Penguins go into 'survival' mode immediately as they win Game 1 versus Rangers

Based on how the regular season wrapped up, I would’ve been impressed if the Pittsburgh Penguins had simply survived Game 1 of their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series against the New York Rangers.

Actually, considering how things started Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, I’m just happy they were able to survive the first period.

With 8:25 left in the first, the Penguins trailed New York 1-0. They were being outshot 10-3. The Rangers had already dished out 15 hits.

It was the allegedly playoff-inexperienced Rangers that were taking it to the Pens, and Mike Sullivan’s skaters were back on their heels.

Yet the team survived all the way into a third overtime, winning a 4-3 grind that lasted almost five hours.

And when I say survive, I mean barely.

• Starting goaltender Casey DeSmith left the game in the second overtime with what is being called a lower body injury.

• Rickard Rakell got knocked out of the game on a hit by Ryan Lindgren that somehow only drew a two-minute penalty.

• Kris Letang logged 46:41 of ice time, much of it through what appeared to be rotten ice conditions.

• Penguins players absorbed 45 hits from target-hunting Rangers players. And I bet John Marino and Marcus Pettersson combined to take about 40 of them.

Yet it was Marino (almost 106 minutes in) who fired the game-winning shot toward the net, which was deflected in by Evgeni Malkin.

Malkin: "We know we can win every game if we play right. We play smart. We play hard. I think we deserved to win tonight." pic.twitter.com/BMvu0dxCKy

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) May 4, 2022

“It was a simple little play. I went to the net to try to rebound. Johnny had an unbelievable shot. It touched a little bit, some small tape and the puck went in,” Malkin said on AT&T SportsNet after the game.

So, what does this mean long term? What’s the carryover from this marathon for Thursday night’s Game 2 against the Rangers? Or how about the remaining six of the series?

Well, start in net. Credit backup goaltender Louis Domingue, stopping 17 shots in under 17 minutes of play. That was after sitting on the bench for roughly four hours since warm-ups ended.

“It was a lot coming at me fast,” Domingue said after the game. “It was something you prepare for as a backup. You have got to be ready at all times. The guys played super well in front of me for the time I was in there. I thought Casey played a helluva game and gave us a chance to win that game and put us in a position to go to overtime.”

However, if DeSmith has some sort of lasting effect from his lower body injury that caused him to leave the ice in Game 1, then this might be a Pyrrhic victory. For as well as Domingue played, weren’t the Pens tempting fate as it was entering this postseason with starting goalie Tristan Jarry injured? Now their third netminder is supposed to outduel likely Vezina Trophy winner Igor Shesterkin?

Hey, I loved the Jeff Zatkoff and Devlin “Duck” Hodges analogies that were flying around Twitter last night, too. But even as fun as those stories were, they had fairly quick expiration dates.

And Johan Hedberg? Even the 27-year-old Moose got nine regular season games under his belt before being thrust into the playoffs in 2001. The 29-year-old Domingue had only played in four over the last three years before yesterday.

The Shesterkin angle is a push-pull thing, too. He was a boogeyman for the Penguins this season, yielding just four goals in four games between the clubs. The Pens had that many Tuesday alone.

But for as good as the Penguins goal scorers have to feel about that, Shesterkin still made 79 saves in the defeat. So I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that the Penguins cracked a code or anything.

If there is one angle that I point to which I think carries some weight, it is the raw shot total for the Penguins. I mean, 83 shots against the Rangers? They only totaled 101 in those regular season games. The Penguins were more often able to break out of their zone and get through the neutral zone and into the offensive end of the ice.

In particular, watch the Penguins’ second goal, as Sidney Crosby fed Jake Guentzel for a second time after moving the puck briskly out of their zone.

Since making his NHL playoff debut in 2017, Guentzel’s 28 playoff goals are fourth in the league. pic.twitter.com/2CwQY0Ukoq

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) May 4, 2022

To me, that’s something tactical that the Penguins may be able to replicate in Game 2. And if the Rangers are supposedly the faster team, if there is some fatigue that holds over to Game 2, I’d imagine New York would be the team that would be disadvantaged more since their speed game could be adversely impacted.

So, if you’re looking for positives to affix to your hope for Game 2, I’d start there. But the Penguins can’t get outhit like that every game in this series. I think the “hit stats” can be overrated, but early in the game some of their skaters were getting bulldozed by Rangers forwards. Ryan Reaves and Alex LaFreniere were bringing some thunder.

The Pens also can’t count on an unimaginable 75 giveaways from Rangers again. Nor can they bank on the benefit of a goal getting taken off the board as they did when New York appeared to take a 4-3 lead with just over three minutes remaining, only to see the score disallowed for goaltender interference.

I picked the Rangers to win the series in six. But I picked the Pens to win Game 1. So the Penguins being up 1-0 isn’t a stunner to me.

How they got there, though? I’m not sure how you draw much more than what we already have. When you get these marathon extra-overtime games like this one midway through the series, the carryover is more impactful and dictates the outcome more.

For Penguins-Rangers though, there are potentially six more games remaining. And by that point, a lot of what happened Tuesday will be forgotten.

Well, except for Louis “Moose or Duck” Domingue, of course.