“The Islanders are like a disease that you can’t get rid of.”
That unflattering but wholly accurate assessment of the New Yorkers was uttered by Penguins winger Bob “Battleship” Kelly during the infamous 1975 Quarter-Finals round series between the clubs.
Truer words were never spoken.
Still, I confess to being happy when we drew the Islanders as our first-round opponent. After all, we had our way with them during the regular season. In my humble opinion, we had Semyon Varlamov in our hip pocket. And I thought our speed and scoring depth would be telling.
Before Ilya Sorokin. Before the dark times.
I also thought we’d be okay with Tristan Jarry in goal. How wrong I was.
I don’t mean to be harsh. Lord knows, probably nobody feels worse than Tristan does right now. And I’ll stop short of espousing a knee-jerk reaction and blaming him for losing Games 5 and 6. After reviewing the Islanders goals, he had plenty of help in the culpability department.
Still, Jarry pretty much imploded at the worst possible time.
Who would’ve thought that of all the injuries we endured, Casey DeSmith’s might’ve been the most critical? Had Casey been healthy, I would’ve been sorely tempted to turn to him after the Islanders second goal when Jarry appeared to be shaky. Certainly after the fourth, when we still had a fighting chance. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I was so proud of our guys for the way they came firing out of the gate. Eighty-seven seconds in Kasperi Kapanen burst into the Islanders’ zone and fed Jeff Carter, who beat Sorokin stick side. The perfect way to respond to the crushing double OT loss and set the tone for the night.
It took the Isles less than four minutes to respond. With Kris Letang drifting in the neutral zone, Anthony Beauvillier streaked around Sidney Crosby and beat Jarry with a nifty backhander high to the glove side. In the process establishing a call-and-respond pattern that would extend into the second period.
The Pens would score and the Isles would counter. Kind of an on-ice version of anything you can do I can do better.
We reclaimed the lead at 11:12, as battered, bruised and slump-riddled Jake Guentzel finally broke through with a power-play tally from the high slot. A scant 73 seconds later the Islanders countered. Kyle Palmieri evaded the attention of Cody Ceci and converted a made-to-order rebound off Jarry’s right pad.
In a last shining display of the marvelous resilience that carried us to a division title, we struck for a third and final time at 1:53 of the second period. Atoning for his earlier gaffe, Ceci gathered in a short pass from Evgeni Malkin and fired a hard shot on net from the right circle. Jason Zucker arrived as Johnny-on-the-spot to deflect the rubber past Sorokin, giving us a 3-2 lead and a huge emotional lift.
For the next several minutes I dared dream that we just might pull this one out and force a Game 7. Then the roof caved in.
At 8:35, Josh Bailey found Brock Nelson cruising all alone in the left circle with a slap pass. Having escaped the attention of Ceci and lagging backchecker Bryan Rust, Nelson ripped the puck past Jarry, who proceeded to melt down.
Thirteen seconds later the beleaguered netminder barely flinched as Ryan Pulock beat him with a long-range blast through heavy traffic. In the blink of an eye a 3-2 lead had morphed into a 4-3 deficit.
At this stage, I would’ve called a timeout and seriously considered replacing Jarry, in obvious distress, with Maxime Lagace. Maybe it would’ve made a difference and maybe not, given Lagace’s checkered past. It all became moot three minutes later when Nelson pushed back a collapsing black-and-gold defense and beat Jarry through the five-hole. At this point our chances for a comeback pretty much went up in smoke.
To our credit we kept battling. Our guys pressed furiously to open the final period, but simply couldn’t beat Sorokin. Any last-ditch hope evaporated at 15:16 when John Marino drew a double-minor for high-sticking Matt Martin.
I felt such a mixture of emotions in those closing moments. Badly for the magnificent core that won us three Stanley Cups. But time marches on. And while you never say never, it appears for all the world that our Stanley Cup window has closed. Emphatically so.
The real disappointment? I truly felt this team had a chance. Okay, maybe a Cup was wishful thinking. And maybe the Bruins would’ve swept us four straight in the next round. But I thought we were at least good enough to go a couple of rounds and make some noise.
However, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. That goes for a hockey team as well. Last night our weakest link was exposed.
Speaking of Weak Links…
Jarry wasn’t the only Penguin to struggle. I thought Mike Matheson, to be kind, had a brutal game defensively. He was a minus-two and victimized on numerous occasions, not to mention four Islanders scoring plays. Ceci, so solid during the regular season, wasn’t much better. He also finished a minus-two, as did Letang and Brian Dumoulin.
In general, I thought our defense had a difficult series, which no doubt contributed to Jarry’s woes.
Combined with an increasing need to shelter Marcus Pettersson and Marino’s sophomore regression? An area ripe for retooling over the offseason.
Puckpourri
The Pens again won the stat battle but lost the war. We outshot the Islanders, 37-24, and outhit them as well. Five-on-five, we had a pronounced edge in Corsi events (71-41), scoring chances (28-19) and high danger chances (8-5).
Zucker (a goal and a helper) and Malkin (two assists) paced the black and gold with two points each. In particular, I thought Geno played a terrific game.
Kapanen and Zucker led the way with a plus-two each. On the flip side, the Crosby line was a combined minus-10, including a team-worst minus-four for Guentzel.
Jarry stopped 19 of 24 shots for a .792 save percentage. For the series, Tristan posted a 3.18 goals against average and an .888 save percentage. His quality starts percentage? An abysmal .167.
Around the League
Defending Cup champ Tampa Bay advanced to the second round, beating Florida, 4-0. Minnesota shutout Vegas, 3-0, to force a Game 7.
I can hardly wait for all the rants that say:
1. the Penguins outplayed the Islanders and only lost because Jarry was terrible; and
2. Fire Sullivan.
without seeing the obvious contradiction. Sullivan coached the team well enough to win even with the top line doing nothing. So why should Sullivan be fired? He couldn’t do anything about Jarry. The notion of putting in a minor leaguer Legace in a critical spot is absurd.
Then they’ll say but they lost in he first round the previous two years. So what? That’s got absolutely nothing to do with this year. The Pens played well enough to win THIS year.
The Pens lost because of goaltending. Period. But that won’t atop the illiterati from pounding the table and using the loss as an excuse to complain about Sullivan and whatever other irrelevant rants they’ve been on. These are the same people who said that JR ruined the team and that the Penguins wouldn’t even make he playoffs. No matter how often they are wrong, it never stops them from thinking that they have some deep insight in hockey.
Okay Rick,
Name that Penguin Coach;
Coach A’s regular season win% is 0.668 and playoff Win% is 0.551.
Coach B’s regular season win% is 0.641 and playoff win% is 0.547.
Need a hint or 2?
Both Coach A and Coach B won Stanley Cups for the Penguins.
Both Coach A and Coach B took over the team mid season and rode a different Coaches team to drink from the Cup.
Neither Coach was able to take the team they themselves built to a Cup.
Coach A never got swept in any playoff series Coach B did.
Coach A, well despite having a the better playoff record was fired for his playoff performance. Coach B, I am still hearing fans try and defend him.
Aw you knew it all along Coach A is Dan Bylsma and Coach B is Mike Sullivan.
The time is long since past for Sullivan to join Bylsma in the ranks of former Penguins’ Coaches. Pull the trigger now while you still will have a chance to court Tocchet (maybe the real architect of those Back-to-Back teams. If not Tocchet, you will have a larger field to court, wait too long and you will have to take what you can get.
“Pull the trigger now while you still will have a chance to court Tocchet (maybe the real architect of those Back-to-Back teams”
I challenge you to provide evidence that this is true.
In fact, it’s demonstrably false. Tocchet was an assistant under Johnson. Tocchet wasn’t archtecting anything. The team stunk. They hire Sullivan and they don’t just win the cup, they win in in one of the most dominate ways an NHL team has done it for a long time.
I see your as bellicose as ever my friend, rather than ask me why I believe Tocchet MAY have been the real architect of those Cup teams, like a civilized person would do, you are “challenging” me to provide evidence.
Had you not attempted to provide counter evidence in the form associating Tocchet with Johnston I would have ignored you entirely. However, since you actually tried to argue,
1) Yes Tocchet functioned as an assistant under Johnston, but he also kept his assistant position under Sullivan. Even under Sullivan’s first full year Tocchet was still here.
2) The Johnston team didn’t stink as you incorrectly stated. It was in fact nearly the same roster team that won the Cup. There weren’t a whole lot of roster moves, at least not major roster moves at the trade deadline. The biggest difference was emotion – there was no emotion in Johnston.
3) Since Tocchet left, Sullivan’s playoff record is 9 – 17 or a 34.6% And over the last 3 seasons Sullivan has posted a 3 – 11 playoff record or 27.3%.
This is America, at least for the moment I still have the right to my own opinion as do you but there certainly is sufficient evidence to question or suspect that Tocchet may have had a very large role in those Cups as evidenced by Sullivan’s playoff record as we get farther away from Tocchet’s tenure here.
1) Yes Tocchet functioned as an assistant under Johnston, but he also kept his assistant position under Sullivan. Even under Sullivan’s first full year Tocchet was still here.
You don’t explain why the Penguins stunk uunder Johnson-Tocche but were great under Sullivan-Tocchet.
2) The Johnston team didn’t stink as you incorrectly stated. It was in fact nearly the same roster team that won the Cup. There weren’t a whole lot of roster moves, at least not major roster moves at the trade deadline. The biggest difference was emotion – there was no emotion in Johnston.
You are son dense that you can’t see that this point refutes your contention.
3) Since Tocchet left, Sullivan’s playoff record is 9 – 17 or a 34.6% And over the last 3 seasons Sullivan has posted a 3 – 11 playoff record or 27.3%.
This is the classic Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy.
Stratton,
1) Are you serious you noted that I wrote “emotion as the difference under Johnston in point 2 but can’t see that here in your first point? Wow
2) Calling me Dense only evidences your ego blocked blindness. My point does not refute anything I have said. All it states is that Johnston lacked emotion. Any other option could have provided that emotion. If your ego wasn’t greater than your skill set you would not have needed me to spoon feed you. on this.
3) Post Hoc? I did warn that the team was about ready to fail “Pre Hoc” but at that time Sullivan’s record was not evidence. Now it is evidence.
Think much Stratton? It doesn’t appear so.
Hey Other Rick,
Interesting thought about Tocchet. If we are going to make a coaching change, I think he’d be an intriguing (and perhaps welcome) choice. Almost like EJ was after Scotty Bowman.
Too, I don’t see Tocchet being as intractable as Sullivan when it comes to adding players with different attributes (size, toughness) and adjusting his system.
We’ll see how this all plays out…
Rick
Rick
Disappointing, to say the least, but it probably saves us from a physical
beating in the 2nd round vs the Bruins.
1) I know everyone wants to blame Jarry and our Defenseman for an
early exit but our forwards have to take a lot of the blame. How
many odd-man breaks can a team give up??
2) Crosby really struggled and it pains me to say this but he looked like
he was either playing hurt or just plain defeated. Our “D” did struggle
but they had no help from the forwards
3) Pen’s have to move Letang – I would trade Malkin as well but in my heart I
don’t think that will happen.
4) I really didn’t think Malkin played all that well – he did pick up (2) assists
but neither one was a primary and “lord” what was he thinking when he
broke free for a 1 on 1 with Sorokin – it was like he conceded to the goalie.
5) I know I’m a little biased and a Zucker fan but he was one of the few Penguin
players that played with urgency and desperation. We really looked like as a
team they quit.
6) Sullivan could be in trouble – New GM – Hextall like many GM’s often look to
bring in their guy. This is Hextall’s opportunity to do so without much
resistance.
7) Well I know some other blogs will go nuts when I say this but we tried the skill
route now its time to revamp the team with a more well-rounded balance of
skill, speed, size & toughness approach. Also, adding a couple of young,
hungry up-and-coming players would help as well.
8) I’ll continue to stand by my statement. Pens are constructed to do well during
the regular season but fail in the playoffs. Losing to the Islanders in the 1st
round is really a blessing. This team wasn’t good enough to contend for the
Cup – changes need to be made and this will in some way force Hextall’s hand.
I tried not to be overly negative but in reality, there are moves that must be made
for the Pen’s to contend again at some point. It will be an interesting off-season.
You are over complicating things. The reason that the Pens aren’t a cup contender is that they don’t have that core of elite players anymore. People need to move on from the idea that Malking-Crosby-Letang are elite. They are now merely good while sucking up $25meg of cap space.
The era is winding done. Thanks to JR’s masterful job of adding young support players, the downgrade is gradual, apparently leading many to have unrealistic expectations about the team. Which ironic since most the same people complaining about the playoff a few months ago were saying that the Penguins where going to collapse this season. If Jarry wouldn’t have imploded they would have even won a playoff round, which would be nice. But so what? They would have little chance against the Big Boys like Tampa or Colorado, or maybe even Boston. Anyone who things that a different coach will alter this reality is fool. And I think you know who you are.
Bottom line: they are on a gradual downgrade. They are in an awkward spot. Not good enough to compete for a cup but not bad enough for a scorched earth rebuild. It will be interesting to see what Hextall and Burke do.
Hey Stratton,
Interesting observation about us being in an awkward position…and spot on. Had Jarry not imploded, I think we could’ve gotten to at least the second round. And while I don’t like how we match up with the Bruins, you never know.
It will, indeed, be interesting to see what Hextall and Burke do. I would expect us to get heavier and a little more physical. Not necessarily in a goony sense, but to be better able to compete in the postseason.
Rick
Hey Mike,
Always good to hear from you. Funny, but before the series started my brother, Dan, made the same observation as your point No. 8…that we’re built for the regular season and not the postseason.
I think it’s almost guaranteed Hextall and Burke will try to add some size and physicality to the mix while moving us to a more hybrid style, which the rest of the league has for the most part embraced.
The interesting thing is whether or not Sullivan will be a part of that. I don’t think there’s any question he’s a good coach, but is he able (or willing) to adjust to coaching a different and perhaps more structured style?
I don’t know.
Regarding our forwards being culpable for some of our defensive woes, it seems the more we press for offense, the more our structure tends to suffer. The Islanders aren’t easy to score on and it seems the last couple of games we were really going full throttle trying to score, which didn’t leave much energy for backchecking.
On the first Nelson goal Rust looked completely out of gas.
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what transpires.
Thank you, as always, for your support during the season. Win or lose, it’s always great to chew the hockey fat with you … 🙂
Rick
I like the point by point post. Well thought out & even if I don’t agree with the point, I could see how one might have that opinion.
Until I reached point 5. Especially after reading point 4 and viewing Malkin’s performance with more of a critical eye, perhaps even an unfair one only to absolve Zucker who has been far below average for the majority of his time here.
Much of that can be placed on Sully and his disservice to the players and absolute failure in the area of deployment…an area that pretty much everyone in the world other than him can see the issue.
An issue that despite 3 first round exits against the same style of play, and despite having 3 years to come up with something, he has thrown out the exact same gameplan, and nearly the exact same deployment that continues to get crushed while getting snippy with anyone asking about it.