Gorman: Penguins playing with playoff puck luck

There are such things as bad breaks and lucky bounces, and the Nashville Predators and Penguins experienced both in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

But, to hear hockey people talk about the topic, there are no such things as lucky breaks or bad bounces.

There is only puck luck.

“I think you work hard for your bounces,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said Tuesday of the Penguins' 5-3 Game 1 victory. “We've been on both sides of it. I think those things even out if you play the right way.”

That's what is so confusing about the start of this series: The Penguins didn't necessarily play the right way, yet they got the breaks and bounces early on that the Predators didn't.

At least, not until a Nashville fan smuggled a dead catfish into PPG Paints Arena and tossed it onto the ice in the second period.

How else do you explain that Evgeni Malkin scored his first power-play goal of the playoffs, off the glove of goalie Pekka Rinne?

How else do you explain Conor Sheary going from healthy scratch to fourth line to first and scoring his first goal of the playoffs?

How else do you explain Nick Bonino's one-handed sling ricocheting off Rinne's stick onto the shinguards of defenseman Mattias Ekholm and into the net for a 3-0 lead?

To Nashville, something smelled fishy.

“It's a nothing play,” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “It's not a scoring chance.”

That's where the Penguins politely disagree. They believe every shot is a scoring chance, and they create their chances by putting the puck on net in nothing plays.

“I think we create chances,” Crosby said. “We found ways to execute. I don't know if it was perfect. We got a good bounce there on one of them, made a couple good plays. You have to be able to do that sometimes. … But we know that's not necessarily a way you want to play the game every night.”

Given that they already scored playoff goals by Jake Guentzel off the skate of Washington's Dmitry Orlov and by Brian Dumoulin off Ottawa's Dion Phaneuf's skate, it's no surprise that Mike Sullivan was asked if he believes the Penguins are a team of destiny.

“No, I don't think so,” he said. “I think our team has an ability to win games different ways. I think one of the strengths of this team is the quick-strike ability. We can be opportunistic. When we get high-quality chances, we have some people that can finish.”

But here's the catch: The Penguins can't expect to score four goals on 11 shots — the fifth was an empty netter — like they did against Rinne in Game 1. Even if Rinne is 0-6-2 as a starter against the Penguins and his .636 save percentage in Game 1 is the worst in the NHL playoffs since the league expanded in 1967.

“I think, to be honest, it's not a lot you can do on the goals,” Predators forward Filip Forsberg said. “A couple tough bounces, stuff like that. If you look at the stats, it obviously doesn't look good in one game. If you look in the playoffs, (Rinne has) been the best player in the playoffs, for sure.”

That distinction now belongs to Penguins centers Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, who leads the Cup playoffs in points (25), if not Guentzel, who leads the postseason in goals (10).

Which makes you wonder how in the world the Penguins went 37-plus minutes without registering a shot on goal, blew a three-goal lead and still ended up winning by two?

It also makes you worry whether a team that has had so many bounces and breaks go its way eventually will see its luck run out.

If the Penguins have an abundance of puck luck, do the Predators have an answer for it?

So far, they have used catfish.

And it worked. Soon after the incident interrupted second-period play, Ryan Ellis scored a power-play goal to cut it to 3-1. Next thing you know, the score was tied in the third. Then the Penguins got a Guentzel goal, and Bonino bounced one into an empty net.

“I don't feel like we were rattled at all. I don't think we played poorly at all through the game,” Laviolette said. “That being said, we lost the game. We sit here, they're up 1-0. We're down 1-0. We have to be better.”

Or bring more catfish.

Kevin Gorman is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at kgorman@tribweb.com or via Twitter @KGorman_Trib.