1. Pens’ bench boss Mike Sullivan has been hard at work trying to find some answers for the last four periods of hockey. First up? New line combos:
If the Caps can contain those top two lines (an enormous “if”), they should be able to handily outplay the bottom-six. We’ll see.
But Sullivan’s Game 7 prep was about more than (once again) mixing up his trios:
Pull quote from that last one:
Easier said than done, of course. And you can bet Sullivan focused on breakouts as well. In a game of adjustments and counter-adjustments, he’s gotta be hoping that these tweaks do the trick… and that Barry Trotz doesn’t have time to respond.
Might as well get busy livin’ or… well, you know the rest.
2. For their part, the Caps know what they’ve gotta do:
As Vogs notes in the piece above:
Per Corsica, the Caps’ defensive effort in Game 6 yielded the second lowest single-game expected goals-against (total and rate) at five-on-five of these playoffs (only Edmonton’s 2-0 Round 1, Game 2 win over San Jose was lower). Couple that with a perfect penalty kill (in just three times short, which was critically important), strong goaltending and opportunistic scoring at fives and on the power play and, well, that’s a pretty good formula for winning. And it will take a full team effort – every player, every shift, every puck battle – to repeat it.
The Caps’ game plan in Game 6 was perfect and the execution of that plan every bit as good. With a similar effort in Game 7, it may not matter what Mike Sullivan and the Pens do.
3. Congrats to the Senators on their big win over the Rangers last night.
Enjoy tonight’s game… because whomever wins is going to be a handful.
Oh, and Rangers? You had one job…