Because the home team gets last personnel change at each stoppage in play, the matchups in a playoff series can be altered dramatically when it shifts venues.

Don't expect that to happen when the Eastern Conference semifinals series between the Penguins and Capitals moves from Washington to Pittsburgh for Game 3 Monday night.

At least when it comes to matching forward lines, there's a pretty good chance Barry Trotz and Mike Sullivan want the same thing.

During the first two games of the series, in a matchup of power on power, Sidney Crosby played against the Washington line featuring center Nicklas Backstrom and winger Alex Ovechkin for about 40 percent of his even-strength minutes.

The teams' second lines also matched up pretty regularly. In the first two games, Evgeni Malkin spent about 45 percent of his even-strength ice time out against the Washington line centered by Evgeny Kuznetsov.

In his meetings with the Capitals since taking over behind the Penguins bench midway through last season, Sullivan has seemed perfectly comfortable with both those matchups. There's no reason to think that will change Monday night.

“There's a lot of times when both benches want the same thing,” Sullivan said. “Then it's just about execution and playing the game the right way. That's happened a fair amount of times.

“I think the greatest thing about our game is that it's a players' game. The players are the guys that make it happen out here. We believe in the group we have. We're not a coaching staff that gets overly focused on matchups because we're always concerned about taking our players out of the flow. That's just philosophy we have as coaching staff based on the personnel that we have and the type of team that we have.”

On defense, it's a bit of a different story. There is one particular matchup Sullivan might try to exploit.

In Washington, Crosby spent about 70 percent of his even-strength ice time playing against the defense pair of Dmitry Orlov and Matt Niskanen. Malkin, meanwhile, played about 60 percent of his minutes against John Carlson and Nate Schmidt.

With the benefit of last change, Sullivan might pick some spots to use his top two lines against Washington's third defense pair, which is made up of Brooks Orpik and Kevin Shattenkirk.

Shattenkirk has been especially porous in the playoffs. At even strength, the Capitals have been outscored 6-1 when he's been on the ice.

“I think if you talked to Kevin, he would admit that he can play better. I know he can play better,” Trotz said. “We'll talk to him and we'll make sure he's better next game. He's done some really good things offensively for us, but at the same time, he's minus-7 in the playoffs so far. He's been more in the third pairing for us. That's not good enough for what we need in that third pairing right now, to be minus 7. … You want them to be even.”

It also will be worth keeping an eye on how Sullivan deploys his defense pairs against Washington's top line.

Through the first two games, Ovechkin has seen more of Brian Dumoulin and Ron Hainsey than any other pair, but the minutes haven't been lopsided.

Sullivan could continue to roll his three defense pairs evenly, or he could task one of them with slowing down Washington's most dangerous forwards.

“We keep all the options on the table,” Sullivan said. “We're a coaching staff that tries to respond and react to the challenges in particular games and series. We're never locked into anything. We have game plans going into each respective game that we think give our team the best chance to win. We try to execute that game plan and then we watch.

“We see if it's working, if we're having success, if we need to adjust. We try to make those decisions as quickly and as timely as we can. We're not a staff that wants to wait too long. We're trying to be as proactive as we can to try to help this team win games.”

THE SERIES: Penguins lead, 2-0.

LAST GAME: The Capitals lost back-to-back home games for the first time this season when they fell 6-2 to the Penguins in Game 2 Saturday night.

NEXT GAME: The Penguins will look to go 4-0 at home in the playoffs when they host the Capitals at 7:30 p.m. Monday.

A NOTE: Winning the first two games of a playoff series on the road isn't as automatic a ticket to the next round as it might seem. In NHL history, 18 of 87 teams who have fallen behind 0-2 at home have come back to win the series (20.7 percent).

A QUOTE: “I think our team is every bit as good at creating offense off of our pursuit game as we are with our possession game.” – coach Mike Sullivan

A NUMBER: .911 – the save percentage for Capitals goalie Braden Holtby in the playoffs, a figure which ranks 15th in the league.

Jonathan Bombulie is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at jbombulie@tribweb.com or via Twitter at @BombulieTrib.

Editor's note: Visit triblive.com for the Chipped Ice A.M. report every morning the Penguins play or practice throughout their series with the Capitals.

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---