck on net.
Nearly as soon as Zuccarello left the box, he was sent back in for hooking Conor Sheary. The Rangers managed some good shorthanded chances, which was a little worrisome. Luckily, an absolutely PHENOMENAL sequence at the other end gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead.
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Nick Bonino shoved his defender out of his way with his rear end and threw the puck across the crease to Trevor Daley, who immediately passed it to Phil Kessel in the slot. From a point-blank range Kessel rocketed the puck past a sprawling Lundqvist, who didn’t have a chance.
Oh man. That was gorgeous. My dog was sleeping peacefully and then that happened and I screamed and woke him up. This is his first playoff season with me, and based on the dirty look he gave me I’m betting he’s wishing he’d have been adopted by another family right about now.
Anyway.
Brian Dumoulin took a penalty about midway through the second period. The second, of course, is the period of the “long change,” when the teams’ nets are on the opposite side of the ice from their bench, which makes the timing of line changes a little harder.
Many of the Pens on the ice had been out there for some time, Dumoulin included, engaging in physical battles with Rangers players around their net. Dumoulin hooked Rick Nash mostly due to a combination of fatigue and desperation.
The Pittsburgh penalty kill looked really good, though; they allowed minimal pressure in their zone and shut down the attacking efforts almost as soon as a single Ranger crossed the blue line. Dumo escaped the box at almost the same time that Olli Maatta and Chris Kunitz had two great opportunities against Lundqvist.
Both goaltenders gave up some juicy rebounds, but the Pens defenders did a solid job of gobbling those up before any Ranger could. Lundqvist had to mostly atone for his own errors, without his defenders helping him out with the rebounds he allows.
Soon, though, the Rangers evened things up. Keith Yandle had a mostly open net as Eric Fehr missed his coverage and made no mistakes in putting it behind Zatkoff. Mere seconds later, Derick Brassard zoomed past Maatta and went in on Zatkoff alone, scoring again.
Sullivan used his challenge on the Brassard goal, citing that Brassard was offside. The refs ruled it a good goal, but… based on the offside review and subsequent overturning of a St Louis goal last night, that should have been called offside if there was any consistent standard.
Maatta hasn’t been up to par since his return to the lineup, and while Sullivan said that his conditioning was exactly where it should be Maatta has looked really slow, even tentative, in some instances.
Continuing the streak of bad luck, Rust was given an interference penalty. The Pens were totally on their heels now, and the momentum completely turned. The penalty was killed and Rust had a breakaway chance when he stepped out of the box, but the damage had been done.
Zuccarello made it 3-1 a few minutes later. He was completely undefended and, to make it worse, the Rangers were changing lines so there wasn’t even an equal matchup of men.
J.T. Miller picked up assists on all three of the Rangers goals, but he also picked up a penalty for interference. The importance of this powerplay could not be overstated, especially seeing how much the Pens were dragging and quickly losing control of the game.
The second intermission would have been a great time for the Pens to calm down and regroup. They must not have done that, though, because Chris Kreider scored 39 seconds into the third period.
This collapse definitely wasn’t all on Zatkoff’s shoulders, though. Daley was on ice for all of the Rangers’ goals and none of the big name players had been visible since the early first period. Defense looked sloppy on all counts and the Pens started to lose their cool.
Granted, the Rangers never really had any cool in the first place, but this game had devolved into mayhem. There were multiple scrums in the early third period, with Letang looking like he was nearly going to murder Viktor Stalberg and players like Bonino and Dumoulin only avoiding taking dumb penalties by luck.
You know the team has lost their composure when Crosby takes bad penalties. He went to the box for a blatant slash-trip-thing against Stalberg. Only eight seconds into Crosby’s penalty, Chris “Goalie Killer” Kreider interfered with Zatkoff and was awarded a penalty for his endeavors.
Yandle gave the Penguins a 4-on-3 advantage after retaliating against Malkin, cross-checking him up high into the goalpost. Though Yandle isn’t quite renowned enough in his murderous efforts to have a nickname like Kreider’s, maybe he should be.
Kessel struck again during the advantage, roofing the puck past Lundqvist and narrowing the differential to two with another beauty. Though they couldn’t take advantage of their following powerplay, one goal was enough to rejuvenate the team and the fans… briefly.
Finally, just over halfway through the third, the tensions escalated to a point where the gloves were finally dropped. Chris Kunitz slashed Marc Staal, and when he got down the ice Kevin Klein challenged Kunitz to a fight for his teammate’s honor.
Sullivan pulled Zatkoff with about two and a half minutes remaining with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Bonino, Kessel, Hornqvist, Crosby, Malkin, and Letang – the big guns – headed out for an offensive zone faceoff.
In the end the Rangers held on to win 4-2.
It’s only game two, though. Both sides did a 180 from the first game and it’s way too early to concede anything. The Rangers successfully regrouped between games; there is absolutely no reason the Penguins can’t do the same.
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It’s a wake-up call at the very least. The Pens may have been the hottest team in the league at the end of the regular season, but the playoffs are an entirely different monster – one they can’t defeat by just coasting through.
Again, I don’t think you can really blame Zatkoff for this game – he was adequately solid. The guys in front of him were just… not. The next meeting between these teams will be Tuesday in New York. Let’s hope for another 180 before then.