Penguins/Islanders Recap: Pens chase Sorokin, demolish Islanders 8-3

Pregame

There are lots of moving parts for the Penguins, who are using three different lines for tonight. The happiest change is that Sidney Crosby is able to return and Bryan Rust shrugs off his maintenance day yesterday to play too. Rickard Rakell stays at center for the second game in a row, this time between the ‘big’ winger duo of Anthony Mantha and Justin Brazeau. Tommy Novak slides to the wing for the first time in a while, joined by Ben Kindel and Avery Hayes. Arturs Silovs gets the start in net.

First period

Both teams play a little tight and tense at first. The Islanders get the puck down low and try to jam it in, nearly doing so a couple times. On the other end of the ice, Erik Karlsson shoots a puck off Ilya Sorokin’s stick nob and then a Sidney Crosby shot hits the crossbar a little later.

The Islanders gain momentum and start stacking up chances. Adam Pelech shoots from the blueline through plenty of traffic, Silovs doesn’t track the puck but luckily for him it hits the post and stays out. Crosby and Karlsson then hulk up and generate a bunch of chances.

Pittsburgh traps some tired Islanders in their d-zone and amps up the pressure to the max by double shifting the first line following an NYI icing call but they can’t quite get it to go.

First penalty is called with 3:15 to play, Sam Girard goes for holding and Mat Barzal joins him for the extra spinning, turning fall to exaggerate the hold. The 4v4 is uneventful, after it ends J.G Pageau bonks Chinakhov on the head with a stick and that creates the first power play with 56 seconds left in the period. The Islanders get a 2-on-1, period ends.

The whole period felt like a desperate race mainly between Crosby and Karlsson trying to create a goal before the Islanders could get on the board. Neither ended up succeeding in the first 20 minutes. Shots were 11-7 Pittsburgh, both team struck some iron, yet the score stays 0-0.

Second period

Pittsburgh starts the period with a little over a minute on the carryover power play, they still don’t get anything going. Bo Horvat chugs down the ice and Rakell has to hook him to slow him down for the first NYI power play.

The Islanders score on their chance, Adam Boqvist sends a shot wide off the back wall, it takes a healthy bounce and Anders Lee is able to steer it in to open the scoring 1:27 into the second.

The Pens respond with a good shift following the goal but then it dries up. NYI gets a 2-on-1 and Silovs cheats too much to the near side so Barzal snipes him to the far-side top corner. 2-0, 2:56 in.

The Islanders apply more pressure and trap the Pens. Faceoffs are 21-6 NYI, Pittsburgh can’t win a draw and get in trouble after Silovs can’t freeze a high shot. They survive long enough to get a change and start pushing back. The fourth line gets a great shift and creates some traffic of their own. Karlsson glances another shot off the post, Noel Acciari and Elmer Soderblom go to work down low with Soderblom finding the puck after a scramble and lifting the puck over a fallen Sorokin. 2-1.

The Islanders answer back, Silovs goes to catch a low shot but doesn’t snag the puck, rebound sits there for Brayden Schenn to put into the net. 3-1.

Acciari takes a penalty, and it’s the Penguins who score on the PK. Rakell and Bryan Rust work a give-and-go that ends with Rust setting Rakell up to steer a puck through Sorokin’s five-hole. 3-2 game.

Game is wide open now, the Pens let Barzal get behind them again, his breakaway shot sails wide. Pittsburgh answers again with their second goal in 2:28. Anthony Mantha goes low-to-high to Ryan Shea and this time it’s Sorokin who is caught deeper in his crease and Shea’s shot hits the mark. 3-3.

Pittsburgh then takes their first lead of the night. Mantha gets behind the NYI defense and Justin Brazeau sends it into space for him to skate into. Mantha tries his classic breakaway move to feint and lay the backhander through the five-hole, it works. 4-3 PIT.

There goes that man again! As if on repeat, Brazeau makes another great pass to Mantha after Kris Letang pinches down and wins a puck back. The Islanders defensive structure is totally gone, no one picks Mantha up so he skates it all the way in, makes another move to the backhand and uses his long reach to steer in a second goal of the period. 5-3 Pens.

Well, that was a wild ride. Eight total goals, the Islanders look like they’re about to run away with things but then four unanswered goals by the Penguins put them ahead 5-3 at the second. Shots are 13-8 PIT in the middle frame.

Third period

Matthew Schaefer takes the puck to the net trying to make something happen, the Pens survive.

Soderblom and Scott Mayfield get tied up and are angry enough to get in a fight. Soderblom uses his size and strength to hold the smaller player off and throws a few nice shots in to drop the Islander.

Two rookies combine to extend the lead to 6-3. Sorokin stops Ben Kindel with the Pens on a 3-on-1 rush but leaves a rebound and loses his net. A great second effort by Kindel passes the puck back to the mouth of the crease for Avery Hayes to score an easy one, courtesy of no defender getting to him in time.

Pittsburgh ends Sorokin’s night, Brazeau blisters a shot that the goalie can’t handle. The generous NYI defense can’t get the stick or body of Rakell, who drives to the net and finds a way to finish it. 7-3 with 12:06 to play forces a goalie change to put David Rittich in.

The Isles get a chance, Silovs waves his blocker hand at the puck and falls to his stomach, the rolling puck ends up on his back and down behind him heading for the goal-line. Parker Wotherspoon is there to save the day and jam it back into the goalie to get a stoppage.

Game is ambling on, the Pens make a normal looking breakout but Scott Mayfield offers no resistance to Bryan Rust. Crosby hits Rust with a pass and it’s way too casual defending to let Rust snap a shot in. 8-3.

That does it for this game.

Some thoughts

• Egor Chinakhov has been so productive this season and when you’re a winger on the Penguins having great success, you’re going to find your way to Crosby’s line sooner or later. The need for Rakell as a center (though the team did have Novak as a typical option for their second line center) meant that Chinakhov-Crosby combo got tried for the first real time in earnest with little build up on practices, instead of going with Rakell.
• That’s one of those things if it works, the coach looks like a genius and if it doesn’t, well, that makes for a tougher conversation. The genius touch (or, hey the one that worked and makes the coach look good) ended up being the call to reunite Mantha and Brazeau. Those two each had three-point games and combined to put the biggest impacts on this game when it was up for grabs.
• Same with the choice of goalie, though perhaps neither option is really a preferable one. Silovs was as impassive and deep in the net as a shooter tutor on the Barzal goal. NYI scored three goals on 1.24 expected. After that, the Pens were able to give the Islanders basically nothing while they went and out-scored their problems in net. Luckily for Pittsburgh they were able to exploit the Islanders’ biggest weakness (a blatant disegard for playing competitive defense) before NYI could touch up the Pens’.
• Crosby was on a mission in the first period: six shot attempts, some smart passes, super-high battle level, he was dialed in. You could tell it was a big game just from watching him, fun to see him turn the clock back before our eyes coming back from injury and leading the team during an important game. He didn’t end up being THE story of the game but it’s great to see him back in the lineup and playing such a driven brand of hockey.
• Defensemen had 8/19 of the Islanders’ shot attempts in the first period. They weren’t trying anything fancy, they were getting forwards to the net and letting their blueliners shoot from a distance to see what would happen.
• Rust and Rakell creating a shorthanded goal was incredibly pivotal. The Pens were down 3-1 and possibly on the ropes while killing a penalty. Then, boom, they’re right back in it. Then Mantha put his imprint on the game with a primary assist and two goals to completely change the game. Recently when good things have been happening, it usually has something to do with those names, this was no different.
• In that way, it was very fitting for the Pens’ season; it may not always be pretty and they might be on the ropes at time, but they’re always going to keep pushing. This team has some admirable fight from within.
• Great adjustment by the Pens going into the second. Early on, they were often looking for passes and trying to find back door plays to do the work. They simplified in the second, and you saw a lot of the size and muscle of this team taking over. Soderblom was a beast down low. Brazeau and Mantha were doing their things along the walls and then by the net. It might go unnoticed (but probably not for long) about just how much length and strength that the Pens have built up lately into their team. It’s not easy to get the puck off of 6’5”, 6’6” and 6’8” forwards from down low when they can really lean into it.
• The support plays for the Pens were so good too. Wotherspoon grabbed a couple of secondary assists getting the puck going north. Letang pinched and won a puck back to start the sequence for a Mantha goal. Novak slipped the puck off the wall for Kindel to skate into for an odd-man rush. Crosby got a puck behind the net over for Mantha to start a play. The finishes and immediate setups were nice too, but every play has to start somewhere, the Pens had some great building blocks to start sequences.
• Seven goals and Evgeni Malkin didn’t play, Erik Karlsson had no points and Crosby had the one assist. That’s an incredible offensive output from up and down the lineup. 15 out of the 18 Penguin skaters for tonight registered a point. Very few had multiple point games until the garbage time goal, all things considered from the first seven goals (Mantha 2G+1A, Rakell 2G, Brazeau 3A, Wotherspoon 2A until Crosby, Rust and Letang joined the multi-point club with the late third period goal). Just a lot of balance and obviously a couple of massive efforts from the like of Mantha and Rakell.
• If NYI/PIT does end up being a first round playoff game, my goodness, I don’t know how we’ll survive. Certainly the blood pressure will be going up, neither team is all that dutiful at defending and both have some scary forwards when they get time and space to sneak behind all-too-oblivious opponents. Thought the biggest factor in this game, probably by far, was the awful effort of the NYI defense, whether it was in their structure or just showing basic pro level competitiveness. They must have sensed the game was slipping away from them and pretty much packed it in for the night and let the Pens do whatever they needed to do in the last 30 minutes.
• Best thing: no more Josh Bailey, Jordan Eberle is long gone and Kyle Palmieri is on IR. All the old familiar NYI nightmares are over. Players like Horvat, Barzal and Schaefer present enough challenges on their own but it’s no small comfort that a lot of those from the past can’t show up on a night like tonight.
• Pittsburgh ends the year 2-0-1 against NYI, who they now are ahead of by one point in the standings (the Pens do have a game in hand). That’s a massive outcome to take 5 out of 6 available points against a critical opponent, while seeing them walk away with just two from the season series. Will there be more in the playoffs? If the Islanders play such sloppy and uncommitted defense like they displayed tonight, sign us up!

This week was accurately billed as so crucial to the playoff hopes of the whole season. It couldn’t really have started any better, the Pens score the last seven goals of the game and don’t exactly have a tough or physical, bruising type of contest so they should have a lot of momentum when they return home for another huge game tomorrow night against Detroit.