Kessel to the rescue for Pens
Pitt will take split after ornery tilt takes toll on lineup
All night, Phil Kessel was barking. Barking on the bench, barking with Evgeni Malkin, angry at one thing or another. He pounded his fist, stomped his foot, growled like a bear. As Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final unfolded, the Pittsburgh Penguins were playing with the puck like a young couple back when people could afford houses: rent, then own, then own bigger. They attacked the Ottawa Senators trap; they attacked the Ottawa Senators zone; they attacked the Ottawa Senators goal. It was all going great, except they couldn’t score.
All playoffs long, the Penguins had been winning because their elite scoring talent outweighed the fact that their possession numbers had absolutely cratered. In this one, they reversed the flow from Game 1, and finally, with a little over seven minutes left in a scoreless game, Malkin sliced through the neutral zone and found Phil in the middle of the ice. Phil’s first shot hit Jean-Gabriel Pageau and came back to him; the second shot was a classic Phil rocket, screaming low to the glove side for a 1-0 lead.
Pittsburgh held on, and tied the series 1-1.
It should have been a worrying night for Ottawa. The Penguins have elite finishers who have carried them in these playoffs. But in this game, they absolutely destroyed the Senators, holding them without a shot for a span of 18:53 over the second and third periods, during which one of their scorers finally got one home. The Penguins looked frustrated and passive at times against Ottawa’s 1-3-1 trap in Game 1. In Game 2, once they found their feet, it was like the trap wasn’t even there.
“Yeah, I think our system is set up to make teams work, to get through the neutral zone and get into our zone,” said Senators centre Kyle Turris before the game. “Even getting into our zone, make them work to get inside, to get quality opportunities. And Craig (Anderson) tries to help us out when they do.”
Games that comically one-sided can create their own strange reality, with the knowledge that the guys trying to keep their heads above water only needed one shot to score, too.
But the Senators couldn’t manage the one shot. In Game 1, Ottawa dominated five-on-five when it came to shot totals and scoring chances, and yet a Kessel wrist shot was three quarters of an inch from tying the game in the third period. Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said he liked his team’s zone time and possession time in Game 1, but he wanted his guys to shoot the puck, in addition to merely having it.
Well, they shot it. They shot it despite being without Patric Hornqvist, who was replaced by speedy winger Carl Hagelin; they shot despite losing Crosby winger Bryan Rust, who took a Sidney Crosby pass in the first period and was absolutely smashed by Ottawa’s Dion Phaneuf, who sent his whole body straight through Rust’s chest and jaw. It was legal, but there was a lot of head contact, and Rust left the game.
They did it despite losing defenceman Justin Schultz, who collided in the corner with Mike Hoffman and left the game favouring his left arm or shoulder. Schultz led all Penguins defencemen in ice time at 25:26 in Game 1, and was the team’s leader in ice time in the playoffs, and he did not return.
And still, the Penguins dominated this thing. There were some chances both ways, but inexorably they shifted in one direction. It could have been a wider margin: in the second period Jake Guentzel hit their fourth post/crossbar of the series, and Crosby hit the outside of the net, and Guentzel lifted a shot over the bar.
The Penguins played with a ferocity and purpose that was missing at times in the first game, and at times, with more anger and physical play, this made Game 1 feel like it had been played in slow motion, though to be fair that was also the feeling at the time.
Look, momentum can vanish in the air from game to game, and Ottawa badly lost two games to the New York Rangers before winning the series.
But what if the Penguins figured out a formula? The neutral zone wasn’t a problem anymore; the Senators zone was a walk in the garden. Sure, Kessel was barking all night on the bench, and those long shifts that ended with his angry barking only really produced the angry barking.
This, though, was Pittsburgh’s best game of these playoffs, and they held off the inevitable Ottawa push at the very end. Pittsburgh may be down a No. 1 defenceman, a replacement No. 1 defenceman, a top-line winger and a sense that their entire Dcorps can get the puck to the forwards who are this team’s salvation. But the Penguins are still the champs, and after Game 1 the champs got mad, and the champs got even. At the end there was one final exchange of anger and punches, with Mark Stone and Malkin barking at one another.
This series is becoming more personal by the moment, as playoff series tend to do.
But in Game 2, the Penguins looked like champions for the first time in the playoffs. The big dogs are barking, and maybe they’re back.