Penguins Lose to Devils: Weekend Recap

My apologies for failing to post more promptly over the weekend. I was buried in paint and other things.

I did, however, watch the misery that was the Penguins performance on Saturday night in their wretched home-opening 2-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils. The Penguins' play on the ice made me seethe. The Baby Penguins would have put forth more effort in the last 2 periods. As it was, the Penguins were fortunate to get a point thanks to Marc-Andre Fleury's outstanding work between the pipes.

Let's see ... the Penguins were outshot by about .... what? 83-6?

Okay, it was only 49-15.

Close enough.

The sad part about it is that Pittsburgh almost stole TWO points out of the game. Fleury had the shutout going until just about 3 minutes left when a Patrick Elias centering pass went off defenseman Hal Gill's skate and behind Fleury. The Penguins didn't do much in overtime other than let the Devils continue to ring up more shots and just about had the opportunity to take their chances in the shootout with Crosby, Letang and company, only to have the Devils win it with about 30 seconds left in the OT when a "Larry-Murphy" dump by a Devils' defenseman allowed Travis Zajac to break down the wing and ring a top-shelf wrister off the post/crossbar for the winner.

With that, reality was (mostly) served, becasue the Penguins didn't deserve to win. They looked like they didn't belong on the ice against New Jersey.

I don't buy what some people are saying ... oh, it was their first game back after their overseas trip. That's garbage. The team was off all week. They were able to practice and re-acclimate themselves. They played at home. Those are all excuses. The Penguins just left their hard hats in Sweden and didn't come to play.

Other notes from the home opener -- and the weekend.

Miroslav Satan scored his first goal as a Penguin -- on a first period power play, no less -- picking up a lose puck next to Devils' goaltender Martin Brodeur after a nice point shot. It was good to see him get on the board. I'd like to see him involved off the rush more with Crosby, though.

Speaking of the Penguins' power play, it went 1-4. That's an improvement over the opening 2 games against the Senators, but the Penguins had several opportunities to go up 2-0 on the power play in the first 20-25 minutes of the game, but failed to capitalize. As it turns out, that would have made the difference.

Penguins coach Michel Therrein dressed veteran defenseman Daryl Sydor and played him on the wing. This concept is not foreign to Penguin fans with Brooks Orpik and Ryan Whitney both seeing a few games there last year. However, this was the first time he put Sydor up there.

I actually didn't mind the move. I figured from the beginning he was doing it so he could have Sydor on the power play, and that's mainly why he did what he did. It couldn't help to have his experience out there on the man advantage, even if Therrein wouldn't use him a whole lot on the backline at even strength. I'm not sure how long the Coach will stick with that arrangement, if at all, but I wouldn't expect it to go on for long. Eventually, I think the Penguins have to sink or swim with Letang and GoGo on the man-advantage. I believe things will be fine in the end. It's just taking a little time to get going.

New acquisition Mike Zigomanis got his first action as a Penguin, centering the 4th line. I learned very quickly in the aftermath of the trade why we probably brought him into the mix -- his near 60% rate on faceoffs last season. I knew he was a defensive player with size, but didn't know he was that good on the draw. Nice move by GM Ray Shero. The Penguins definitely needed a player like him.

One last thing -- the Penguins new marketing plan for the season. Great work here:


http://penguins.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=-6&id=22298


Now only if we can recapture some of that play. Soon. Like starting Tuesday when the arch-nemises Flyers come to town.