Finally, it’s all hands on deck
No. 1 power play looks sharp again
The Penguins’ power play had a familiar look to it in Game 3 Tuesday night.
The top unit had all five of its regular members — Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Patric Hornqvist and Kris Letang — for the first time since Game 3 of the series against the Philadelphia Flyers.
More important, it was creating chances again.
“It’s the power play that we’re accustomed to watching on a nightly basis,” coach Mike Sullivan said.
The Penguins scored a power-play goal — snapping an 0-for-16 drought — in the second period of their 4-3 Game 3 loss Tuesday against the Washington Capitals. On a night with a forgettable final result, the Penguins’ performance with the man advantage was one of the positive takeaways, especially after going 0 for 11 in the first two games of the series.
“I think that we executed well,” Crosby said. “We moved the puck, we took shots when they were there.
“You always want to say, ‘shoot the puck,’ and ‘do this, do that,’ but it’s got to be somewhat calculated, too. I thought we made some smart shots and generated some good plays there.”
It helped, of course, that Malkin was back in the lineup, occupying his usual spot at the half-wall. Malkin had missed the previous three games with a lowerbody injury. Before that, Hornqvist was out for two games with an upper-body injury.
So Tuesday night was the first time in six games the Penguins have had their power play at full strength, a pretty big deal considering the all-world talent of the players on it.
Jake Guentzel can fill in ably at several spots as he did when Hornqvist and Malkin were out, but the power play is at its gamechanging best when all five regulars are on the ice.
“Everybody familiar and knows what they have to do as far as their job and what they bring,” Crosby said.
In four games this postseason with all five top-unit regulars in the lineup, the power play is 5 for 19. In the five games without them, it’s 1 for 15.
“Obviously having Geno there, he’s another threat,” Letang said. “He’s a dangerous player with a lot of skill and a good shot. They might have to pay attention to him a little bit, too.
“I think overall we simplified things. We shot the puck. We got rewarded.”
Looking at Game 3, specifically, Sullivan also praised the power play’s ability to have good shifts and create chances even if it didn’t score every time on the ice. The Penguins had seven shots in 5:56 of powerplay time, and generally were able to move the puck crisply in the offensive zone.
“We scored a goal, but we also got momentum off of it in the times that we didn’t,” Sullivan said.
If the Penguins can turn the power play into a legitimate advantage area, that could be a significant factor in this series. The Capitals’ penalty kill has been a weapon in their favor for most of the most season with 24 consecutive kills until Hornqvist’s power-play goal in the second period Tuesday night.
For the Penguins, the power play has been mostly disappointing.
It has an overall success rate of 17.6 percent in the playoffs, lowest of the eight remaining teams. That number is significantly lower than the 26.2 power-play rate the Penguins had in the regular season.
That discrepancy might seem to indicate that the unit is not so much a weakness as a sleeping giant, and its performance Tuesday backs up that idea.
“I thought they were much better,” Sullivan said. “I just thought they were sharper all around. I thought the entries were better, I thought they moved the puck better, I thought their shot selection was good. We had net traffic, we were retrieving pucks. They were doing a lot of the little things.”