The Pittsburgh Penguins face the Nashville Predators in game two of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight.
After stealing a 5-3 win from the Predators, the Pittsburgh Penguins look to extend their series lead to 2-0. They will be looking to play a lot better than they did on Monday night. Here are three keys to a Penguins game two victory.
Pittsburgh Penguins
1) Pile the Shots
The Penguins may have won 5-3, but they were outshot 26-12. This is absolutely horrible. We got really lucky and had five good shots go in out of our 12. But this doesn’t always happen.
Nashville is very strong defensively. In fact, one could argue that they have the best defensive core in the league. It’s going to be hard to score on them, and the only way to score in the first place is to take shots.
We need to pile Rinne with shots. This is the only way we may get ahead on the scoreboard in the end. We can’t always expect to get lucky like in game one.
2) Play Better Defensively
We had a 3-0 lead going into the second. And of course, we blew it. We had all the momentum and we let the Predators tie up the game. If it wasn’t for Jake Guentzel’s beautiful game-winner, who knows what would have happened after that momentum shift.
I know we’re missing a few guys on the blue line, most notably Kris Letang, but we’re still a team good enough to make it to the Stanley Cup Final. We need to keep our composure and keep our dominance in games. We can’t let them get to us like that.
3) Take Advantage of Home Ice
We have home advantage of this series, so we really should make use of it. Nashville has one heck of a crowd. We know they are going to use that to their advantage in games three and four.
If we can get the win tonight at home to put us up 2-0, we’ll be in a good position going forward. After all, we want to win this in one in front of the fans.