Penguins v Isles Round One Baby!

As I sat and watched the Senators score an empty net goal against Boston, allowing them to leapfrog the Islanders, we finally know our round one opponent, the New York Islanders.  Eerily, they were the opponent who derailed the last Penguins "can't miss" Stanley Cup Championship team in the 1992-93 season in round two as David Volek burned Tom Barrasso in OT of Game 7 to crush our dreams of a threepeat.

  I am not saying that to scare you, but just to bring the "easy pickings" crowd back to reality.  I will say that one major difference off the top for this version of the Penguins, is that they are coming off of three disappointing outings out of the past three post seasons as opposed to back to back Stanley Cups, which should make this team a lot hungrier and less prone to assuming all they have to do is to show up to win the Cup.  Add to that, the Penguins added two former captains in Brendan Morrow and Jerome Iginla who are playing great hockey, and both see this as likely their best chance to live a childhood dream and hoist the Stanley Cup.  Both players are tough, gritty leaders who carried their respective teams in Dallas and Calgary.  When added to the nucleus already in place in Pittsburgh, along with the physical Douglas Murray, and versatile, faceoff demon, Jussi Jokinen, the Penguins sure do look like a team that SHOULD come out of the Eastern Conference.  This does not mean that they will, but I will give my summary of the upcoming series below.  First, the Penguins sit atop the Eastern Conference with a record of 36-12, second only to Chicago for the President's trophy and tied for the most wins in the NHL.  They face the Islanders who are 24-17-7 and eighth in the East.  The Penguins lead the league in goals per game at 3.38 goals more than half a goal per game more than the Islanders at 2.81 goals per game.  The Penguins are 12th in goals against at 2.48 goals against per game, and that is also better than the 2.83 goals per game allowed by the Islanders.  Special teams are always key in the playoffs, and if you had to look at an area that could come back to haunt our flightless birds, it is in the penalty kill area, where the Penguins 79.6% PK is 25th in a league of 30 teams, and only Washington has a worse PK of all of the Eastern Conference playoff teams!  The good news is that the Islanders are not much better, with a PK of 80%, good for 21st in the league.  The Penguins power play is clicking at 24.7% for the season, good for second in the NHL, while the Islanders are clicking at 20.4%, good for 11th in the league.  This gives the edge on special teams to the Penguins based on a superior power play, and a very similar penalty kill.  One area to watch is that the Penguins have given up three short handed goals, while the Islanders have not surrendered any.  In the five matchups against the Islanders in the regular season, after losing the first game in January, the Penguins won the next four games by a combined score of 16-5.  Goaltending is critical in the playoffs as well and the Islanders netminder is Evgeni Nabokov who posted a 23-11-7 record, with a 2.50 GAA and .910 save percentage.  Nabby played in 41 of the 48 games the Islanders played, while Fleury and Vokoun split the season with Fleury going 23-8, with a 2.39 GAA and .916 save percentage, while Vokoun was 13-4 with 2.45 GAA and .918 save percentage.   The edge in goaltending goes to Pittsburgh slightly based on an ability to use either goaltender in a tough series, both of whom have slightly better numbers than Nabokov, but Nabokov is more than good enough to steal some games here.  The difference for Pittsburgh to win should be the superior firepower and depth of scoring.  The Islanders have three players with more than 30 points including John Tavares, Brad Boyes, and Matt Moulson, with Tavares leading the way with 47 points.  Michael Grabner is always dangerous, particularly against the Pens, while Josh Bailey and Kyle Okposo add some nice grit and secondary scoring.  Mark Streit and Lubomir Visnovsky anchor the blue line, while former Penguin Brian Strait plays a depth role for the Islanders as well.  The Penguins meanwhile have six players with thirty or more points, with Crosby and Kunitz both netting more than 50 points, while Letang, Neal and Malkin would have also had 40 plus had they played a full season. Crosby was running away with the scoring race prior to a broken jaw, while Kunitz added 52 points, Dupuis 38 points, Letang 38 points, James Neal 36 points, and Geno with 33.  Brandon Sutter added 11 goals and 8 assists in his third line role, with many of his goals of the clutch game winning variety.  On top of this core of the Penguins, at the deadline, they added four players that have been huge for them, with three of them, Jokinen, Morrow and Iginla scoring at nearly a point per game pace, and Murray adding a crease clearing monster that the Penguins had lacked for years.  Jerome Iginla played in 13 games for Pittsburgh, scoring 5 goals and 6 assists, with 4 of his goals coming on the power play.  In addition to the goals, Iginla adds a toughness and leadership to this team that will come in handy for the Penguins.  Then, Brenden Morrow in 15 games added 6 goals and 8 assists, while hitting everything that moves.  His grit in the corners will be like body punches taking a toll in a 15 round fight during the playoffs.  Then, Jussi Jokinen, who will come in handy taking last game faceoffs to protect a lead, or to win an offensive zone possession while trailing late also added 7 goals and 4 assists in his ten games played.  If the Penguins play their game, this is where the difference will come in for Pittsburgh. 
The Islanders also have very little playoff experience, and may tighten up under the pressure cooker of their first post season trip in years.  For the Penguins, they look to redeem themselves for three subpar post season runs since their 2009 Stanley Cup.  Their depth of scoring, toughness and leadership should allow Pittsburgh to handle this series rather handily IF they avoid penalty troubles that will put their wobbly PK on the ice too often.  The Penguins are rounding back to good health and the depth options for Pittsburgh should make them a tough assignment for the Islanders to survive, but please remember a Turgeon less Islanders team in 1992-93 was told the same thing.  I will take the Penguins in five.  Go Pens!!

If the hardware comes home it will be covered with Ray's prints

 

It would take all night in my opinion to list all of the intelligent moves made by Ray Shero that have put the Penguins in the position they have been in since 2007-08, as one of the elite teams in the NHL.  There were many deals that Shero has made for the Penguins that defy logic, but I will briefly mention the Hossa deal for three reasons.  Though many thought the price was high for rental, Hossa put the Penguins over the top in the run to the Finals in 2008, and for my money they don't win the 2009 Cup without learning the lessons of the 2008 Cup run.  Second, though Hossa did become a rental by signing with Detroit, the players given up to acquire him have not amounted to much since the trade was made.  Last, but not least, the "throw in" player Pascal Dupuis is such an integral part of the Penguins success, and at a very cap friendly price, it is hard to believe he was an afterthought at the time of the deal.  Then selling high on Whitney to get Kunitz and Tangradi, then adding Neal and Niskanen for Goligoski are two more high return deals that make the Penguins who they are today.  I will not go too deep into these three trades, as they are well chronicled from past posts.  Let's look at what Ray has done since the bitter disappointment of an early exit to Philadelphia in last year's playoffs.  A series where the grit of the Penguins came into question, as did their defensive play and the post season play of their elite goaltender.  Fast forward to June 4th when Shero makes a BIG move to improve the Penguins chances in this year's post season by trading a 7th round pick to the Capitals for the rights to Tomas Vokoun, giving the Penguins an elite 1-2 punch in the net that not only will allow Fleury to come into the post season a little less fatigued, but give Pittsburgh options should Fleury struggle in the cage this season.  The importance of goaltending in the playoffs cannot be overstated, therefore the importance of this move cannot be overstated either.  Then, when Jordan Staal declined to sign a 10 year, 60 million dollar contract offer, Shero gets Brandon Sutter, as good a third line center as there is in the league, highly touted defensive prospect Brian Dumoulin and the 8th overall pick which netted Pittsburgh Derrick Pouliot, an elite puck moving defensive prospect. You know, the kind of guy who will either be a big part of your blue line, or, if you are King Ray, a guy you turn into a top six forward, and a solid role player down the line.  And do not forget the cap space he opened up with the move (2M this year and 4M next year).  Then Shero moves Zybnek Michalek back to Phoenix in return for a 2012 3rd pick, big defensive prospect Harrison Ruopp, and some traffic cone of a goaltender who will never see the NHL.  That move seemed like a bad move in terms of the return, but we soon learned why.  King Ray was opening up cap space to make a hard run at Zach Parise and Gary Suter as free agency opened.  While Shero pursued these two elite players, the Penguins lost Steve Sullivan a big part of the Penguins' power play success to free agency, and popular tough guy Arron Asham as well.  When the Penguins came up empty on both stars while losing two quality role players, the fan base screamed for him to do something big.  He did nothing of the sort, instead signing depth defenseman Dylan Reese and grinder Tanner Glass to the Penguins.  Glass was brought in to fill the role of Asham and many griped about it.  In reality Glass is younger, blocks more shots, and hits more than AA, so all in, not a bad move, but not exactly one that will take you to the heights of the league.  People squaked, moaned, bitched and screamed.  Somewhere Ray was smiling, as he knew the Penguins had a quality team, a lot of young assets to trade, and thanks to his ability to resist over spending to make a splash, CAP SPACE!!  The season starts and despite a good record, the Penguins too often looked like that same team from last season who could run and gun with the best of them, but who looked too much like last year's team, who despite being a top regular season team, succumbed in the first round for the third straight year.  Their defensive zone play was lacking and Shero goes out in February and signs ex-Penguin Mark Eaton to a one year deal.  Most people thought that this was a curious signing, and likely a waste of the paper it was written on.  Well, the Penguins have gone 22-2 since then, and are near the top of the league in defensive statistics in that time frame. A solid signing, but the Penguins still seemed a little light on crease clearing ability, grit, veteran leadership and net front prescence.  Not to worry, King Ray steps up and gets highly coveted Dallas Stars captain Brenden Morrow and a 2013 third round pick in return for highly touted defensive prospect Joe Morrow and a 2013 fifth round pick. Many locals screamed about losing Joe Morrow, for "an old player" who wasn't scoring much any more.  On losing our Morrow, well, the Penguins have Despres and Bortuzzo, both of whom will be fixtures next year, then Harrington, Dumoulin, Maata, Pouliot, Samuellson and others in WBS who are all highly touted prospects.  They added a veteran leader who is chasing his first cup, who will hit everything that moves and wear down an opponent over a seven game series.  He was the poor man's Iginla, whom the Penguins were not going to be able to sign.  Morrow in 12 games as a Penguin has 11 points, 5G and 6A, while compiling 30 hits and a plus 4.  And he made PK Subban soil himself along the way.  Then Shero sends two second round picks to San Jose to acquire huge defenseman Douglas Murray to add size and nasty to the blue line.  Murray has been a beast, blocking 27 shots, adding 28 hits, a fight and three points in 11 games.  When he hits you, you know it. These two players add a toughness the Penguins have not had in quite some time.  Then came the night I went to bed thinking of how much I hated to see Iginla join the Bruins as reported.  Then I woke up to hear that Shero stole Iginla from the Bruins for two mid level prospects Ben Hanowski and Ken Agostino!  So now the Penguins add the grit, leadership and skill of an 1,100 point captain and certain Hall of Famer while giving up little in tangible value.  Iginla is the type of leader who can put a team on his shoulders and carry them through a playoff series.  Iggy has 8 points (4G and 4A) in 10 games despitea slow start here.  Then, in an under the radar move Shero adds Jussi Jokinen, former 30 goal scorer and faceoff artist for a conditional draft pick.  Jokinen has 8 points (4G and 4A), while winning 52.4% of his faceoffs and playing to a plus 4! 

Injuries to Crosby, Malkin, Neal, Letang, and Martin have meant that we have not seen what this team can do when all the pieces are together, but this group has the team on a 7 game streak right now without the star power mentioned above.  You can see the added dimension of physicality, leadership, and big goal capability as all four of these guys have taken turns carrying this team right now.  The depth is scary and should come in handy during the war of attrition that is the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Vokoun is now 10-1 in his last 11 games as well.  The projected lines if all are healthy would be Crosby centering Iginla and Dupuis, Malkin centering Kunitz and Neal, Sutter centering Morrow and Cooke, and Jokinen will be a fixture on line four with one of several possible linemates. The defensive unit would have Orpik, Letang, Martin, Murray, Niskanen, Eaton, along with Depres and Engo to pick from.  Wow.  As we learned in 1992-93, being the best team on paper does not mean you will win the Cup, but if they do not, it will not be due to the efforts and skills of Ray Shero in identifying and addressing the holes in a quality team to prepare them for a run at the Stanley Cup!  In Shero we trust!