Pittsburgh’s counterattacking style demoralizing to opponents

Through two games of the Stanley Cup Final, the Pittsburgh Penguins have been badly outshot, lost the majority of faceoffs and had the puck far less than the Nashville Predators.

Yet, they lead the series 2-0, following a familiar script.

The Penguins frustrated the Columbus Blue Jackets, Washington Capitals and Ottawa Senators with this unconventional method of winning. They’re doing it again, needing just two more victories to win back-toback championships.

The Penguins scored three goals in a span of 3:08 in the third period of Game 2. Pittsburgh won despite a 37-minute shot drought in Game 1.

“It’s amazing,” Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan said. “You’ve got to give Pittsburgh some credit here because they keep doing it. They get outplayed for long stretches, and then they counterattack and then they execute on the counterattack. They make the best of their scoring opportunities, and it seems to be a consistent pattern.”

It’s a winning pattern that that could make Pittsburgh just the third team since the start of the salary-cap era in 2006 to be outshot and win the Cup, following the 2011 Boston Bruins and 2015 Chicago Blackhawks.

The Penguins lost 44 of 77 faceoffs in Game 2 to fall under 50 percent for the series at 66-68. They’ve allowed 64 shots and taken 39 and been out-attempted 86-57 at 5-on-5 and are 1 of 10 on the power play.

Nashville has controlled the play so far with nothing to show for it.

“We can’t just look at the numbers and say, ‘Yeah, we’re winning all the numbers but the scoreboard,’” Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said Thursday. “There’s got to be things we got to do better.”

The Penguins are already 9-6 in these playoffs when outshot by an opponent, in part because they’re scoring on a league-best 10.9 percent of their shots, which if it stands would be second-best among champions in the cap era behind only the 2010 Blackhawks.

That kind of shooting success is difficult to sustain over 82 games but not impossible considering the firepower the Penguins have in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel.

“They got three superstars on that team,” Senators coach Guy Boucher said. “At some point or another, they’re going to get their looks. It’s really tough to defend against that.”