The Pittsburgh Penguins are heading into what can very well be their final game of the season.
Facing the Ottawa Senators in game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pittsburgh Penguins will have to play their very best. Looking at game six, their performance was underachieving.
Pittsburgh Penguins
Keeping this performance in mind, here are three keys to game seven that the Penguins should look to improve on if they wish to advance to the Finals.
Lack of Offence
The Penguins lack of offence has been the story of these playoffs. Don’t get me wrong, the Penguins offence has come up big countless times, which is why we have gotten this far. However, it has been rather spotty.
There are games we blow out opponents and then games where we get blown out. Another big problem was our lack of first period scoring. In fact, Sunday’s game five was the first game in which the Penguins scored over two goals in the first period.
If the Penguins want to move on, they are going to have to fix this.
Matt Murray Needs to Hold It Down
Marc-Andre Fleury has played the majority of these playoffs in relief of expected starter Matt Murray who suffered an injury right before game one of round one. Well now Matt Murray is back and he’s still hot.
We need a huge performance from this clutch performer. Murray and Fleury can both hold it down, but right now, all eyes are on Matt Murray to take us all the way.
We Need a Big Game from our Big Guys
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are our two best players. If you want, we can even throw Phil Kessel in the mix there. These are our go-to guys, and we need to go to them in game seven. We need to hope they can put on quite the performance to secure us the win.
These three were our leading scorers in the regular season and are our leading scorers in the playoffs right now. They are the guys we need to entrust to get us into the next round. Obviously hockey is a team sport, but these guys carry a lot of the weight. Let’s hope they get it done.