Mark Madden: Penguins' strategy in Game 1 will determine if they have a chance or will get swept

The Pittsburgh Penguins are built on speed. The New York Rangers clearly are faster.

The Rangers outskated the Penguins in all four meetings this season, winning three. The Rangers overwhelmed the Penguins with their forecheck.

The Penguins won’t make tactical adjustments to slow the Rangers or the pace of play. The Penguins will try to beat the Rangers at the speed-first style shared by both teams.

Consider that the Rangers have Igor Shesterkin, the presumptive Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL’s top goalie. The Penguins will use backup Casey DeSmith in the absence of the injured Tristan Jarry.

So it’s impossible to pick the Penguins in the first-round playoff series between the teams. Rangers in six.

Most of the ways the Penguins can win this series involve the Rangers blowing it. Don’t dismiss the possibility.

The Rangers were in the postseason once in the past four years, that being 2020’s expanded playoff in the covid bubble. The Rangers were the Eastern Conference’s 11th seed and got swept by Carolina in the qualifying round.

Don’t laugh. The Penguins were the fourth seed and got eliminated by No. 12 seed Montreal in the qualifying round.

The Rangers lack playoff experience, but the Penguins’ playoff experience mostly has been rotten since winning the Stanley Cup in 2017.

In their regular-season finale against visiting Columbus on Friday, the Penguins showed signs of attacking off the rush a bit less and working down low a bit more.

That needs to continue in Game 1 on Tuesday. Make the Rangers work harder to get the puck and travel the length of the rink once they do. You can’t forecheck in your own end.

Don’t be selective with shots, especially early. Get pucks on Shesterkin. Crowd him. Make him scramble. Make him realize the playoffs have started.

That can’t work worse than what the Penguins did during the regular season. They scored four goals in four games vs. Shesterkin. They had just 101 shots, a subpar average of just over 25 per game. Shesterkin had a save percentage of .960 and often wasn’t troubled.

But the Penguins likely won’t change. They don’t change.

The Penguins have slowed. They should long since be trapping, then counterattacking with numbers off turnovers. Using their speed selectively. Trap in an offensive fashion.

But they won’t. They have no problem being hung with their own rope.

The speed gap between the Penguins and Edmonton when the latter visited last Tuesday was startling, the difference between the Penguins and Rangers only slightly less so.

Neither team is red-hot going into the series. The Rangers have won six of their last 10, the Penguins five.

The Rangers have stars: Shesterkin, wingers Artemi Panarin and Chris Kreider, defenseman Adam Fox and center Mika Zibanejad. They have a better and deeper defensive corps.

But the name-value Penguins will impact this series significantly one way or the other.

Sidney Crosby still is one of hockey’s five best players. He could take over. If the Penguins aren’t evidently a one-line team.

That’s where Evgeni Malkin comes in. Five-on-five, Malkin has been substandard by any metric you can manufacture. If he doesn’t step up in a big way, the Penguins are buzzard meat. It doesn’t matter who’s on his line. No excuses. Only results. Play smarter. Play better.

Kris Letang will play close to 30 minutes per game. That’s not unusual. But he’s the only Penguins defenseman who can compete physically with Kreider, who stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 223 pounds. Coach Mike Sullivan has to seek that matchup. Letang has to win it.

Sullivan isn’t one to micromanage, preferring to let talent tell. But these current Penguins don’t have enough talent. The Rangers stifled them during the regular season. Sullivan needs to find a method to squeeze out wins, even if it goes against his grain.

The importance of Game 1 is overemphasized in any series. In this series, it can’t be.

If the Penguins don’t immediately prove they can play with the Rangers and DeSmith doesn’t immediately prove he can play in the playoffs, this series won’t be competitive. The regular-season games mostly weren’t.

Lose Game 1, the series might not go six. Lose Game 1 convincingly, it could be a sweep.