Nobody likes to miss the party.
Not Lindsay Lohan.
Not Britney Spears.
Certainly Not Paris Hilton.
Now, it's clear that Penguins' Center and this year's NHL leading scorer belongs with those three headliners.
And belongs with teammate Sidney Crosby and Washington Capitals' superstar Alexander Ovechkin.
Malkin dominated all over the ice last night in game 3 of the Penguins' and Capitals' Eastern Conference Seminfinal series, and his virtuoso performance gave the Penguins a chance to make this a series again -- which they did when defenseman Kris Letang scored about 9 minutes into overtime to give the Penguins a 3-2 victory in game 3.
Did I say Letang's shoulder injury would force Philippe Boucher into the lineup in his place last night?
(cough, cough).
Good thing I was wrong on that one.
Letang's goal, his first career playoff marker, came on a slapshot that deflected in off Caps' defenseman Shane Morrisson, and followed a clean faceoff win by Crosby, who has been cleaned up most of this series -- and most of game 3 -- on the draw by a much-stronger Dave Steckel.
In truth, Letang gave the Penguins what he owed them in this one, because he had multiple excellent scoring chances during the game on the power play that he coudn't finish -- most often because he refuses to one-time the puck. He's looking for the top corner on the man-advantage when he should be more focused on capitalizing on quick puck movement and hammering the puck on goal to take advantage of screens and deflections in front.
Forget the flash and dash. This isn't cooking in the kitchen with Geno and Alyonka.
For as much redemption as Letang's goal carried, it would not have been made possible without Malkin finally making a presence in this series.
Malkin had nearly 30 minutes of ice-time, had 9 shots, and was unstoppable in each zone. His power play marker with just under 5 minutes to go in the 3rd gave the Penguins' a well-deserved 2-1 lead, only to see that evaporate after Washington took advantage of a bad interference penalty on Pittsburgh LW Pascal Dupuis with 2 and 1/2 minutes to go and scored on a bad angle goal that Capitals' center Niclas Backstrom shot from behind the goal line off Fleury and into the net to tie the score.
While that goal gave hockey fans everywhere reason to continue celebrating the drama put out by these two squads, it could only give the Penguins heartburn.
After being victimized in the first period by another bad bounce, the Penguins had to be wondering if the hockey gods had turned against them.
But they perservered and opened up the overtime playing to win, not to lose. In the end, it paid off when Letang got a break on the game-winner.
This was a strange contest. 4 of the 5 goals were the result of the puck ping-ponging around, including the goals already described by Letang and Backstrom.
The bad bounce the Penguins' suffered in the first period was just over a minute in, when a Mike-Green shoot-around dump in caromed off one of the partitions at the same time Fleury just lost his stick coming out to play the puck.
The biscuit then went between Fleury's legs, hit the side of the goal and came right out in front to ..... who else?
#8.
Ovechkin left nothing to chance and, while Fleury almost got back in time, made no mistake in burying the puck to kill the crowd and give Washington an early 1-0 lead.
Ruslan Fedotenko tied the score on another strange play. Heading into the zone on a 2-on-1 with RW Max Talbot, promoted to Malkin's line in game 3, Fedotenko tried to dish the puck to him, only to see it blocked by Captials' defenseman Milan Jurcina.
Usually that's good, except when the puck goes right back to the person who tried to pass it and the goaltender is now out of position.
That's exactly what happened on this one as the puck went right back to #26 who made no mistake in calmly depositing it behind Caps' goaltender Simeon Varlamov for an easy tally.
Malkin's goal in the 3rd was really the only "normal" one of the game.
Regardless of how the goals were scored, though, the fact is that the Penguins' deserved to win this contest. They severely outplayed the Capitals for just about the entire 3 periods and overtime, save for the first, maybe, 5 minutes of the game.
They outshot Washington 42-23 and drew 7 penalties, including 6 consecutive man-advantages, to the Capitals' 2.
Only the continued strong play by Varlamov kept the Capitals in this one.
As one Washington writer put it, the Penguins deserved to win the game about 19 more times than the Caps':
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/07/AR2009050700037.html
After the game, Capitals' coach Bruce Boudreau was in typical form, opening his mouth and saying that he hopes he never hears the Penguins complaining about penalties again.
This was a reference to the complaints lodged by Penguins' LW Matt Cooke that Washington is picking their players on faceoffs.
Ovechkin jumped on Boudreau's bandwagon by saying that the officiating last night was "a joke".
I agree that a 7-2 disparity in power plays is curious, but it's undeniable that the Penguins controlled the play all night long. They skated much better and wanted it more than Washington. That translates into power plays.
Boudreau recognized that his team was outplayed, saying that Washington "just watched" Pittsburgh skate all night, and he should have just left it at that.
Gamesmanship or not, he's being a whiner.
With their contibutions from other players in their lineup, and their game 3 victory, the Penguins are right back in this series. And, given the way the series is trending, it's fair to wonder how Washington is feeling right now.
Sure, they still lead 2-1 in the series, but they know the Penguins' were right there with them, and maybe even played better in the first 2 games. The series could easily be 2-1, or even 3-0 Pittsburgh.
Certainly, last night's game was close on the scoreboard, but not on the ice -- unlike games 1 and 2 where both teams battled mostly evenly -- and the Capitals know that. Game 3 was the first game a team carried the play virtually all game.
Washington has failed to do that. They are being outhit and outchanced.
If the Penguins continue to bring their effort and continue to pound away at Varlamov, they should have a decent chance to prevail in this series.
More tomorrow.
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