With back-to-back games against the New York Islanders and the Detroit Red Wings - two teams around them in the playoff race - the Pittsburgh Penguins had, perhaps, their biggest test of the season when facing them head-to-head.
And they passed that test with flying colors.
After routing the Islanders, 8-3, on Monday, the Penguins stormed right back on Tuesday and ousted the Red Wings, 5-1, in dominant fashion yet again. Goaltender Stuart Skinner was outstanding - stopping 22 of 23 Detroit shots on goal - and Pittsburgh got contributions from up and down their lineup.
“That’s the good thing right now,” said Noel Acciari, who registered his 11th goal of the season. “When we can go up and down the lineup, take the pressure off the top lines, it’s big. Especially this time of year and especially with what the (Eastern Conference) looks like, every goal counts. So, the fact that we have four lines that can do that is huge for our group. We’ll keep that rolling.”
The Penguins opened the scoring pretty early in this one, picking up right where they left off on Long Island Monday night. A little more than four minutes into the first period, Rickard Rakell took a feed from Sidney Crosby into the high-slot area, where he ripped home his 20th of the season top-shelf to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead - and securing his seventh career 20-goal season.
And just as the Penguins have done all season long, they just kept piling on after that.
A little more than four minutes later, the Penguins were cycling in the offensive zone with a split change. Both Connor Dewar and Evgeni Malkin had the puck around the net front, and Anthony Mantha found the loose change from just outside the crease, earning his first career 30-goal season and handing the Penguins an early 2-0 lead.
They continued to drive play for the remainder of the first, outshooting Detroit, 14-5. And before the end of the opening frame, they tacked on another one when an Egor Chinakhov wrister hit Detroit blueliner Moritz Seider's stick upon release, fooling goaltender John Gibson enough for it to sneak behind him and give the Penguins a three-goal advantage heading into the second.
After some four-on-four play - and a failed four-on-three power play attempt by the Penguins - Detroit earned a power play of their own early in the second when Mantha went to the box for tripping. In five seconds' time, Dylan Larkin found the back of the net, which was another notch against a struggling Penguins' penalty kill unit.
But that turned out to be the only offense Detroit could muster throughout the game.
Even though Detroit pushed a bit in the second period, Pittsburgh pushed back defensively, playing, perhaps, their best defensive game in a few weeks. The Penguins got back on the offensive attack, too, and were rewarded when Connor Clifton shot a puck toward the net from the right point, and it was tipped by Justin Brazeau in front to give him his first goal in 11 games and the Penguins the 4-1 advantage.
Acciari tacked on his goal in the second half of the third period, where the Penguins never really wavered.
Of course, it was a good thing to earn four out of four points in the two most consequential games of the season so far for the Penguins. But even more impressive was how they were able to earn the wins, controlling play pretty much from start to finish in both games.
“It tells you that we come out big in big moments,” Skinner said. “We’re a resilient group. If things don’t go our way [or] things do go our way, we just kind of stick to our game plan. That’s what’s so incredible about this group. The maturity obviously starts with the leadership [and] goes down to every single guy in how we play a simple, strong game.
“It’s very fun to play in, and it’s very fun to watch.”
Here are some thoughts and takeaways from this one:
- The lineup for Tuesday’s game - with Evgeni Malkin back in the fold after missing the previous four - was supposed to be a pretty interesting one.
Rust did take warm-ups, and it was deemed that he couldn’t go afterward. Head coach Dan Muse confirmed that Rust wasn’t injured during warm-ups and that the lower-body injury was something else. No further update has been provided yet.
Another day, another case of “a soul for a soul,” I guess.
In any case, when Rust is healthy, it will be interesting to see if Muse elects to go with the lineup that was originally slated. It included a top line of Chinakhov, Crosby, and Rust; a second line of Tommy Novak, Ben Kindel, and Malkin; a third line of Mantha, Rakell, and Brazeau, and; the same fourth line of Elmer Soderblom, Connor Dewar, and Acciari.
The look of that lineup is intriguing, especially the second and third lines. The Mantha, Rakell, and Brazeau line saw a lot of success against the Islanders, and Kindel was supposed to get a crack at centering Malkin. We’ll see what Rust’s status is for Thursday and if the Penguins elect to give the original lineup another shot.
- That said, I really liked the look of the top line the Penguins got on Tuesday, which consisted of Chinakhov, Crosby, and Rakell.
That’s a combination I’ve been curious about for a while. Combine Chinakhov’s speed, smarts, two-way game, and ridiculous shot with Rakell’s ability to find and create space, forecheck, crash the net, play defense, and rip the puck, and you’ve got a pretty lethal combination of players for one of the greatest players and playmakers of all time down the middle. And we saw a lot of that on display throughout Tuesday’s game, as they were dangerous on the forecheck.
I’ve long-believed that Rust’s skillset is better for moving up and down a lineup than Rakell’s is, even if I doubt that Crosby and Rust would separate if Rust is healthy. I think a second line of Rust, Kindel, and Malkin would be quite intriguing, and Novak has had success with Mantha and Brazeau this season.
- Short note here, but it was nice to see Brazeau finally get off the schneid. He has four points in the last two games, and he's looking much more like the version the Penguins got in the first half of the season.
If he and Mantha can reunite when the Penguins are healthy, that would be ideal. They're money together on the same line.
- Kris Letang and Sam Girard have really stepped up their games in these last two, and they have, by far, been their best performances together this season.
According to data from Natural Stat Trick, the Girard-Letang pair has contributed a 64.06 expected goals share in the past two games. That’s a massive improvement over the rest of their games together, when they had a 50.09 share.
The Penguins have a very strong forward group. Arguably, the NHL’s deepest. If they do make the playoffs, they are going to need more consistency from their defense and goaltending. If Girard and Letang continue to improve - especially with the way the Parker Wotherspoon-Erik Karlsson and Ryan Shea-Connor Clifton pairings have fared this season - that would be a huge development for this team.
- Speaking of the goaltending, what a performance this was from Skinner.
He was outstanding whenever he needed to be, even if it wasn’t much. He made some huge saves in situations that could have swung momentum the other way, including a flurry of saves in the waning seconds of the middle frame and a sprawling one on Alex DeBrincat. If Detroit scores there, it’s a 4-2 game going into the third, and the Red Wings would have had the momentum. He also made some nice saves just beyond the midway point of the third period and before Acciari scored his goal to, essentially, put the game away.
There are seven games left. The Penguins need to finish this thing off and secure their spot in the playoffs. There are two more back-to-backs.
It should be Skinner’s net on Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and if he performs well, his again on Saturday against the injury-depleted and tanking Florida Panthers. This team is at a point where they need to pick a lane with their goaltenders heading into the playoffs, and the lane should be whoever the hot hand is.
And they also need to frontload wins as much as possible in the final stretch.
- And why is that? Well, perhaps because the Washington Capitals and St. Louis Blues are two of hockey’s hottest teams since the Olympic break, and those are the final three games of the Penguins’ regular season.
Right now, the Penguins are six points clear of the playoff cutoff line. If they win in Tampa on Thursday? That number could be higher. And if they win again on Saturday, or - better yet - sweep the weekend back-to-back against Florida? Depending on what happens with the rest of the teams in the East playoff picture, they could clinch by the end of the weekend.
And if not by the end of the weekend, how about next Thursday on Apr. 9 against a lowly New Jersey Devils team?
The worst possible scenario for the Penguins is them needing at least two of the three final games of the regular season in order to clinch a playoff spot. That’s a situation they do not want to find themselves in.
So, they need to beat the teams they should beat, and it would be great if they could earn another hard-fought and well-played win against another formidable opponent on Thursday. Anything can happen in the final two weeks of the regular season, and nothing is a guarantee.
But a playoff “guarantee” would be a whole lot more assured if they can take at least two of the next three and three of the next four.
“We play with everyone,” Chinakhov said. “And when we play the right way, and when we play our game, we can win.”
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