The Penguins overcame a sloppy, error-filled first period to defeat the Devils last night, 4-1, at PPG Paints Arena.
Despite yielding numerous opportunities on turnovers and such, including a clean breakaway by Jesper Bratt, the Pens emerged from the opening 20 minutes with a 1-0 lead, thanks to a goal by Erik Karlsson and the shutdown goaltending of Stuart Skinner.
The black-and-gold then flipped the proverbial switch and ran roughshod over the Devils in the second stanza, piling up a 17-6 edge in shots on goal (33-10 in shot attempts) and widening their lead on tallies by Connor Dewar and Evgeni Malkin.
However, the Devils’ Luke Hughes struck on the power play early in the third period, and the visitors began to push back.
Would the Pens revert to their old, losing ways and blow a multi-goal lead?
Happily, the answer was no.
At 13:26, the “Buzzsaw Line,” superb all night, struck on a great bit of teamwork. Dewar cut off a clearing attempt along the right wall and fed Noel Acciari, who slipped a short pass through bodies to Blake Lizotte. The peppery center redirected the rubber past Jake Allen blocker side to quash whatever momentum the Devils had gathered.
In the process putting the finishing touches on another great win.
Puckpourri
How great was it to see Malkin get that goal (and his celebration). Pure electricity! Welcome back, big guy!
Geno was flying in his first game back in over a month, but his line as a whole looked disjointed to the eye. Stats-wise, it was by far the worst of our lines in Corsi (37.50), Shots for Percentage (28.57) and Expected Goals for Percentage (22.95), according to Natural Stat Trick.
Maybe Geno eventually returns to the Big Line. However, with a Corsi of 75 and an xGF% of 91.50, the Justin Brazeau–Tommy Novak–Anthony Mantha combo dominated.
A nice problem to have.
Can’t say enough about our fourth line. If it’s not the best fourth line in the NHL, it’s got to be darn near. The guys just fit together hand-in-glove. Their stats for the night? A Corsi of 84.62 and an xGF% of 82.38.
It’s been suggested on another site, given their pending UFA status, that Kyle Dubas peddle one or two of them at the trade deadline.
I say nuts to that. You don’t break what don’t need fixin.’
Speaking of Dubas, how good have his moves been going back to last spring? Specifically, adding Dewar, Brazeau and Mantha, but Novak, Skinner and Brett Kulak as well. JR-esque at his best.
Man, has Skinner been dialed in over his past three starts. He’s stopped 66 of 69 (.957 save percentage), including 28 of 29 last night to earn third-star honors. I alluded to this before, but Stu reminds me more than a little of a young Matt Murray with his size and positioning, to go with a better glove hand.
Speaking of netminders, Sergei Murashov had a couple of rough outings recently for the depleted Baby Pens. Tandem-mate, Joel Blomqvist, has been airtight (1.93 GAA, .933 SV%).
Sidney Crosby (two assists) moved past Wayne Gretzky and now occupies second place for most assists (1087) for a single team, trailing only Raymond Bourque.
With the victory, the Pens (21-12-9, 51 points) occupy fourth place in the Metro. The top wild-card spot, too. We have the second-best regulation points percentage (.560) in the Eastern Conference behind Tampa Bay.
The Lightning have the longest active winning streak in the league (eight games), two more than our Pens’ current six-game heater.
Up next, the Flames at home on Saturday afternoon and the Bruins in Beantown on Sunday.
Hey all,
I neglected to mention that Ville Koivunen was reassigned to the Baby Pens yesterday to make room for Geno.
Rick
Rick,
It doesn’t surprise me any, that Geno’s 5-on-5 numbers weren’t all that good last night; he was saddled with Kindel. Whether anyone likes it or not, Kindel drags his line mates down. In the 63 min 46 sec that Kindel has Skated with Sid so far this season, that combo has only managed a CF% of 46.77%. and a GF% of 40.00
Hopefully, tomorrow afternoon against Calgary, things will be different, but as I wrote yesterday, I will not bet on it.
Again my friend, I’m going to disagree.
Last night none of those guys had good 5v5 metrics. No one was appreciably worse than the other:
Malkin: CORSI (48.48) Shots for % (29.41) xGF% (27.38)
Chinakhov: CORSI (37.93) Shots for % (25) xGF% (26.22)
Kindel: CORSI (44.12) Shots for % (27.78) xGF% (22.89)
Awfully hard to point to Kindel as the one dragging the line down.
Again, for the record, here are Kindel’s 5v5 metrics and ranking among the 34 players who’ve skated for the Pens this season. With one admittedly glaring exception, they’re good across the board:
Corsi: 54.40 (5th)
SF%: 55.61 (5th)
GF%: 37.50 (23rd)
xGF%: 54.31 (9th)
SCF%: 53.94 (8th)
HDCF%: 55.14 (11th)
Rick
PS–I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention this was their first game together as a line. I can only imagine it takes a little time to develop chemistry. I’d guess that for Kindel and Chinakhov, it’s awfully hard not to defer to a player of Geno’s skills and stature.
In a separate item, just wanted to mention that Caleb Jones has begun skating again.
Rick
If Kindel failed with Crosby, even after more than 60 minutes skating with him, regardless if this was their 1st game together, I am not filled with confidence.
Rick,
Sorry my friend but Malkin and Chinakov were dragged down by Kindel. The only real stat that means anything is the GF%. All of the other stats you quote mean absolutely nothing at the end of the game. In fact, CF% is usually higher when a team is behind, because the winning team is basically in a prevent defense, ceding shots from bad angles. More importantly if a player has a high CORSI but a low GF, then that player is inefficient at both ends of the ice, both defensively and offensively.
Furthermore, a more telling stat rather than just looking at what those three players did together is to look at the their With or Without you stats.
Malkin with Kindle very limited TOI 24:37 with no GF or GA.
Malkin without Kindel GF% 52%
Kindell without Malkin GF% 31.25
But with reference to one of your favorite mythical stats xGF
Malkin with Kindel GF% 35.65
Malkin without Kindel GF% 52.23% (roughly the same as his actual.
Chinakhov and Kindel is very similar to Malkin and Kindel – not much TOI yet Chinakhov has only been permitted to have 5:21 away from Kindel, so he has no time to really score or be scored upon so his Without Kindel GF% is non exist. However, his with Kindel is telling GF% of 40%. As I wrote the other day only Brazeau and Rakell have been spared a negative GF% with Kindel, he has dragged every other regular forward down.
Again, looing at your favorite mythical stats with reference to the with or without you factor,
Chinkhov with Kindel xGF% 37.45
Chinakhov without Kindel xGF% 54.14
I get it. Everybody wants to see a Penguin Prospect make it and I would dearly love to be wrong on this one, since Dubas is hell bent on trying to prove he wasn’t wrong in using the 11th pick of the draft on Kindel but at the moment, this kid isn’t getting it done 5-on-5.