There are plenty of those players in this year’s Stanley Cup Final between the Pittsburgh Penguins and San Jose Sharks.
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Unfortunately, they won’t have him back just get.
The San Jose Sharks first foray into the Stanley Cup Final certainly has been an exciting one. Only then did the Sharks’ superior size and superior group of defensemen begin to make a difference.
“I said right at the beginning of the series, it’s which team can impose their game on the other team for the longest stretch”, Sharks coach Pete DeBoer said. “We’ve got to work for lanes”.
“But does the fact that they have 30 more shots in the series bother me?” There’s not much you can do.
The Penguins were one bounce away from setting up a potential series winning game on Monday night but it wasn’t to be as the Sharks got an overtime victor from Joonas Donskoi and are now back in the series heading into game four.
“I liked a lot of things we did in the game”, said Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan.
NOTES: Sharks F Tomas Hertl missed his second straight game with a lower-body injury. “That was the million-dollar question”, DeBoer said. I think we can do a better job supporting each other and make a simpler play. “Ideally you want to put a puck where you can go get it or where you can put it in a position where the defenseman has to go take an awkward route and you can run them”.
With Pittsburgh also doing a good job staying out of the penalty box, San Jose’s potent power play has had only three chances through two games and delivered one of the team’s three goals.
“Our desperation level was as high as it could be”, DeBoer said.
With players like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski, the final features some of the biggest names in hockey.
“It’s to be expected as the series goes on, and teams learn more and more about each other”, Crosby said. But even with the Game 3 loss on Saturday, the Penguins are still two wins away from hoisting the Cup.
The situation could be worse – they could be trailing three games to none. They are minus-131 favorites, while the Penguins are plus-119 underdogs, according to Odds Shark.
Matthew Murray made 23 saves and the Penguins blocked 38 shots, though it wasnt enough to continue their domination of the Sharks. “The Rangers did it, Washington did it”.
“We’re not giving ourselves that opportunity”, center Logan Couture said.
The Penguins have thrived throughout the playoffs by playing with speed and getting pucks out of their own zone quickly.
Conversely, a San Jose victory tonight would even the series and effectively turn it into a best-of-three. We’ve got to do that.
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Pittsburgh as a unit is expected to be in full-blown rebound mode in Game 4, and no less should be expected of Kessel. While Pittsburgh has a 2-1 lead at this point, it will make the Penguins that much more risky if their longtime superstar puts the puck in the back of the net.
