May 27, 2013
Five Keys To Penguins-Bruins Eastern Conference Finals Series
The Eastern Conference Finals series could hardly be more enticing. Two storied franchises in the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins will meet in a series that promising a fascinating match-up between two organizations that have enjoyed tremendous success in recent years as well as having fantastic histories.
The Penguins and Bruins were both among the preseason favorites in the Eastern conference. They both return to the conference finals stage of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since winning Stanley Cups. Pittsburgh won it all in 2009 and were widely predicted to enjoy years of dynastic success led by Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in the aftermath of that success. However, they only won one playoff series combined across the 2010, 2011 and 2012 playoffs. Meanwhile, the Bruins are aiming to return to the Stanley Cup playoffs for second time in three years with a virtually identical team.
Here are five keys to the series.
1. How To Stop Crosby?
Crosby has seven goals and 15 points in 10 games during the 2013 NHL playoffs. He is known as one of the greatest offensive threats in the game today. The normal solution for the Bruins when facing a dominant offensive threat is simply to hound him with Zdeno Chara. However, there are two reasons that this doesn’t work quite so well against Crosby and the Penguins. Firstly, Evgeni Malkin is also on the team. Secondly, Chara has an extremely difficult time against Crosby, who besides being a supremely skilled player and stick-handler, is also remarkably strong on his skates with a low center of gravity. Chara has a hard time breaking Crosby physically.
2. Bruins’ Depth Scoring
Boston got scoring from the Bergeron-Marchand line when it needed to it and the top line of David Krejci, Nathan Horton and Milan Lucic have provided the bulk of the offense. The tertiary scoring has actually mainly come from Daniel Paille and Gregory Campbell who have scored five goals between themselves so far. They need talented scorer Tyler Seguin to find his groove playing alongside Rich Peverley and Chris Kelly, both of whom have struggled so far in this year’s playoffs.
3. Penguins Defense v Bruins Forecheck
Pittsburgh’s defense is often thought of as Kris Letang, Paul Martin and Brooks Orpik. However, the six-man unit is just a little bit flawed. Matt Niskanen has played solidly, while Douglas Murray is a regular, but the sixth man spot has been shared between Mark Eaton, Deryk Engelland and Simon Despres.
The fact is that those players can be suspect against a strong forecheck and even Letang’s play in the defensive end has been suspect during the postseason. Boston will try and clog up the neutral zone, but you can also be sure that Claude Julien will think about using a heavy forecheck against certain members of Pittsburgh’s blue line in particular.
4. Face-off Circle
Boston leads the playoffs with a 57.5% success rate in the face-off circle during the postseason so far. They controlled the face-off circle against both the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs and it was a big part of the team’s success at controlling their first two series against New York and Toronto respectively.
Pittsburgh have been winning around 50% of their draws in the playoffs so far. If they can keep their percentage somewhere close to that mark then they shouldn’t feel too many negative effects. The Penguins are a team that wants to play with the puck.
5. Tomas Vokoun
36-year old Tomas Vokoun has been a rock between the pipes for the Penguins since replacing Marc-Andre Fleury. He will needed to keep that level up. There is still a feeling that it wouldn’t take much for the team to turn back to Fleury. The Bruins will want to get at the long time veteran, who is living the dream of a long playoff run after failing to win a playoff series during his first 13 seasons in the NHL.
