I don’t really agree that Pittsburgh dominated Tampa. They attempted and collected more shots on goal, but the definition of "domination" probably means something different to the stat-heads.

If anything, Tampa was the more dominant team. They won Games 2 and 6 walking away in non-competitive affairs. They made Pittsburgh scratch and claw for a couple of one-goal wins (aside from Game 1).

Tampa definitely got more shots from more dangerous zones and they got better shots too. They easily won the faceoff battle. Their special teams were so far superior it’s not even funny. I’d take that quality over the quantity of Pittsburgh’s Fenwick "domination".

3 of the top 8 lost based on this stat. So it doesn’t seem that having the attempted shot advantage is really that much of an advantage in the playoffs. I can’t say about the other teams, but our shots were pretty weak, usually by non-goal scorers. You can have 6 shots by Mike Rupp and have 3 shots by Martin St.Louis, i’d gamble on St.Louis’s chances to cash in everytime.

This reminds me of that argument I had with GoPens! about whether shot quality matters and the trap and stuff

I’m not sure you’re giving the Pens enough credit.

Yeah, their shots were from somewhat far out (eyeballing it, about 3-5 ft further than Tampa’s, on average). Yeah, special teams threw a clunker. But with 60% Fenwick—that’s how Detroit in 07-08 outclassed the entire league by miles—in the long run, you can survive with replacement-level goaltending and replacement-level shooting. Domination ain’t always pretty (except when Detroit and San Jose do it). All that zone time Tampa surrendered in the final 3 games (the full games I watched) isn’t how you win games in the long run, even if it did work for the Lightning. The Pens outshot the Lightning by 11 per game. A not-insignificant part of that was the Letang-Orpik pairing, which by my calculations accounted for ~70% of that Fenwick differential. Defensemen driving the play never looks as pretty as forwards doing it…Pittsburgh’s D were driving it, but Tampa’s forwards were doing it from their end.

Roloson stopped 94.1% of shots against at ES, Fleury only 90.8%. I can’t believe that’s more bad shooting talent/shot quality than Roloson getting hot. Combine that with special teams, and the Pens were even with Tampa. They were even even if you don’t consider those factors (1 goal loss in Game 7).

I guess with the parity in the league, the difference between the best and worst teams, let alone two of the better teams, over seven games won’t be that much, and that was apparent in this series. I just know that if they played Game 8 tomorrow, I’m picking Pittsburgh and their so-called domination (sorry Hooks). I figured, given how often the Pens went to shootout without Crosby, the games would be long and close, but would favor the Pens.

After the Caps lost to MTL last year (and I’m sure here, after MTL knocked off Pittsburgh), lots of Rinkers and Caps fans wanted to give lots of credit to Montreal’s system, Jacques Martin is a genius, Halak is Hasek etc etc. I don’t want to get into that argument again, but it’s indisputable that both Washington and Pittsburgh heavily outshot, outFenwick’d, outCorsi’d, and outchanced Montreal in every one of those 14 games (save Game 3 1st round, I think). Sometimes, bad breaks happen. Roloson made a lot of great saves, and so did Fleury, but at least you can expect that from Fleury. Don’t be down on Pittsburgh just because they lost, in a series where some people would argue that they were better (not me though).

In short, yeah, I agree that Pittsburgh didn’t do much on offense to get the job done, and a big reason why is lack of talent, but more than anything else I think it was one goalie stopping more shots than we’d expect, the other stopping less, and the Pittsburgh PK that for strange reasons just imploded at an inopportune time.