Month: April 2019

Of course Islanders coach Barry Trotz was watching the Game 4 of the Capitals-Hurricanes playoff series Thursday night. And of course he noticed when Washington winger T.J. Oshie went awkwardly into the boards and didn’t return because of an apparent shoulder injury.

Trotz’s successor behind the Capitals’ bench, Todd Reirden, later said the high-scoring forward “won’t be playing any time soon.”

The Islanders, after completing their first-round sweep of the Penguins, are just awaiting the winner of that series, now tied 2-2 after Carolina’s win. The Oshie injury could prove costly for Washington, which Trotz led to a Stanley Cup win just a year ago.

“Is it tough? The relationship I have with Oshie, he plays hard, yes, absolutely,” Trotz said after the Islanders’ practice Friday. “But if they end up being the opponent, on the other hand, we’re getting healthy, we’re getting fresh, and they’re losing people.

“Whoever we play, they’re the opponent. But I know him personally, and you never want to see a guy you have relationships with get hurt.”

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That series is going at least to Game 6, Monday in Raleigh, N.C. A possible Game 7 would be Wednesday in Washington. If it goes the distance, the second round might not start until Friday or Saturday, with the Islanders having finished their first round this past Tuesday.

That long of a break could create some rust, but it’s also letting Trotz’s team get rested and healthy.

“It’s not a negative,” Trotz said. “There are teams that make those seven games and they’re going to have play the next day. If it goes seven games, it might start Friday or Saturday, and we’re rested. They’re pounding each other and they’ve lost players. So is that an advantage or not? We’re looking at it as an advantage.”

Even team president Lou Lamoriello knows it could go either way, but he’s holding out judgment until he sees how the second round unfolds.

“Having this number of days off, there are two schools of thought,” Lamoriello said. “I’ll let you know after the series whether it was a problem or not.”

The lesson that applies to the Rangers was reinforced by the Islanders in their surprising but not necessarily stunning sweep of the Penguins. That is, it is not the quantity of young players in the lineup that counts, but their quality.

You might have been able to guess that the Islanders finished the season as the NHL’s seventh-oldest team, per analysis of 20-man lineups by RosterResource.com. They have only five players aged 25 and under who made an impact. Yet the team somehow was able to get by in a league that practices Darwinism and has all but eradicated fossil fuel. Able to get by the first round in which they trailed for a total of 4:51 over four games, too.

Because the impact created by the Yoots of Uniondale in this domination of former champions was staggering. You don’t need to skew young when your second-youngest player, Mathew Barzal, 21, is consistently the most electric player on the ice as No. 13 was in this breakout performance. You don’t need to skew young when a pair of 24-year-old defensemen, Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock, form the tandem that goes toe-to-toe with Sidney Crosby and becomes a large part of the reason that No. 87 never could get on the board.

You don’t need to skew young when your youngest player, Anthony Beauvillier, makes the critical play at the critical moment, the way he did a lot more often than once, and you don’t need to skew young with Devon Toews operating at close to maximum efficiency on the blue line.

It is wide open now following Tampa Bay’s shocking sweep by Columbus. The race for the Stanley Cup has become the chase for the 1972 Democratic Party nomination for president after Ed Muskie cried (or didn’t) in New Hampshire. It would be foolish to dismiss the Islanders, whose campaign is being led by wise old heads Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz, who have remodeled the organization and team in their own formidable images.

Credit where credit is due to former GM Garth Snow, whose regime produced every one of the aforementioned quintet at the draft table, getting Barzal at 16th overall in 2015 immediately after the Bruins’ triple bypass at 13-14-15; Beauvillier at 28th overall the same year; Pelech 65th overall in 2012; Pulock 15th overall in 2013; and Toews in the fourth round in 2014. There were some big misses in there, too, don’t get me wrong, but Snow’s ultimate downfall was not a consequence of an inability to identify talent, but rather of his studied quirkiness.

Anyway.

The Islanders are an older team packed with veterans to act as pillars in the room. But they’re not exactly an old team. Do you know who is an old team? The Penguins, that’s who, second-longest in the tooth to only the Over the Hill Gang in LA, according to RosterResource.com. And they looked it from beginning to end of a series the Islanders had under control for, say, no fewer than eight of the 12 periods.

Pittsburgh seemed stale and played for the most part at a February pace. It is humorous to hear, at the same time, that Columbus benefited from having to pound down the stretch in order to qualify for the playoffs but that Pittsburgh was left enervated by taking the same path to the postseason. Truth is, the Penguins were outplayed and outworked from the top of the lineup to the bottom, outplayed in nets where Robin Lehner was markedly superior to Matt Murray, and outdone behind the bench, where Mike Sullivan was outcoached.

The Islanders were faster and played faster. Crosby always had waves of defenders coming at and surrounding him, even 150 feet away from the net. Evgeni Malkin, who had a down year and may need to go in order for GM Jim Rutherford to begin the necessary renovation process, rarely had time or space. The Islanders were always on the right side of the puck. Pittsburgh had no answers.

Jordan Eberle, setting himself up for free agency, was a wizard with the puck on his stick around the net. Brock Nelson, a pending free agent who would be out of his mind not to test the market off a playoff performance that could elevate him above Kevin Hayes on the July 1 most-wanted list, had a major impact. So of course did the redoubtable Matt Martin-Casey Cizikas-Cal Clutterbuck Wrecking Crew. Senior Islander Josh Bailey checked every box.

But it was Barzal who captivated and dazzled right from Game 1 with multiple game-changing and series-defining dynamic plays memorialized by his dash up the ice and stutter-step in the slot to set up Bailey’s Game 1 overtime winner. It was No. 13 accelerating past No. 87 as the most dynamic player on the ice. And behind him, it was Pelech-Pulock, it was Beauvillier, it was Toews.
It was a Young Gang of Five.

Lou Lamoriello has no qualms about the Islanders’ layoff or their move back to Barclays Center disrupting their playoff high.

After clinching a sweep of the Penguins on Tuesday night in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Islanders will wait to find out their next opponent — the Capitals lead the Hurricanes 2-1 in their series — but the location is set. Their past 14 home games have all been played at the Coliseum, but now the Islanders will go back to commuting to Barclays Center for the rest of the postseason.

“We’re not going to allow any change to get in the way of what we’re doing at this point,” Lamoriello, the Islanders’ president and general manager, said Wednesday on WFAN.

“The only way it becomes a negative is you think it’s a negative or there are reasons for it to be. We have no reason for it to be a negative. We played half a season there. It’ll be our home arena. We look forward to our fans, who have just been tremendous, as far as what they brought. We have no doubt they will be the same in Brooklyn.”

The Islanders went 12-7-1 in Brooklyn this season and 12-7-2 at the Coliseum. They hosted playoff hockey at Barclays Center in 2016 and went 2-1-2.

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The NHL allowed the Islanders to play at the Coliseum for the first round, in what was seen as a compromise after splitting their regular season between the two arenas, but said it did “not qualify as an NHL major-league facility.”

Lamoriello called the Coliseum an “obsolete building” and said the franchise “could never survive playing there” financially.

As for waiting around to start their next series, Lamoriello said the Islanders would make sure to use the time off to their advantage.

“There’s two schools of thought, but we can’t control it, so we can’t allow it to get in the way,” Lamoriello said. “We’ll handle it the best way we can. The players will get a couple days off, which is much needed.”

Sometimes hot teams don’t really want days off. That’s not the case with the Islanders.

After wrapping up their first-round sweep of the Penguins with a 3-1 win on Tuesday night in Pittsburgh, the Isles could be looking at a week-long wait — if not longer — until their second-round series starts. With two stalwarts in forward Cal Clutterbuck and defenseman Johnny Boychuk both leaving Game 4 due to injury and not returning, a bit of a break could come in handy.

The Isles are set to face the winner of the Capitals-Hurricanes series, with the Metropolitan Division-winning Caps up 2-1 in the best-of-seven contest going into Thursday night’s Game 4 in Carolina, the first of a possible four games set for every other day. That puts Game 7 on Wednesday — meaning the earliest the second round would likely start, should that series go the distance, would be two days later, on April 26.

That would be a long time between games for the Islanders, but also a long time for Clutterbuck and Boychuk to recover. Clutterbuck was walking very slowly when he left the arena on Tuesday night — no cast or crutch, but appearing very sore. Boychuk tried to stay on the bench after blocking a shot with his left foot/leg midway through the second period, but went to the locker room, not to return.

No matter the extent of injury or the length of the break, coach Barry Trotz is going to present this next step as a challenge to the group. After a deserved day off Wednesday, they’ll get back to the rink and see how they respond.

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“We’re going to manage it right,” Trotz said. “Then we’ll get back to work and try to get in a rhythm. This group always practices very well. We’ll be ready for our next opponent. They’re not afraid of hard work, they’re not afraid of a challenge. This is part of the growth. If we have a week off, or eight or nine days, that’ll be the challenge. I’ll present it to the group and they’ll be up for it.”

As for scouting the two opponents, Trotz obviously knows the Capitals very well from having led them to a Stanley Cup victory just a year ago. So he is going to spend most of the time studying the Hurricanes, whom the Islanders haven’t played since Jan. 8, having gone 3-1-0 in their four regular-season matchups.

“If we end up playing Carolina, I’ll tell you what, there is a lot of character,” Trotz said. “They have a lot of heart, they have some highly skilled players, they might have one of the most underrated ‘D’ corps in the NHL. They’re playing as a team.”

PITTSBURGH — Most of the Islanders’ statistics have gone down under first-year head coach Barry Trotz, which hasn’t been a problem because of how much winning they’ve done. So much so, they are on the verge of sweeping the Penguins in their first-round series if they can pick up a win in Game 4 on Tuesday night.

But there was one player whose stat line has improved dramatically, and who was as happy as his stone-cold demeanor could convey that Trotz brought with him a defense-first attitude that took the team from worst in the league in goals-against to first.

That would be defenseman Nick Leddy, who was coming off the worst plus-minus season in franchise history — and one of the worst in recent league history — before posting an even-rating this regular season for a team that finished second in the Metropolitan Division.

Leddy, renowned for his skating ability and offensive instincts, finished last year with a minus-42 rating, meaning he was on the ice for 42 more goals-against than he was goals-for. There have been only 156 individual seasons in NHL history in which a player has gone minus-40 or worse, and Leddy’s minus-42 was the worst since Rico Fata went minus-46 for the Penguins in 2003-04.

Of course, it’s a stat that has many flaws in evaluating individual performance. A lot of coaching staffs now track their own “analytics,” which can show which player or players made the mistake that led to a goal against. But boy, that number for Leddy was still unsightly.

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“The plus-minus, it’s a stat that shows some stuff, but at the same time, it’s five guys on the ice,” Trotz said Tuesday morning. “A lot of times when I go through chances, like anybody else, the analytics — we do our own analytics as coaches, and you go through the chances, and sometimes guys get a minus for a certain player’s mistake or read, or whatever, and all five guys get it.

“If you were to break it down from a coaching staff, you can figure out — and this is how we try to do it — where did it go south on that goal against? Was it one player, was it two players, was it our structure, what is our protocols? A lot of times you can go back to one or two players not doing their job. That’s where it breaks down. But everybody gets a minus, even though maybe four or five guys did their job.”

And yet it’s still clear that Leddy’s individual play has improved dramatically.

Under coach Doug Weight last season, the Islanders were scatterbrained defensively. Leddy played the most minutes of anyone on the team (22:25 per game) over his 80 games, and this while he was also matching up against the top opposition, playing the top power play, and being on the ice when his own net is empty in hopes of scoring a tying goal with the extra attacker. That can end up in a lot of goals-against.

Maybe more important, it also ended up in Leddy losing some confidence. He hardly had ample opportunity to execute an end-to-end rush that is one of the strengths of his skating ability, and when he spent entire shifts defending, it wore on him.

“It was probably very difficult year,” Trotz said. “We talked during the summer and during training camp. I always felt he was a really good defender. [I said,] ‘Don’t look at those numbers. We’re going to have a lot better numbers this year. You’re still going to get a lot of primary matchups.’ And he bought into that.”

And so Leddy ditched “the green jacket,” as the worst plus-minus in the league is referred to in homage to The Masters. And he had been a big part of the Islanders’ defensive turnaround.

“He defends harder than people probably think, especially around the cage, and in the corners, he can contain the best people in the league. He doesn’t get enough credit for being able to do that,” Trotz said.

“He’s been a steady veteran presence for us all year. He’s a little bit under the radar when it comes to the top defensemen in the league.”

Andrei Svechnikov is in the concussion protocol a day after getting knocked out by a punch from his hero.

Fellow Russian Alex Ovechkin, whom Svechnikov grew up idolizing, fought the Hurricanes’ 19-year-old forward in Game 3 of their Stanley Cup playoff series Monday night and dropped him to the ice, knocked out cold.

Svechnikov did not return and is not expected to play in Thursday’s Game 4, Hurricanes coach Rob Brind’Amour announced Tuesday.

“First of all, I hope he’s OK,” Ovechkin told reporters, per ESPN. “Yeah, I’m not a big fighter, and he’s the same. He asked me to fight and said, ‘Let’s go.’ I hope he’s OK. You don’t want to see a guy get hurt or something. And you just go a different way.

“We got maybe a little bit frustrated and too confident. We just have to forget about it and move forward.”

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Brind’Amour said Tuesday that “there’s two versions going around” about who started the fight, but a night earlier, the coach seemed to pin the blame on Ovechkin.

“When you see that, it makes you sick. I’m still sick to my stomach about it,” Brind’Amour told reporters Monday. “… It’s a little bit tough, because I just heard Ovi talk about it; he said our guy challenged him. So, if that’s the case, it’s a little different. If you watch the video, he slashes him twice — Ovi, whack, whack — then Svech gets him back. I don’t know if there’s words exchanged, but one guy’s gloves come off way first. And that’s Ovi, not our guy.

“So, it’s a little but frustrating, because he got hurt. It’s his first fight. He’s played 90 games. He’s never fought in his life, and I’m pretty sure Ovi knew that. So, that stuff bothers me.”

It was Svechnikov’s first career fight and Ovechkin’s first since 2010.

Svechnikov, the No. 2-overall pick in 2018, tallied 20 goals and 17 assists in 80 games during the regular season. The Hurricanes went on to win the game 5-0 without him, but still trail in the series 2-1.

PITTSBURGH — As the Islanders head home with soft smirks on their collective faces, they can look in the rearview mirror and see the rest of the NHL left slack-jawed.

That’s just the way they like it, and Islanders completed their sweep of the Penguins with a 3-1 win in Game 4 of their first-round series Tuesday night, wrapping things up with one more tidy performance.

Under the stewardship of first-year head coach Barry Trotz, they played a defensive game that sucked the life out of the Penguins, utterly frustrating a team lined with championship pedigree. The Islanders suffered very few down moments, very few weak spots, and showed nothing but more group resolve.

That’s the story of their season as they keep proving people wrong.

“That’s been a little bit of the storyline here, and we’re used to it,” captain Anders Lee said. “We’re used to it being in our room. It’s not just this year, it’s kind of always been that way. This year, we’ve really taken it on and run with it.”

This was the franchise’s second postseason series victory since 1993, now part of a historic turnaround led by team president Lou Lamoriello. They will wait to face the winner of the Capitals-Hurricanes series, with defending champion Washington holding a 2-1 lead.

It surely would be pretty interesting to watch Trotz return to play the Capitals, with whom he won the Stanley Cup last season. It was when he faced them for the first time with the Islanders, Nov. 26, that he said, “You’ll have to come through the f–king Island” if they wanted to win again.

But that is a bit down the line. For now, the Islanders were just giving themselves a minute to realize their ride is far from over.

“I came into this team and talked to the guys straight in the summer when I got here, and a lot of the guys said right away we’re going to go far,” said goalie Robin Lehner, who was rock-solid again in making 32 saves as his personal and professional bounce-back year continues. “I think that just grew during the season as our system started to jell and we started to play together.

“There was not one single team in this league that crushed us, that we couldn’t play against — like Tampa [Bay], or Boston, whatever. We have a good team. We’ve been overlooked a little bit.”

Whichever team the Islanders face in the next round surely would be a challenge, but they are now in the midst of a wide-open Eastern Conference after the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Lightning got swept by the wild-card Blue Jackets. With the Bruins and Maple Leafs beating each other up, the Capitals might be the favorites, but it’s far more open than expected.

What has become crystal clear, after the Islanders suffocated the Penguins and outscored them 14-6 in the four games, is that they are for real.

They didn’t get flustered when the Penguins got out to an early lead for the second straight game, this time Jake Guentzel scoring just 35 seconds in. It came on a terrific pass from Sidney Crosby in the corner, the first and only point of the series for the Pittsburgh captain.

Then, just as in Game 3, the Islanders’ best skater, Jordan Eberle, needed very little time to tie it up, this instance coming 94 seconds later when he finished a 2-on-1 for his fourth goal in as many games. The Penguins sagged, and Brock Nelson was able to get his third of the series at 18:06 of the first for what would stand as the game-winner.

From there, the Islanders did what they do best — locked things down. They stifled Crosby. Evgeni Malkin was a non-factor. Kris Letang looked lost.

Maybe the Penguins are entering the twilight of their decade-long run. And maybe the Islanders caught them at a good time.

Or maybe the Islanders are showing that great coaching and a team-first attitude really does go a long way.

“Just a group effort,” Trotz said, “which you wouldn’t expect anything different from the Islanders.”

Can the Islanders finish off a four-game sweep of the Penguins on the road Tuesday night (MSG, MSG+, 7:30 p.m.)?

Betting markets are skeptical. But, they’ve been skeptical of the Islanders since before the NHL playoff series began.

– Pittsburgh closed as a -135 favorite to win the series before it began, despite not enjoying home-ice advantage.

– Pittsburgh closed as a -125 road favorite in Game 2 after dropping the series opener. Some sharps (professional bettors) and most squares (recreational bettors) couldn’t resist taking the “superior” team to zig zag in a bounce-back spot.

– Pittsburgh closed as a whopping -200 favorites at home in Game 3. Bettors thinking “there’s no way the Penguins are going to lose three in a row to the Islanders” learned once again that bad roulette strategies can be very painful at sports books.

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There’s plenty of time before they drop the puck for game-day lines to settle. You can be sure that Pittsburgh will be a pricey favorite once again Tuesday with its backs against the wall. Pricey favorites have been awful this postseason! No team laying -200 or higher has won a game yet.

Tampa Bay (-240) lost to Columbus, 4-3; Tampa Bay (-320) lost to Columbus, 5-1; Calgary (-230) lost to Colorado, 3-2, in overtime; Pittsburgh (-200) lost to the Islanders, 4-1

That’s a composite record of zero wins and 9.9 losses in real money terms. Hockey is played on ice, not chalk (Vegas slang for favorites because odds used to be written on chalkboards).

Thus far versus the Islanders, Pittsburgh’s been outplayed emphatically when it was time to perform. The Penguins have been outscored 6-2 at even strength over the last two games.

When analyzing the NHL playoffs, professional bettors look for teams that can control the flow of play. Luck can play a big role in any game or series because many teams are so evenly matched. Those that create the most opportunities have the best chance of overcoming variance and grinding out victories.

Check out how the underdog Islanders have stayed in control of the last two games while expressing surprising superiority:

– Game 2 shots: Islanders 34, Penguins 33; expected goals: Islanders 3.7, Penguins 2.6.

– Game 3 shots: Islanders 36, Penguins 26; expected goals: Islanders 3.5, Penguins 2.2.

Those “expected goals” calculations are from respected hockey analytics site Natural Stat Trick. Nobody can make the case that the Islanders haven’t earned their series edge. It’s common for the trailing team in a game to win shot counts because it’s aggressively trying to rally. The Isles are winning shot counts from ahead.

That makes the Isles prohibitive market favorites to eventually advance, even if they don’t finish off a sweep. Still at least two home games at the raucous Nassau Coliseum ahead if needed.

Any veil of secrecy about what kind of team the Islanders really are has been lifted. Now, unable to catch anyone by surprise, the tests become even more stern.

No longer can they play a big underdog card (if they ever really could). No longer can they hide from the national spotlight, especially if Barry Trotz faces his old Capitals team — up 2-1 on the Hurricanes heading into Thursday night’s Game 4 — in the second round, having led them to the Stanley Cup just a year ago.

And no longer can the Islanders rely on the cramped crowds at the Coliseum, or that galvanizing factor of playing in the old barn on Hempstead Turnpike. Their home games the remainder of their playoff run will be played at the sanitized Barclays Center, where the fans will surely show up and be loud, but it will hardly be the same type of atmosphere as the club’s ancestral home.

So, no, this won’t be the same as beating a Penguins team that looked constantly disjointed and often disinterested, having spent more time in the series with their net empty (5:55) than it did leading (4:51). It’ll be tougher shutting down Alex Ovechkin when he is surrounded by far more depth than Sidney Crosby was; or dealing with a very familiar team-concept the Hurricanes employ behind venerable captain and three-time Stanley Cup winner Justin Williams.

The Islanders will have a long time to think about both, to figure out just who they’re rooting for in that series. (Guess: Carolina.) No matter who it is, they know what has gotten them this far, and they know the only thing that will take them further.

“Getting everybody to play for each other is the hard thing,” Trotz said after the 3-1 win in Game 4 in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night, giving his team off on Wednesday as the waiting game for their next opponent begins. “Just understanding [to] do your job, do it well, do it for the guy next to you.”

This group’s mentality has been the biggest accomplishment of Trotz’s first year, executed in concert with team president Lou Lamoriello instilling a newfound culture of professionalism. Of all the times they could have gotten rattled against the Penguins, they kept their cool.

Josh Bailey didn’t lose it when he hit a post with five seconds left in regulation in Game 1. Mat Barzal was reeled in after his emotions got the best of him for a quick moment after what he thought was a bad hit from Marcus Pettersson in Game 2. Even goalie Robin Lehner was able to not cross the line when he was being physically goaded by Patric Hornqvist midway through Game 4.

“I think if there’s anything we learned it’s composure,” Trotz said. “It got a little hairy at times and our bench didn’t go emotionally off the rails. We just stayed pretty composed. I like that, because you’re focused in on the right things.”

Wonder where that comes from?

“Trotzie is a pretty composed guy,” veteran Matt Martin said. “It stems from the top.”

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Soon the red-hot spotlight is likely to be on Trotz, who knows if the opponent is the Capitals, his line from his first visit with his former team on Nov. 26 is going to be dragged out over and over again. That would be the now-famous “You’ll have to go through the f—king Island” if the Caps want to win again.

“When I said it, I believed it,” Trotz said Tuesday. “If it happens to be Washington, what I said will be played forever, on every newscast.”

The Islanders aren’t so accustomed to publicity, and definitely not that kind. But the veneer of insulation has worn away with their success and the challenges are only getting greater. Eventually, however good they really are will come to the forefront, and an already impressive season will end — when is up to them.

“No matter what happens,” Trotz said, “we’re absolutely going to have our hands full in the next round.”

PITTSBURGH — Think you’re going to get under Robin Lehner’s skin? Well, he has an answer for that.

After the goalie backstopped his Islanders to a 3-1 win over the Penguins in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series Tuesday night, completing the sweep, Lehner addressed a second-period kerfuffle he had with fellow Swede Patric Hornqvist.

As Hornqvist crashed the net, Lehner gave him a little slash with his stick. Hornqvist responded with a quick cross-check that was met with another slash from Lehner. It then looked like Hornqvist went to drop his gloves as if he were trying to fight a goalie, but it was broken up before things could escalate.

“It wouldn’t have crossed the line. I’m not dropping the gloves in the middle of the game,” Lehner said. “They’re frustrated. There’s only so much I can take too. I’m going to try to be a little more disciplined next time.

“It just fires me up and makes me better. So whatever team wants to do that to me, it just wakes me up.”

Lehner was terrific all series, making 32 saves in Game 4 to finish with six goals allowed on 136 shots, good for a .956 save percentage.

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Winger Cal Clutterbuck and defenseman Johnny Boychuk both left the game late in the second period and didn’t return. There was no immediate update on their status, but the extended time before the second round starts should be beneficial.

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PITTSBURGH — As the Islanders head home with soft smirks…

“Hopefully we’ll have something [Wednesday] or the next day for you,” coach Barry Trotz said.

Clutterbuck was seen leaving the arena, walking very slowly but without any sort of cast or crutch.

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Second-year center Mat Barzal collected one more assist, having five in the series and at least one in each game. The 21-year-old reigning Calder Trophy winner was the only regular to take the ice with the extras on Tuesday morning, but there was a simple explanation why from Trotz.

“He’s young,” Trotz said. “He’s just anxious.”

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Defenseman Scott Mayfield missed practice Monday, but made one of the biggest plays of the season when he blocked a shot with his right leg with 13:40 remaining in regulation to keep his team’s 2-1 lead.

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The Penguins held the lead in the series for a total of 4:51 of game time. Their net was empty for 5:55.