Pittsburgh Penguins: How to Avoid a Game Seven

Two teams won critical games last night, evening their series and forcing game sevens. How can the Pittsburgh Penguins prevent a third from doing that tonight?

Last night, the Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators both battled back from the brink of elimination. The Stars came out to play early and put the St. Louis Blues on their heels, while the resilient Preds went the distance and got an early overtime winner against the San Jose Sharks.

Now those two series are all evened up, and both are headed to a game seven.

Tonight, the Washington Capitals are naturally going to try to achieve the same thing. Down 3-2 to our Pittsburgh Penguins, they won’t go down without a fight. What can the Penguins do to prevent that from happening?

First of all, the big guns really need to step up. Sidney Crosby hasn’t managed to score yet against the Capitals, and if the Penguins want to win that’s going to have to change. The Caps were struggling when their offensive weapons like Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov weren’t contributing; then Ovechkin suddenly got it together and led them to a game five victory.

Crosby has definitely contributed to some goals, setting up his linemates and spearheading plays. Still, he’s only got two assists on the series, which is really low for a player of his caliber.

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The Capitals are desperate, trying to extend their season by at least one more game. In response, the Pens will look to their captain to lead them to victory. Setting a tone and leading by example is always good, but this would be a fantastic time for that leadership to extend to the scoresheet.

Evgeni Malkin has also only picked up two assists so far, and he’s got to make things happen. Once he got back in the swing of things against the New York Rangers, he was unstoppable. The Caps are not the Rangers by any means, but there’s no reason that he can’t reach that same level of play against them.

Next, they’ll absolutely have to improve their special teams. Both teams struggled with their advantages until game five, when the first three goals came on PPs. The big storyline coming into the series was the Caps’ powerful PP against the Pens’ shutdown PK, but we haven’t seen too much of either.

The Pens’ kill lived up to its billing until that last game, when it kind of imploded. However, if they can be as effective tonight as they were through the first few games of the series, then we’ll be in a good place.

Ovechkin and TJ Oshie often team up on the powerplay and are very dangerous when they execute their plays. More than anything, the Pens need to shut those two down and break up any connections between them. Block shots, get your stick out to break up passes, play out further and aggressively pressure them.

Players like Tom Kuhnhackl are great for this – if Kuhnhackl’s known for anything, it’s his fearless shot-blocking and his knack for scoring shorthanded goals. Frankly, the Pens are more offensively threatening on their kill than on their advantage, 9 times out of 10.

The success of the Penguins’ powerplay ties back in to the earlier point – Malkin is especially effective in quarterbacking powerplays. If he can’t do that and the Pens can’t even keep it in the offensive zone, then it’s useless.

I’m not particularly worried about what’s going on in the net right now; Matt Murray‘s rarely the factor that causes a Pittsburgh loss. More than anything, I would expect him to be nothing short of a brick wall tonight.

Some of the most renowned things about Murray are his calmness and his ambition. Players and coaches across the league and throughout the Penguins organization have commended his composure and drive. He doesn’t seem to get riled up by bad games but always pushes himself to do better.

With head coach Mike Sullivan’s confidence behind him and his natural talent, Murray isn’t one I’m too concerned about.

Next: Penguins' AHL Affiliate Duking it out in the Playoffs

After the Penguins played so poorly in game two of the Rangers series, they bounced back in game three and shut down the “Blueshirts.” Though that wasn’t a game of this magnitude, it shows that it can definitely be done. If they come out that same way tonight and play a full sixty minutes, they’ll be on to the conference final before long.