Madison Square Garden feels like home
As the Penguins prepared themselves to be forced along a window ledge tonight high above Manhattan, all agreed that taking one step at a time might be a good idea, if only because that’s generally the focus in situations where the first misstep will result in another postseason splat.
It’s not hopeless when you’re down, 3-1, in one of these NHL best-of-sevens, but the unfortunate thing for the Penguins is that they are not playing the Penguins, who have demonstrated a kind of ingrained readiness to give series away from that very vantage point.
The Penguins’ last best hope for the moment is, in fact, the venue tonight. At least they have a chance at beating the Rangers in Madison Square Garden, where they’ve won three of their past five playoff appointments .
“This game, going into New York, we win, the series changes
completely,” Penguins coach Mike Johnston said Thursday. “And it heads in our favor, for sure.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. A wins means a return to Consol Energy Center for Game 6, Pittsburgh being where the Rangers have won four consecutive playoff games and five of the past six overall. I mean who do they think they are, the Flyers?
The fact is, it won’t matter where the Penguins skate against the Rangers if they don’t unlock what has been a very nearly perfect New York defense led by Dan Girardi, Ryan McDonagh and Marc Staal.
Juxtaposed against a corps of Penguins defenders that’s proven highly allergic to long exposures to ice, Rangers blue-liners are a collective colossus bestriding the earth.
Girardi, since he first appeared in an NHL rink Jan. 27, 2007, has played a leaguehigh 743 games. He has missed four. Four. McDonagh, five years younger than Girardi and still getting better, leads all NHL defensemen in scoring since the middle of the second round of playoffs in 2014, with more road points and road assists than any NHL player over that stretch.
Then you have Staal, Dan Boyle, Matt Hunwick and Keith Yandle, who led all NHL defensemen in assists in the regular season.
“They have good depth; they’re good when we turn the puck over [and] give them their opportunity,” Penguins defenseman Paul Martin said. “They’ve taken everything that we’ve given them, but we haven’t given them much.”
That’s the stone truth, but another is that the Rangers have given the Penguins even less.
This is a Penguins team that got itself outshot five times in a row only once across the 82-game regular season, but has been outshot in all four games of this Eastern Conference quarterfinal.
It’s a Penguins team that has been able to score just once six times in its past 10 games, and should it exit with only one goal tonight, will have erected a virtual picket fence of goal production across the final three playoff games of a year ago and the final three playoff games this year: 1-1-1-1-1-1.
I don’t know New York coach Alain Vigneault’s favorite movie, but wouldn’t it be “Once.”
“The great news for us we don’t have to change a whole lot,” Sidney Crosby said.
“It’s not like we have to scramble and make adjustments and change of lot of things. We’ve done a lot of good things. We just have to find a way to get a win and get home.”
That seemed to be the subtext Thursday, the notion that the difference in quality of performance in this series is better reflected in the four, one-goal games than in New York’s 3-1 lead. It’s not as if the Rangers, for all of their defensive brilliance, have dominated anybody.
“If you look at the series, both teams have played similarly in a lot of ways,” Johnston said. “Our back pressure is really good; their back pressure is really good. It’s hard to generate scoring chances. You really have to work for your scoring chances. The chances in this series, as I watch other games around the league, are probably a little bit lower. Both teams are playing good defensively and I don’t think either of us wants to break that mold.
“From our perspective, we need that extra goal. We want to come out on the other side, for sure. It’s in trying to find that couple of things we can do better offensively. We still want to play the same way. Our forecheck was really good [in Game 4]. We got some good hits. I liked our defensive-zone coverage. We were minimizing shots. We were minimizing opportunities. But we need to create four to five more opportunities. Maybe draw that extra power play, those types of things. Because we do need four to five more scoring chances to get a goal.”
Crosby had more goals by himself in Game 2 than the Penguins had in any other game.
The Captain plays his 100th career playoff game tonight in Gotham. Perhaps, he’ll celebrate with another pair.
Evgeni Malkin played his 100th career playoff game Wednesday night. There was no celebration as Geno fired nary a shot.
But those aren’t exactly things that should be contemplated while walking along that ledge.