NHL teams
Craig Custance, ESPN Senior Writer 8y

W2W4: Pittsburgh Penguins at San Jose Sharks, Game 6

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Pittsburgh Penguins will be making their second attempt at clinching the 2016 Stanley Cup while the San Jose Sharks try to force a Game 7. Here’s what to watch for in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals, at 8 p.m. ET in San Jose.

  • The Sharks will continue to play without forward Tomas Hertl, who remains day to day with a lower-body injury. His injury has had an impact on the Sharks and both of his linemates, Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski, are looking for their first goal of the finals that isn’t an empty-netter."Hertl is making progress," Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. "Getting better every day. Won’t play tonight."The injury has opened up opportunity for Melker Karlsson with Thornton and Pavelski, and he’s responded with two goals in his past two games in this series. The Sharks stars on the top line will have to join the 25-year-old Swede in producing for San Jose to stay alive.

  • The Penguins might not have finished the job in Game 5 at home, but they left Pittsburgh confident that if they play a similar game on Sunday, they’ll be raising the Stanley Cup. Aside from the two early goals in Game 5, the Penguins were dominant. So if they can manage the first five or 10 minutes in a loud arena and find the game they played for most of Game 5, the results should be positive.“I think we played a hell of a game the last 55 minutes of the game. We rolled over them,” said Penguins forward Patric Hornqvist on Sunday. “We got so many scoring chances, but we couldn’t find the puck. We have to play exactly the same game here tonight. Maybe clean up the first five minutes, learn about that. Other than that, if we play like we did, I like our chances.”

  • The Sharks power play needs to get going. It’s been a major engine to their run to the Stanley Cup finals and is stalling at the worst possible time. San Jose got a power-play goal in Game 1 and in the games since has gone a combined 0-for-8. This was a power play that was absolutely dominant early in the postseason, averaging 5.7 power-play goals per series against the Los Angeles Kings, Nashville Predators and St. Louis Blues.The Penguins deserve credit for their strong penalty kill.“We’ve done a pretty good job of pressuring teams, making life difficult as far as taking away time and space and using our feet to close on people,” said Penguins forward Matt Cullen on Sunday morning.

    “It’s something we work on a lot, we talk a lot about,” Cullen said. “It’s an important part of the series.”

    In 23 games this postseason, the Penguins have a penalty-kill success rate of 84.6 percent.

  • Part of the problem for the Sharks is that they aren’t getting many power-play opportunities. They are averaging two power plays per game against the Penguins in the Stanley Cup finals, a lower number than in previous playoff series.For example, the Sharks averaged 3.5 power plays per game against the Blues during the Western Conference finals, including two games in that series in which San Jose had five power plays.The Sharks' inability to draw penalties is a sign of just how much the Penguins have maintained a consistent offensive attack. According to war-on-ice.com, the Penguins have had 17 more scoring chances in this series at even strength despite the shot attempts just about even through five games.

    The reality is that it’s also harder to draw penalties this time of year, as a couple notable no-calls in Game 5 highlighted.

    “If you have the puck more, if you’re attacking more, you’re creating more of those opportunities,” DeBoer said on Sunday. “I don’t think there’s any doubt too, that this time of year the teams get to play a little bit more. I think that’s historically been the mindset.”

  • One of the results of playing hockey in California during June is that the ice isn’t going to be great. Really, that’s the case anywhere at this point in the season. Both teams are prepared for less than ideal ice surface in Game 6, which may lead to a more simple game from both teams.If the ice is bad, there will likely be fewer extra passes with both teams just trying to generate shots on goal and bang in rebounds.“Both teams have to play on the same sheet,” said Penguins coach Mike Sullivan. “Depending on how it goes, sometimes we have to simplify our game. We’re not overly concerned about it. We’re going to just try and play our game.”

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