Last season the Pittsburgh Penguins took the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals and although they split the next two games on the road, they had outshot the San Jose Sharks in three of those first four games and generally looked better. This Year? Not so much, the Predators have outshot the Penguins in each of the four contests thus far and after outscoring Pittsburgh 9-2 over two games in Nashville, they and not the defending champs look far superior. In last night’s Game Four this trend of playing better once again went in favor of the team wearing mustard as Pekka Rinne shown bright again and Frederick Gaudreau scored his second consecutive game winning goal for the Predators, joining opposing Rookie Jake Guentzel and Roy Conacher in the 1939 Finals as the only rookies to score back to back game winning goals in the Finals. Calle Jarnkrok opened scoring for Nashville before Sidney Crosby evened for Pittsburgh. After Gaudreau’s eventual game-winner Viktor Arvidsson added insurance, and Filip Forsberg scored on an empty net to effectively end the game.
The strangest thing about these past two games? Although Nashville has won handily each time the Penguins have looked stronger than they did in Games 1 and 2 which they won, with one notable exception; Goaltender Matt Murray who like Rinne did in Games 1 & 2 looked awful on the road, although he may like his Finnish counterpart also find that a home game is enough to cure his sudden slump. The Penguins also need to start converting on power play chances which have been plentiful, but barren in terms of goals scored on them for Pittsburgh. They also need to figure out if not how to outshoot the Predators, how to hang on to the puck and cut down on Giveaways on which Nashville should continue to try and exploit for shots on target again the embattled Murray. The Predators should also keep bullying Evgeni Malkin and Crosby while they puck possess and find a way to shut down the hot rookie Jake Guentzel. Regardless of who comes out on top in the pivotal Game 5, the two teams will be back in Nashville for Game 6 during which Lord Stanley’s Cup will be in the building, and so will catfish.
