Drive to the Net: Nichushkin's (badly) beaten path
Even setting aside Tristan Jarry's passivity, there was plenty more to loathe about the Valeri Nichushkin power-move goal from the Pittsburgh perspective, beginning with how he didn't even have any momentum crossing the attacking blue line. Started from a standstill:
From there, Rickard Rakell, who's the high forward, or F3, and has arrived in plenty of time to apply back-pressure, instead skates a wide, aimless circle in the Penguins' zone. Marcus Pettersson just gets scorched wide. And Erik Karlsson, who might've moved across in a clear emergency, barely budges.
I asked Mike Sullivan what he saw there, and he replied, "Yeah, we had numbers back. We just got beat. We could've had backside help. We didn't get backside help. We didn't have back-pressure, either. It's a combination of things."
Pettersson's view: "Yeah, that's unfortunate. I made a misread on that 4-2 goal, and that's a killer. I stopped in the neutral zone. He's a very good player, a deceptive player. I made a bad read."
THE ASYLUM
Drive to the Net: Nichushkin's (badly) beaten path
Even setting aside Tristan Jarry's passivity, there was plenty more to loathe about the Valeri Nichushkin power-move goal from the Pittsburgh perspective, beginning with how he didn't even have any momentum crossing the attacking blue line. Started from a standstill:
From there, Rickard Rakell, who's the high forward, or F3, and has arrived in plenty of time to apply back-pressure, instead skates a wide, aimless circle in the Penguins' zone. Marcus Pettersson just gets scorched wide. And Erik Karlsson, who might've moved across in a clear emergency, barely budges.
I asked Mike Sullivan what he saw there, and he replied, "Yeah, we had numbers back. We just got beat. We could've had backside help. We didn't get backside help. We didn't have back-pressure, either. It's a combination of things."
Pettersson's view: "Yeah, that's unfortunate. I made a misread on that 4-2 goal, and that's a killer. I stopped in the neutral zone. He's a very good player, a deceptive player. I made a bad read."
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