Second jewel
Derby winner Nyquist 3-5 favorite for Preakness, probably easiest of Triple Crown races, 3,
Shots on goal can be a meaningless statistic until some of them find the back of the net.
The Pittsburgh Penguins’ extreme shot advantage became a far greater factor Wednesday night when they downed the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 in Game 3 to claim a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven NHL Eastern Conference finals.
“They are managing the puck better than us, and that’s probably the biggest key in this series,” Tampa Bay defenseman Anton Stralman said.
In the first three games of the series, Pittsburgh has outshot Tampa Bay 124-69.
What’s clear going into Friday’s Game 4 in Tampa is that the se- ries will be short unless the Lightning do a better job of possessing the puck and increasing their number of shots on goal.
“We are feeding their game a lot more than they are feeding ours,” Stralman said.
The Penguins owned a 21-6 shot advantage in the second period, when they claimed a 1-0 lead on a goal by Carl Hagelin with 10 seconds left in the period. The Penguins seemed to own the puck for the next 13 minutes, 22 seconds when they built a 4-1 lead.
“The offensive zone time we’ve had, grinding them down, using our speed — that’s what has been big,” Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang said.
The Lightning, also a skillful offensive team, don’t seem to be able to get the puck away from the Penguins.
“When we play a simple game, and put the puck behind them and use our speed — that’s when we are tough to beat,” Letang said.
Speed also has been a factor in the series. On the first goal, Phil Kessel outraced Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman down the ice and launched a shot on goal that Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped. But the rebound squirted to Hagelin, who drove it home.
“The first two games were not that great, but we had some offensive output,” Hagelin said. “But we keep building on our chemistry.”
If not for the impressive play of Vasilevskiy, the Lightning ’s situation could be far worse. He came into the game with a .940 save percentage.
To appreciate how the shot count is impacting the series, consider that Penguins goalie Matt Murray had a .878 save percentage over the first two games. The Lightning have to be wondering where they would be if they managed to put more pucks on net.
The shot disadvantage is being fed by the Penguins’ depth. They have four lines with puck-possession and scoring skills, and the Lightning haven’t found an answer for that.
Injured Tampa Bay goalie Ben Bishop is expected to return at some point in this series, but he won’t be able to save the Lightning if they can’t find a way to have the puck more often.