Bruins forward Milan Lucic sounded pretty impressed with the Pittsburgh Penguins prior to the start of the Eastern Conference finals.
“In my mind, they’re almost like the Miami Heat of the NHL with all the star power they’ve got,” Lucic said before the series began. “Probably the two best players in the world and a 40-goal scorer and the former 50-goal scorer, a future Hall of Famer and a Norris Trophy candidate on their team.”
Through two games of the conference final, however, the Penguins’ stars have been a nightmare. It’s a roster that’s loaded with talent, but the Pens haven’t been able to show that on the ice so far against the Bruins. In part, it starts with Pittsburgh’s top players, the same players that had Lucic lobbing compliments toward the other room.
Through the first two games of the conference final, the seemingly dynamic combination of Jarome Iginla, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang are a combined minus-14 with zero points. If you want to throw in James Neal and Chris Kunitz (who combined for 88 points this season), that group is a combined minus-21.
If the Penguins are going to get back into this series, it’s going to start with these players who haven’t even begun to live up to expectations thus far.
Jarome Iginla
Boston isn’t looking so bad for No. 12 right now. Iginla has put just three shots on goal through two games of the ECF, and like the others in this group, he’s been a virtual no-show. Iginla is a minus-3 through two games, and he obviously hasn’t helped an offense that’s scored one goal in 40 minutes.
Evgeni Malkin
Malkin tried to give the Penguins a spark in Game 1 when he fought Patrice Bergeron, but that may have actually ended up hurting the Pens more than helping them. He took himself off the ice in the middle of a potentially game-changing power play, and he’s been nowhere to be seen since then. He was lackadaisical in Game 2, including a couple of unenthused showings in his own end. He does have 10 shots on goal through two games, though, so there’s that.
Kris Letang
It might be time to revisit how we’re going about the Norris Trophy voting, huh? Letang is one of three finalists for the award for the league’s best defensemen, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the first two games of this series. Letang has been on the ice for six of the Bruins’ nine goals, and that’s not just by happenstance. He was outmuscled on one of David Krejci‘s goals in Game 1, and he was 30 feet from the net when Nathan Horton banged home a rebound in the first game. In Game 2, it was his turnover in his own zone as well as an inability to clear out Horton in front that led to Horton’s Game 2 goal.
Sidney Crosby
The Penguins captain has played like anything but that through two games. Crosby is a minus-3 through two games, and he’s doing it in an ugly way. Crosby was especially ineffective in Game 2, where his puck control was sloppier than a college freshman at his first party. No. 87 registered four giveaways while struggling to generate much of anything. He’s just 14-for-31 in the faceoff circle, and like everyone else on this list, he’s yet to register a point.
However, Penguins coach Dan Bylsma wouldn’t take the bait when he was asked about his stars’ play, in particular Crosby, Malkin and Letang.
“I’m not going to look at just three players and what they need to do and how they need to play,” he said after Game 2. “As a group, we need to be a lot better. We need to get to our foundation of how we play and play as a group. We didn’t do that, that includes every one of them.
“All of us, not just 87, 71 and 58. It’s easy to look at one mistake or one play at the start of the game and say that’s not an indication of the rest of the guys. we need to play a lot better than that. We need to get back to our game. We get back to our best, and that’s not just one or two guys.”
That may be true, but there’s no dominating that these All-Stars are certainly pretty big bricks in that “foundation.” If they don’t start living up to that “Dream Team” hype, the Penguins’ season is going to be over very soon.
