Pittsburgh Penguins

Capitals domination forces Game 7
May 9, 2017, 9:20 AM ET [187 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
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The Metropolitan Division finals will be going to a seventh game. The Washington Capitals tuned up the Pittsburgh Penguins by a score of 5-2. The Capitals were better than Pittsburgh on every front and unless something drastic changes it could easily look the same for Game 7 in Washington DC.

The Penguins were outclassed the entire evening. They continue to be outshot, out attempted, and outscored. The evidence isn’t pretty for Pittsburgh

source: imgur.com

Washington has snuffed the life out of Pittsburgh. For result based analysts, welcome to the series. This isn’t a new development. When Marc-Andre Fleury drops below .940 save percentage they lose. That isn’t a lot of a wiggle room for the goaltender.

According to Natural Stat Trick at 5v5 the Penguins have been out-attempted 202-333 so far this series. They are down in scoring chances 98-176. They have been outshot 96-153. Pittsburgh is also down in the high-danger scoring chance category 35-47. Here are some other stats about the series.










For those paying attention to the Columbus series you could see the warning signs ahead of time. Pittsburgh didn’t control the play against a lesser skilled Blue Jackets team, but Pittsburgh’s high end talent was able to create more high-danger chances. Washington is Pittsburgh’s equal in skill and that strategy wasn’t likely to succeed.

It didn’t take long for the Capitals to get on the board last night. TJ Oshie scored a power play goal that was the result of the Capitals beautiful power play structure. Alexander Ovechkin will beat you by scoring goals on the power play, but he also beats you just by being on the left side. Watch Nick Bonino during this sequence. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He wants to cover Oshie, but he knows if he over-extends that far it leaves Ovechkin wide open. This gives Oshie the sliver of ice that he needs to bury the puck.




The second goal was terrible. Ron Hainsey is an easy scapegoat because of his obvious error, but Marc-Andre Fleury being beat short side the way he did was just as egregious.



Speaking of Ron Hainsey his play so far this postseason has been sub-optimal, yet he leads all Penguins in ice time. How is that a thing? There was clear evidence in Carolina that when Hainsey was given too many minutes he had a negative impact on Justin Faulk. I wrote about that at the time of acquisition

The thing that I am taking away from this information is that you need to keep Hainsey away from Kris Letang. You can clearly see that Hainsey was a negative impact on Justin Faulk. Hainsey just can't handle those types of minutes and the Hurricanes kept playing Faulk and Hainsey together. The Penguins won't have to do that because they will use Brian Dumoulin in that role. This should allow Hainsey a more appropriate 5v5 role than he was getting in Carolina.


The same thing is now happening in Pittsburgh with Brian Dumoulin. Hainsey leading the team in ice time is gross negligence by the coaching staff. He’s the slowest player with the least amount of offensive upside and he is getting caved in.

Just look at the impact playing with Hainsey has done to Brian Dumoulin(!)

source: imgur.com

That frightening drop in Dumoulin's possession numbers starts at the beginning of March this year. Coincides directly with when Ron Hainsey became his partner.

Dumoulin was supposed to be one of the few defensemen that the Penguins could rely on heading into this postseason. The coaching decisions have completely tanked his value. Dan Bylsma used to get crucified for not making adjustments when things weren’t working. These defense pairings haven’t been working for over a month when you include the frequently doomed Maatta-Daley pairing.

The handling of Mark Streit has some similarities to Derrick Pouliot. They have a player who has a certain skill set and for whatever reason the team doesn’t want to use it and then when they need that skill set the player hasn’t played in forever and it doesn’t matter anyways.

You can tinker with the forward lines all you want, but if they never get the puck on a controlled exit with speed then the thing that should be an advantage for Pittsburgh gets nullified and it has.

A lot of talk has centered around having Marc-Andre Fleury as insurance for Matt Murray, but not having insurance for Kris Letang is what is killing the team. I spent the entire summer discussing how finding another competent top four defenseman was paramount for the team. This series is why. What good is goalie insurance when the goalie has to play at unsustainable levels that aren't fair to them? Investing in the team in front of the goaltender is almost always the better approach.

Marc-Andre Fleury finished with a .808 save percentage last night and if Matt Murray’s glove had an ego account on Twitter it would probably have some snarky things to say about Fleury being beat high glove three times.

Let’s take a moment to put aside the Penguins terrible performance in Game 6 and focus on something that is probably even worse. Sidney Crosby crashed head first into the boards last night and was slow to get up. It was a violent collision and he is only a week removed from a diagnosed concussion. Here is what happened




Well the league has concussion spotters so surely they will act on this sequence events. No? Well the Penguins know how serious this is for Sidney Crosby and all he has been through with head injuries…




Lawyers have to be foaming at the mouth to be on the plaintiff side of the NHL concussion lawsuit.

Could somebody please act like they care about Sidney Crosby the human being?

Game 7 will be on Wednesday night. Can the Penguins win? Of course they can, I mean Colorado found a way to win 22 times this year. Anything can happen in a single hockey game. The likelihood of Pittsburgh winning will be low unless Fleury hits the .940 mark and/or Mike Sullivan makes significant changes to his defense pairings.