Have a great goalie? The Pens can break him

Sergei Bobrovsky, Braden Holtby, Criag Anderson and Pekka Rinne have a lot in common besides being employed as NHL goaltenders.

Bobrovsky has a Vezina trophy, as does Holtby. Rinne was a finalist three times. All three have made the NHL All-Star game at different points in their careers. Throw Anderson back into the conversation and now you can say all four have been starters for their respective countries at the World Championships. All four have career save percentages that are higher than .916…

The point here is that they are all very, very good goaltenders.

They are also four very good goaltenders who were a big reason their teams made the playoffs, only to be pulled at some point when they ran into the unstoppable goal scoring force that is the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Bobrovsky, the best goaltender in the league during the regular season, came out of the first round with an .887 save percentage after the Pens scored 20 goals in five games against him.

Holtby was pulled in Game 2 against the Pens. His save percentage in the second round? .887.

Anderson, despite playing tremendous overall against the Penguins, was pulled twice in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final after giving up four goals on only 14 shots. If the Sens win that game, the Penguins probably aren’t in the Stanley Cup Final.

And now it’s Rinne’s turn. He entered the series with a 1.70 goals-against average and .941 save percentage — tops in the postseason. But his Game 1 was the worst postseason goaltending performance in NHL history.

And here are your 10-worst full-game playoff goaltending performances since 1967 pic.twitter.com/gsplmQn5mA

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) May 30, 2017

And his Game 2 wasn’t much better. He was pulled during the third period after after the Penguins scored three goals on him in a span of 3:18. Somehow, though, he managed to improve his save percentage in the series to .840.

Four world-class goaltenders, seemingly on top of their games, until they meet Pittsburgh. Coincidence?

It doesn’t look like it’s a coincidence. All four have sported incredible numbers, especially Rinne, and then Pittsburgh happens.

The crazy thing about all of this is the Penguins aren’t generating a lot of shots this postseason. To that point, they’ve been dominated at even-strength puck possession in almost every playoff game, so far. They’ve had terrible starts to games. They’ve had long, agonizing lulls without shots during games. They’ve had numerous games where you could come away saying the other team should have won, but they didn’t.

But what the Pens have done better than any opponent they’ve faced is capitalize on the opportunities they do eventually get. Their shooting percentage this postseason (10.9) is a full percentage point over the next closest team (Edmonton, 9.5-percent). And that number falls in line with what they did the entire regular season when their shooting percentage was 10.1-percent, despite their shots per game falling from 33.5 in the regular season to 29.2 this postseason.

And guess where the Pens are making the most hay? You got it; late in the game, when goals matter most. Of the 67 goals the Pens have scored this postseason, 29 have come in the third or overtime. That’s 43-percent of their goals coming after the second period.

So basically what this tells us is it doesn’t really matter much what happens in regards to puck possession, shots, the first period, the second period… The Pens are going to score goals, and if the game is close coming down to the wire, they’re probably going to win. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but whatever. They pull it off two more times and they’re raising another Stanley Cup.