NHL Playoff Blog

No Answers Yet

May 27th, 2008 by Jason Chen

Game 2, and a highly potent Pens offense has yet to solve Chris Osgood. Brad Stuart scored his first playoff goal, the eventual winner, and assisted on Valtteri Filppula’s third period marker to win the game 3-0. The Pens mustered only 22 shots on net. All 3 goals were scored even strength, even though the Pens had 46 PIM to Detroit’s 16, including 2 penalties on goalie interference by the Pens, when most people thought it was Tomas Holmstrom who’d be under the microscope. It’s a testament to a fairly stingy Pens defense and PK.

I still haven’t been able to catch a game yet, but the stats are telling the story here.

I noted that Dan Cleary has been noticeably absent in the Wings’ playoff run. In Game 1 he notched a goal, and in game 2 he had 4 shots and played 18:51, if I’m not mistaken that’s the most he’s played in a game this playoff run. He has clearly been stepping it up and it’s showed. It hasn’t been Pavel Datsyuk or Henrik Zetterberg who’s been taking over the series, but guys who are willing to grind it out like Cleary, Kris Draper, and depth forwards like Filppula.

I noted the Pens’ top offensive players lead the team in ice-time, regardless of situation. Evgeni Malkin played 18:03, considerably below his average, and if the Pens continue to take penalties this is the result. Even though he is used on the PK, it’s mostly Max Talbot’s line that does the work. Less Malkin on the ice means good news for the Wings.

When Sidney Crosby broke into the league he wasn’t a very good face-off man. Same goes for Malkin. He was an abysmal 4-14 in the circle. That’s not good considering he took the second most amount of face-offs on the team, behind Crosby, who did surprisingly well (12-21) and ahead of Jordan Staal, who was a mediocre 5-12, although he did win 5/9 against Draper.

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