Expectations were rather low for the New York Islanders after losing franchise centre John Tavares to free agency in the off-season. Few expected them to qualify for the playoffs let alone earn home-ice advantage in the opening round but that’s where we find ourselves.
They’ll have their hands full, though, as they’re up against a Pittsburgh Penguins team that very recently won back-to-back Stanley Cup titles.
This series could end up a classic clash of styles since only five teams scored more goals than the Penguins this season and no squad allowed fewer goals against than the plucky group on Long Island.
Here’s a closer look at your Islanders-Penguins matchup:
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ADVANCED STATS
5-on-5 via Natural Stat Trick (with league rank)
PIT: 49.73 CF% (15th), 54.82 GF% (6th), .931 SV% (4th), 8.28 SH% (12th), 1.014 PDO (5th)
NYI: 47.85 CF% (26th), 56.06 GF% (2nd), .936 SV% (1st), 8.57 SH% (9th), 1.022 PDO (2nd)
TEAM STATS
PIT: 24.6 PP% (5th), 79.7 PK% (19th), 272 GF (6th), 238 GA (14th)
NYI: 14.5 PP% (29th), 79.9 PK% (18th), 223 GF (23rd), 191 GA (1st)
HEAD-TO-HEAD RECORD
PIT: 2-1-1
NYI: 2-1-1
The skinny: These teams have met four times in the post-season. The Islanders eliminated the Pens in 1975, 1982 and 1993 before the Pens beat the Isles in the post-season for the first time in 2013.
Both rosters are significantly different today with only a handful of players from each team still wearing the same uniform they did six years ago.
Casey Cizikas, Josh Bailey, Thomas Hickey, Matt Martin, and Brock Nelson are the remaining Islanders while Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang are Pittsburgh’s holdovers.
The teams split their season series in 2018-19, each winning once in regulation and once in a shootout. New York won the first two meetings and Pittsburgh took the final two. Oddly enough the division rivals haven’t met since Dec. 10, though, and none of the four meetings had more than 10 penalty minutes. There really isn’t too much heat between these two teams — at least not this season — but that could certainly change once the puck drops in Game 1.
One bit of significance here is the Islanders will play their Round 1 home games at Nassau Coliseum as opposed to Barclays Center. The Penguins are 49-56-8-4 at the Coliseum historically.
Pittsburgh Penguins X-Factor: One of the more intriguing trades this season was when the Penguins acquired both Jared McCann and Nick Bjugstad on Feb. 1. Depth is intrinsic to playoff success and that’s what these two forwards have provided. The Pens are 16-6-4 since Feb. 11 and the new additions have played important roles. Bjugstad added size and a right-handed shot to the team’s bottom six and McCann has fit in nicely alongside Crosby and Jake Guentzel on the top line.
Speaking of x-factors, Guentzel has to be another one. He is coming off his first 40-goal campaign yet the 24-year-old American has proven throughout his short NHL career that he saves his best for the playoffs. Two seasons ago he led the post-season with 13 goals as he put up 21 points in 25 games en route to hoisting the Cup. Last year, even though the Pens were eliminated in the second round, Guentzel accumulated another 21 playoff points, but this time he did it in just 12 appearances.
New York Islanders X-Factor: It has to be the two men between the pipes. The tandem of Robin Lehner and Thomas Greiss has been a revelation this season, without whom the team likely would not have made the playoffs.
Lehner’s .930 save percentage was the second-best mark in the regular season and his stellar 2.13 goals-against average was third-best. Meanwhile, Greiss’s .927 save percentage and 2.28 GAA rank him fourth in each category.
All that is to say this has been the best tandem in the league consistently throughout the season and that’s not even considering what a bargain they were with a combined salary cap hit of only slightly north of $4.83 million.
They became the first team to go from worst to first in goals against since the Senators did it literally 100 years ago.
Elite post-season goaltending can be the difference between early elimination and hoisting Lord Stanley, but on the flipside if your franchise puckstopper goes down it can totally change the makeup of a team and how that group performs in front of the backup. For example, if teams like Vegas and Toronto lost Marc-Andre Fleury and Frederik Andersen, respectively, there would be a massive drop-off between what they’re capable of and what their backups can do. The Islanders don’t have that problem. In fact, we may see both Lehner and Greiss at times throughout this series.
“We could actually go into the playoffs and say, ‘Hey, you know what? We’re just going to switch goaltenders,'” Trotz told NHL.com’s Kevin Woodley. “It’s happened before in my coaching career. I am not saying it’s going to happen now, but you look at the save percentage, the wins, the losses, they are pretty well virtually the same.”
Trotz of course coached Washington to that franchise’s first Stanley Cup championship one year ago and they began their run with Philipp Grubauer in net before Trotz soon turned to Braden Holtby and the rest is history.
Statistically speaking, Greiss is the slightly more reliable goalie on the road. He is 11-6-1 with a .942 save percentage and four shutouts since Jan. 13 but Lehner capped of the season with a 29-save shutout of the Capitals.
KEY INJURIES
NY Islanders:
Andrew Ladd (knee)
Pittsburgh:
Zach Aston-Reese (upper-body)
Brian Dumoulin (lower-body)
Chad Ruhwedel (upper-body)
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