Caps, Penguins coaches continue chess match

Now that Penguins coach Mike Sullivan and Capitals coach Barry Trotz have matched wits in a playoff series for three consecutive years, they harbor very few secrets.

The Penguins and Capitals know each other insideout from 17 postseason games since 2016. The coaches know the dynamics of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Alex Ovechkin and just about all the other moving pieces.

“Every move that we make there’s a counter move, and every move they make there’s a little counter move,” Trotz said. “It’s funny: A lot of them are the same things that we’ve seen at different parts in the last couple series. They just come in different order sometimes at you. There’s only maybe so many bricks that you have and they are just lined up a different way all the time.”

Sullivan moved his pieces around as the Penguins tied the series at 2-2, and now Trotz gets the next chance in their chess match for today’s Game 5. After Alex Ovechkin put no shots on net for the third time in his playoff career — with Tom Wilson suspended the first of three games — he’s seeking the right mix on the top line.

Trotz tried Devante Smith-Pelly with Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov, and that trio was outshot 21-9 at even strength. Maybe Smith-Pelly will be back on that line, maybe he won’t after the Capitals coaching staff pored over video to see what went wrong.

“We’re looking at that,” Trotz said. “I think that whole line has to be better for us. They’re going to need to be productive.”

The Penguins’ top line of Jake Guentzel, Crosby and whoever else has been incredibly productive. All 10 of the Penguins’ goals in the series have come with Crosby on the ice, and Guentzel leads all players in the playoffs with 10 goals and 21 points.

“I just think he’s the best player in the game,” Sullivan said of Crosby, who played with Guentzel and Dominik Simon in Game 4. “Sid certainly makes everybody around him better players, but you’ve got to give Jake a lot of credit for the game that he’s playing.”

The Penguins got speedy winger Carl Hagelin back from injury while the Capitals lost Wilson. That’s a disadvantage for the Caps, but the spotlight is still on Trotz to make the necessary adjustments as CapitalsPenguins becomes a bestof-three series.

“I think every game both teams recalibrate, if you will, in some areas,” Trotz said. “There’s little changes we’ve noticed with them, and there’s some changes that we added in.”