If the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to complete a stunning comeback in their first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia Flyers, they are going to need to clean up a lot of things over the next three games.
Their zone exits. Their zone entries. Their power play. Their puck management. They are going to need Arturs Silovs or Stuart Skinner to come up big in net.
They are also going to need to find a few more goals, and there are a couple of players still seeking a big break through.
Sidney Crosby,
Rickard Rakell and Kris Letang finally provided one on Saturday.
We have talked extensively about the struggles of Anthony Mantha.
But there is also Egor Chinakhov still lurking out there without a goal in the series. And at the risk of delivering a mild take, I think he’s due. And I don’t think he’s played as poorly as his stat line would indicate.
Him being without a goal or a point through the first four games of the series probably isn’t what anybody expected or hoped based on the way he played during the regular season, and it has been a problem. But I don’t think he’s far off, and there are plenty of numbers below the surface that suggest he might be on the verge of making a noticeable impact in the series.
Just a few things to quickly ponder here:
- His 19 shot attempts during 5-on-5 play are tied for the most on the team with Erik Karlsson.
- His 0.73 individual expected goals are third on the team, behind only Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell.
- His 10 individual scoring chances are first on the team.
- His three high-danger scoring chances are second on the team, behind only Rust.
He has produced those chances despite being ninth on the team in 5-on-5 ice-time, and fourth among the team’s forwards.
If you break it all down on a per-minute and per-60 minute basis he is still generating shot attempts and chances at a top-line rate.
I know sometimes these numbers can be greeted with a lot of skepticism, especially when they are coming from a player that has not yet made a tangible impact on the stat sheet or scoreboard, but I think they are fair in Chinakhov’s case. There have been moments throughout the early part of the series where he has showed the explosiveness and burst that made him such a rising star in the second half of the season. He has had good looks and decent chances.
The problem is he has simply missed on a lot of them.
Not missed in the sense that he hasn’t scored, but just flat out missed the net.
There have been at least a handful of shots where somebody on TV has said, “If that puck is on the net it might be in.”
He had a great look off a turnover in the third period on Saturday night where he was in the slot alone and just missed it.
He is still putting himself into decent positions. He is still getting shots off. He is still getting good shots off. It is almost as if he is trying to be too perfect with it and pick a corner. I want to see him keep ripping it and just go back relying on the quickness and ferocity of his shot to beat somebody straight up. We know he can do it, because he did for the better part of the past 40-plus games.
I would be more concerned if his play if the puck were not finding him and if he were unable to get shots off. But he is still at the center of things and still creating opportunities. At some point one of them is going to go in. When one of them goes in, he might start finding a couple of more.
