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Post-Game Talk: #1| New York Islanders @ Pittsburgh Penguins | May 16th | 12:00 PM | F/OTW 4-3

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MattMartin

MattMartin

Killer Instinct™
Feb 10, 2007
17,553
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Long Island
NEW YORK ISLANDERS AT PITTSBURGH PENGUINS









NEW YORK ISLANDERS AT PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
GAME 1 | SERIES TIED 0-0
WATCH: NBC | SN | TVA | NHL.TV
LISTEN: 88.7FM | 103.9FM | 1050AM


















Preview


-The New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins First-Round playoff matchup begins with Game 1 on Sunday afternoon at PPG Paints Arena at 12 p.m. ET. The Islanders enter the series as the fourth seed in the East Division, while the Penguins are the top seed.






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ISLANDERS NOTES:​



• The Islanders finished the regular season with a 32-17-7 record.

• True to their identity, the Islanders were one of the top defensive teams in the league as they finished the season with a 2.23 goals against average, which ranked second best.

• The line of Anthony Beauvillier, Nelson and Bailey ended the season riding a hot streak with points in their last seven games. Beauvillier in particular, has racked up eight points (5G, 3A) in his seven-game streak.

• Barzal, who finished the regular season atop the Islanders' points standings (17G, 28A, 45P) enters the postseason with goals in back-to-back games and four points over that span.

• The Islanders goalie tandem of Semyon Varlamov and Ilya Sorokin has been the backbone of the team all season long and finished in second place in the race for the William M. Jennings Trophy that is annually awarded to the goalie pairs that played a minimum of 25 games for the team with the fewest goals scored against it, based on regular-season play. The Islanders duo surrendered only 125 goals and totaled 10 shutouts. Varlamov posted a 19-11-4 record and seven shutouts, which is tied for the most in the NHL. Sorokin secured a 13-6-3 record to cap off his rookie season.

• The Islanders have three new players at the NHL Trade Deadline in forwards Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac and defenseman Braydon Coburn.

• The Islanders enter the postseason with a healthy lineup having used the last two weeks to rest players and recuperate. After leaving Monday's season finale after 40 minutes for precautionary reasons, Varlamov skated on Friday with the taxi squad and Saturday with the main group.

• Both the Islanders and Penguins were dominant on home ice this season. The Islanders earned a home-ice record of 21-4-3, ranked third best behind Colorado and Pittsburgh.






PENGUINS NOTES:​



• Pittsburgh finished in first place in the East Division with a 37-16-3 record.

• The Penguins entered the postseason on a winning note with three-straight wins.

• Pittsburgh's top line of Jake Guentzel, Crosby and Rust were an offensive force throughout the regular season. The trio ranked in the top-five in scoring for the Pens with a combined total of 161 points (69G, 92A), with all three skaters reaching the 20-goal mark and playing in at least 55 games each.

• Letang posted a 45-point campaign (7G, 38A) which ranked third highest among all defensemen in the NHL.

• Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith received the majority of the workload between the pipes for the pipes, despite each of them missing some time due to injuries. Jarry made 38 starts, earned a 25-9-3 record. DeSmith received the starting nod 17 times and strung together a record of 11-7-0.

• The Pens added centerman Jeff Carter at the NHL Trade Deadline to bolster their depth down the middle. Since being acquired on April 12, Carter has compiled nine goals in 13 games.

• Pittsburgh enters the postseason healthy after battling injuries up and down their lineup all season long. A few days ago on May 12, the team received full-attendance for the first time this season as goaltenders Casey DeSmith and Tristan Jarry (upper-body); forwards Brandon Tanev (upper-body) and Evan Rodrigues (lower-body); and defenseman Mike Matheson (upper-body) all participated. DeSmith missed the Penguins practice on May 15 with a lower-body injury and is considered day to day.









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MattMartin

MattMartin

Killer Instinct™
Feb 10, 2007
17,553
10,141
Long Island





The Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup three times during the Sidney Crosby era, but they’ve collapsed come playoff time in recent years and that was exemplified back in 2019 when the New York Islanders swept them in the first round. Will things be any different this time around?
The Penguins will bring the same core to the table, but there have been some noteworthy changes. The question is if change is good in this case. Take each team’s goaltending situation for example. Back in 2019 it was Pittsburgh’s Matt Murray versus Robin Lehner and that was the defining difference in the series. When Murray wasn’t horrible, Lehner was brilliant, holding the Penguins to just a goal in each of the final three contests. It was Lehner’s career changing campaign and it wasn’t at all surprising that the Islanders’ had a decisive edge in goal. This time around the names are different, but the reality is the same: the Islanders have the better goaltender.

Tristan Jarry had an up-and-down campaign for the Penguins, finishing with a 2.75 GAA and .909 save percentage in 39 contests. He certainly had his moments and to his credit he was better in the second half of the campaign, but when you contrast him with the Islanders’ Semyon Varlamov, who posted a 2.04 GAA and .929 save percentage in 36 games, it’s clear who had the better season. In a playoff series anything can happen and if your goaltender gets hot, then that can be the difference, so it would be wrong to write off Jarry, but on paper at least, the Islanders are once again ahead in terms of goaltending.

It’s worth noting though that the Islanders needed to rely on Lehner and their defense because they wouldn’t have been able to compete blow-for-blow with the Penguins if things got out of hand offensively. In 2018-19, the Penguins had one of the league’s top teams offensively, led by Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, and Phil Kessel. All four of those forwards finished with 72 points or better while the Islanders’ offensive leader was Mathew Barzal, who had 18 goals and 62 points. The Islanders were able to minimize the damage that high-powered offense could do, but will they be able to accomplish that feat again this year?

First off, the Penguins don’t have Kessel anymore and another major presence from 2018-19, Patric Hornqvist, is also gone. However, Pittsburgh is arguably an even better offensive team this time around. In addition to still having Crosby, Malkin, and Guentzel, Bryan Rust has developed into a major offensive threat while Jared McCann (who was around in 2019, but was less settled into the Penguins), Kasperi Kapanen, and recent acquisition Jeff Carter give the Penguins a lot of extra threats to put out the ice. In 2018-19 the Penguins featured star power, but this time around they have more offensive depth in addition to those stars. That makes the task of the Islanders’ defenders and Varlamov meaningfully more difficult than the one they had two years ago.
On the Islanders’ side of things, their offense continues to be lackluster. It’s not terrible. Barzal is still a fine top line forward and Josh Bailey, Brock Nelson, and Jordan Eberle provide the Islanders with some depth. But while the Penguins averaged 3.45 goals per game in the regular season, the Islanders finished with 2.71. That’s a somewhat wider gap than 2018-19 when the Penguins averaged 3.30 goals per game to the Islanders’ 2.72.

Ultimately this is still very much an offense versus defense and while that scenario often favors the team with the better defense, that’s not always how these things play out. The Penguins will have their work cut out for them, but as we saw during the regular season, they absolutely are capable of solving the Islanders and while the story isn’t dramatically different from what it was two years ago when these teams faced off, the ending could be different this time around.



Players To Watch

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Jeff Carter – Carter has really stepped up since joining the Penguins, scoring nine goals and 11 points in 14 games. He’s fit in well and while he’s not the star he once was, he might be enough to tip the scales in the Penguins’ favor. It certainly doesn’t hurt that, like many of the Penguins, he has plenty of playoff experience of his own. He’s played in 120 postseason games between his stints with Philadelphia and Los Angeles and played an important role in the Kings’ two championships, especially in 2014 when he scored 10 goals and 25 points in 26 playoff games.


Tristan Jarry – As mentioned above, the Islanders have the edge in goaltending, but a strong showing from Jarry would make a huge difference for the Penguins. The 26-year-old has just one postseason game under his belt, so he’s largely entering into unknown territory. It’s worth noting though that he held his own in his only playoff start to date, stopping 20 of 21 shots in what was ultimately a 2-0 loss to Montreal in last year’s qualifying round.


Mathew Barzal – Part of the Penguins’ strength is the sheer volume of options they have up front. If Crosby’s having a bad game, there’s always Malkin, if Malkin isn’t available, there’s Guentzel and so on. The Islanders aren’t devoid of offensive depth, but they only have one real offensive star and that’s Barzal. If the Penguins are able to shutdown Barzal then that could be the series, but that’s far easier said than done. Barzal stepped up in each of his first two playoff campaigns, recording seven points in eight games in 2019 and 17 points in 22 contests last year.


Kyle Palmieri – The Islanders acquired Palmieri from New Jersey to bolster their offensive depth, but it hasn’t worked out as they hoped. From 2015-16 through 2019-20, he recorded at least 24 goals and 44 points in each campaign, and he was having another respectable season with eight goals and 17 points in 34 contests before he was traded. After the move, he scored just two goals and four points in 17 games with the Islanders. It’s been a big letdown, but ultimately it will have all been worth it if he’s able to bounce back in the playoffs.





The Penguins had one of the most effective power plays this season at 23.7% while the Islanders were a mediocre 18.8%. On the penalty kill though the story is flipped with the Islanders successfully killing 83.7% of their penalties compared to the Penguins’ 77.4%.

Every team is better when they have the lead, but that’s especially true for Pittsburgh. The Penguins were 22-3-1 when up after one period and 25-1-1 if they held the lead through 40 minutes. In other words, the Islanders need to start their games on time if they want to stay in this series.
The Islanders have one of the most accomplished coaches of all-time in Barry Trotz, though most of his playoff success has come in recent years. He won the Stanley Cup with Washington in 2018 and took the Islanders to the Eastern Conference Final last year. He’s going into this series with 72 career postseason wins as a head coach, which is good for 15th place all-time.

If we’re going to highlight Trotz though, we have to mention Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan. While the Penguins’ 2019 and 2020 playoff runs were disappointments, he did guide Pittsburgh to their back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017. The only other active head coaches with multiple championships in that role are Darryl Sutter and Joel Quenneville.
 
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doublechili

doublechili

For all intensive purposes, your nuts
Apr 11, 2006
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When everyone says the Pens are going to beat us they focus on the forward lines. But you look at their 2nd and 3rd defense pairs and goaltending and I start getting a bit optimistic....
 
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saintunspecified

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Nov 30, 2017
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doublechili said:
When everyone says the Pens are going to beat us they focus on the forward lines. But you look at their 2nd and 3rd defense pairs and goaltending and I start getting a bit optimistic....
Click to expand...

NYI have to tenderize Matheson-Ceci early in games, and exploit them later on.

That Dumoulin-Letang combo is killer, though. Killer.
 
The Winter Soldier

The Winter Soldier

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Apr 4, 2011
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Matheson and Marino are the weakest defensively for the Penguins. Need to make them pay 5 v 5. Which gives the Isles opportunities against the 2nd and 3rd pairings.
 
JKP

JKP

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Sep 19, 2004
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So, get to Jarry early and shatter his playoff confidence? Then he plays like he's got eggs in his skates and the rest of the Pens start playing more cautious and get off their high attack mode.
 
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Big L

Big L

Grandpa’s Cough Medicine is 180 Proof
Feb 7, 2013
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What’s our record this season for afternoon games? Only played a few
 
MJF

MJF

Hope is not a strategy
Sep 6, 2003
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Kevin27nyi said:
I think under Cap we weren't that good but under Trotz we have been. Can't prove it though. I just remember dreading afternoon games
Click to expand...
I think you're right. I used to dread the afternoon games with Capuano behind the bench.

Come to think of it I used to dread games at all hours with Flintstone behind the bench.
 
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Medvescak

Medvescak

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Mar 22, 2018
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WOW, that Endgame trailer literally gave me chills.
Well done.
Gonna find me a brick wall to run through now....
LGI!!!
 
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BMOK33

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I sort of feel this game has two paths...we get stomped 4-0 or 5-1 or win 2-1 or 3-2. Regardless of the result everyone will take too much out of it and there is a better than 50/50 chance the series is 1-1 after 2.
 
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MJF

MJF

Hope is not a strategy
Sep 6, 2003
27,026
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BMOK33 said:
I sort of feel this game has two paths...we get stomped 4-0 or 5-1 or win 2-1 or 3-2. Regardless of the result everyone will take too much out of it and there is a better than 50/50 chance the series is 1-1 after 2.
Click to expand...
Or it’s a 2-1 lead after 2 periods. We frustrate the Pens into giveaways, take away their time and space, wait them out, and win 4-1.
 
CupHolders

CupHolders

Really Fries My Bananas!
Aug 8, 2006
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PK Cronin said:
Also dreadful on the second half of back to backs under Capuano...and November...and in games that mattered.
Click to expand...

I feel this really highlights Trotz comments about learning to succeed when playing in an uncomfortable situation.

Back to back games often require mental focus to make up for the lack of skating legs.

November is ordinarily when teams start to hit their stride.

Games that matter… well that’s pretty self explanatory.
 
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