Penguins Shake Shesterkin, Take 3-1 Series Lead on Rangers
Recap by Yinzer Crazy Penguins Featured Contributor Patricia Beninato
In all the hype--and yes, worry--about the Penguins’ first Stanley Cup Playoff round against the Rangers, we all forgot something.
The Rangers haven’t been to the playoffs since 2017.
In their decisive 7-2 victory at PPG Paints Arena in Game Four, the Penguins highlighted the inexperience of this current Rangers team, who for a lot of this game looked lost.
Not that it started out that way, courtesy of Alexis Lafrenière, who lofted one over Louis Domingue’s glove hand at 2:06 for the night’s first goal in what I tweeted was unnerving shades of Matt Murray. The slow skating was a bit unnerving too, until Patrik Nemeth high-sticked Evan Rodrigues. Sidney Crosby was like “thanks for the scoring op, dude” and got enough of a rebound off Igor Shesterkin’s pad to shove it past him and tie the game, although it had to go to Toronto to make the final call.
Sid kept up his good work as the second period progressed. Jeff Carter had a two-on-one chance on Shesterkin, but it took a Rangers-advantaged bounce. It turned out not to matter, because Mike Matheson kept up the excellence he began in Game Three with his first-ever playoff goal at 3:14, assisted by Sid. Just twenty-four seconds later, Jake Guentzel decided that milkshakes and otters were a good combo, and Sid helped out on that goal too, as did Bryan Rust. Mark Friedman notched his own debut playoff goal at 11:22 with assists by Teddy Blueger and Brian Boyle. I could almost hear the mocking IIIIGOOOR chants from my house, they were so loud.
Adam Fox, though, avenged his goalie a bit with a deflector at 14:04, and Anarin Panarin and Mika Zabanejad’s assists on that goal were the first time we’d seen them in a while. As the period waned, though, the Penguins struck a one-two blow, with goals by Danton Heinen and Jason Zucker. When all was said and done, fifteen different Penguins had points in this game, including Evgeni Malkin’s extra point at 12:22 in the third because Geno really tends to be score in the playoffs.
The Penguins just keep racking up milestones in this round. With his goal and two assists, Sid reached 200 career playoff points, only the sixth NHL player to do so. Guentzy has scored in every game in this series, the first Penguin to pull off that feat. Mike Sullivan officially passed Dan Bylsma as the Penguins head coach with the most playoff wins.
Louis Domingue only had to worry about 24 Rangers SOG, so credit to the Penguins’ D for stepping up and keeping the Rangers out of their zone. I’m still not really on the King Louis bandwagon yet, but considering how much of a disaster this could have been, I’ll commend his relative coolness under fire.
As for the Rangers, they wouldn’t be the first team to have a great regular season and turn into a trainwreck in the playoffs. Shesterkin is on the short list for the Vezina Trophy, but one of the enduring images of this round has to be him sitting in the Zamboni doorway with his ball cap on and an expression of
This is my worst nightmare on his face after getting pulled--again.
The Penguins are one game away from doing something they haven’t done since the last time they raised the Cup--getting out of the first round.
And Manhattan is an excellent place to celebrate.
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