'13 Playoffs Game 6 vs NYI - Thoughts from the Morning After

[Pitt87]

While there seems to be an early consensus on the Pens effort/switch/play, what about kudos to the Isles? The loss of MacDonald really hurt their "D". Isles did not have the depth or experience (or good goaltending). Okposo had a couple of monster games, and Tavares now gives Sid real competition for the mantle of best player.

The Islanders love is a little overblown. Capuano should get more credit than any of their players. Hamonic and McDonald weren't lights out in their own end. Whenever we actually got some zone presence, we seemed to have our way with their shotty defense. We just couldn't break their checking in he other end of the rink enough. And Okposo didn't have some breakout series. 3 goals - one was a crappy shot that missed the net by 3 feet, one was a pass, and the other was one of the worst breakaway shots you'll see but fleury blew it. And Tavares has established himself as a top player, but just like everyone else, he's a full notch below Sid.

More than a notch. This is like in The Dark Knight when all those fake Batman-costume wearing vigilantes were everywhere... still only one Batman.

Totally agree that we dominated most of this series, but we should dominate them. I really think you need to go back and look at the wins, instead of just what went wrong. We won 5-0 in 90 dominant minutes, 5-4 in a game that the Isles showed some serious grit, 4-0 against a team that came out red hot and we turned them away hard, and 4-3 in OT against a caged animal that left every ounce they had on the ice.

As for player performance for them, scoring doesn't tell the whole story. Okposo lifted them in games 2 & 3. Brian Strait made some plays I didn't think he was capable of. I had no idea who Casey Cizikas was before this series, but for sure i won't forget him now. So many contributors... If you didn't see a different Okposo/Strait/Cizikas in this series, it was over in a heartbeat. Those guys stood out in all 6 games... well, the 4 games NYI actually scored in. Tavares and Streit... great guys to keep building around. They were awesome all series long. There were some guys we held in check for 6 games; Moulson, Boyes, Neilsen... these guys did not have a great series.

Transition defense & goaltending, not JUST goaltending, was the cause of most of the heartache in this series. Too many pucks to the net on the rush, not enough 50/50 or better pucks won behind the net, too many turnovers and too many player wide open around the net. Story of all our losses this year.

Whoa whoa whoa. We didn't dominate most of the series. We outplayed them for only like 5 out of 18 periods.

Wow... So how many did they outplay us then?

[Idoit40fans]

Most of games 2-6.

[Malkamaniac]

easily 2 through 6. We were super lucky to walk away with wins, but alas a win is a win.

[beachinit]

6. How does Malkin lead the Pens in points? God, he has been garbage out there. I don't know how he's doing it. I barely remember any good plays from him all series, and can remember 10 or 15 turnovers, bad passes, and slack back-checking last night alone. /shakes head.

Interesting statement. I can think of the last 2 goals by the Pens where Malkin dominated the Puck down low....In case you were wondering Malkin has 6 Give Aways or Turnovers for the first 6 games of the playoff. Not where he wants to be but not nearly as bad of a spin as you put on it. Kris Letang leads the Pens at 7 turnovers through 6 games of the playoffs. As a whole the team has 51 turnovers and would not be a top 5 team in the playoffs with that total. Look at Toronto they have 100.

[shmenguin]

my recollection of the gruesome details is fading fast, but i'd score the periods something like...

game 1: 3-0 pens
game 2: 3-0 isles (we outscored them, but didn't outplay them in the 1st period)
game 3: 2-0 isles with split 1st period
game 4: 3-0 isles
game 5: 2-1 pens
game 6: 3-0 isles

there's probably one more period in there somewhere that the pens got the better play, but i generally stand by this breakdown. we got thoroughly outplayed, overall, but we capitalized on our rare chances so we won the series.