I was in a very foul mood the day after Thanksgiving.
After thoroughly enjoying a nice Thanksgiving meal the day before, I watched my favorite hockey team look like they were overstuffed birds themselves in a post-turkey day 3-2 matinee defeat to the New York Islanders on Long Island.
Which made the 2nd leg of their back-to-back New York run last night -- a 8-3 pasting of the New York Rangers at Mellon Arena-- that much more satisfying.
Pittsburgh was listless and sluggish against the Islanders all afternoon on Friday. Despite their relative poor play, they actually entered the 3rd period with a 2-1 lead on goals by Evgeni Malkin and Matt Cooke.
Rather than show the killer instinct they are so often known for, however, they imploded in a third period that the Islanders completely controlled.
New York outshot Pittsburgh by a whopping 18-5 margin in that final frame and it paid off on an early goal by Sean Bergenheim before star rookie John Tavares finished off the Pens' by scoring with about 6 minutes left to give the Islanders the win.
Pittsburgh actually wasted a pretty nice showing by backup goaltender Brent Johnson -- who started the game in place of starter Marc-Andre Fleury and stopped 34 of 37 shots.
The Pens' mustered only 21 on Isles' netminder Dwayne Roloson.
Their performance that afternoon apparently didn't leave only a sour taste in my mouth, though.
The Boys of Winter looked like a ticked off group last night back on home ice after the results they got the day before and the Rangers paid for it.
The Rangers really had no chance last night. They stuck with Pittsburgh early and didn't let the game get out of hand, but with the Pens' pressing the onslaught throughout, they were just too much for New York.
After starting star goaltender Henrik Lundqvuist the night before in a 5-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, New York went with backup Steve Valliquette last night, and he surely had nightmares of #87 when he went to bed after the game.
Crosby had the hat trick and 5 points for the Penguins.
Typically, his HT came on a night when Pittsburgh hosted hat-giveaway night at The Igloo, which meant there were about 87 times more hats than usual thrown on the ice when Sid got his third goal in the final frame.
He was joined on the scoresheet last night by Malkin, Mark Eaton, Pascal Dupuis, Max Talbot, and one of three reinforcements who returned to the lineup against the Rangers, Tyler Kennedy.
Kennedy returned after missing 12 games, and was joined on the ice by defenseman Kris Letang and Alex Goligoski last night -- who played after missing 8 and 6 games, respectively -- and those two wasted no time getting on the scoresheet, adding 2 helpers each.
Fleury stopped 22 of 25 shots in returning to the net for the Pens'.
Pittsburgh has had a lot of success against New York at Mellon Arena the last few years, and last night was no exception, but things haven't been so easy for them at Madison Square Garden lately, which is where both clubs will square off in their next game -- the second part of a home-and-home -- on Monday night.
Not surprisingly, the Rangers tried to set the tone for that one towards the end of last night's blowout loss, first sending Donald Brashear and then Ryan Callahan after Pens' LW Matt Cooke -- who leveled Rangers forward Artim Anisimov with a hard shoulder-to-chest hit when Anisimov had his head turned -- and then sending Sean Avery to jump Ruslan Fedotenko from behind.
The Pens' responded by sending out Eric Godard ---- on the ensuing 7 minutes worth of power play time they had to end the game.
That right there says it all about their dominance last night.
We'll see how the rematch goes Monday. It was definitely nice to see the Penguins quickly get back on track with their 6th win in 8 games, though.
More this week.
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