There's been a lot of talk leading up to this Eastern Conference Quarterfinal between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators about how well the Sens' dynamic blueline duo of Anton Volchenkov and Chris Phillips have done in limiting Pens' Captain Sidney Crosby's input.
And yet, after his virtuoso 1 goal, 1 assist, and 1 save 'hat trick' in leading the Penguins to a 2-1 victory in game 2 last night -- and now a 1-1 series tie -- there Crosby sits with 5 points after 2 games.
If this series goes 7 games and Crosby puts up 17 points in it, there's little doubt that the Penguins will have taken it.
And a place in the 2nd round that goes along with doing so.
Last night, Pittsburgh sure started the game ominously enough as Peter Regin scored on a 45 foot wrist shot over the glove hand of Pens' nemtinder Marc-Andre Fleury as the fans were still getting in their seats only 18 seconds into the contest.
Not me. I was in my seat and had an ugly look at the whole thing from behind the play.
After Fleury's performance in game 1, that was a tough one to swallow, but Regin made a nice shot, and I place greater fault at the feet of Pens' blueliner Sergei Gonchar, who gave Regin just way too much room on the rush. His failure to close the gap there hurt.
Crosby then tied the game about 1/2 way through the first when Ottawa goaltender Brian Elliott again flubbed another shot with his glove hand -- this time by Pens' LW Chris Kunitz whipping one on net after a Jason Spezza turnover -- and left it right at his feet for #87 to bang home.
Elliott has had remarkable trouble just catching the biscuit half the time in this series, and time will tell whether the Penguins will be able to fully exploit that.
With the score tied, the Penguins really started to ramp up their game later in the period, and there's little doubt it had a lot to do with the emotion they gained after a monstrous hit from Sens' defenseman Andy Sutton left Pittsburgh rearguard Jordan Leopold out cold, face-down on the ice close to the near boards at the center red line.
There's already been a lot of talk about this hit in the immediate aftermath of the game -- ranging from calls on Pittsburgh's end for a suspension of the player who previously sat 2 games earlier this year for plastering an imprint of Pens' forward Pascal Dupuis' lip on the dasher wall behind the net, to calls that the hit was legal and not deserving of anything other than the boos Sutton got from the Pittsburgh faithful for the remainder of the game.
Now, no penalty was called on the play, and it doesn't appear the league is going to suspend Sutton, so the jury is out as to whether the play was legal or not.
While I was at the game live and saw the scary scene unfold up close and personal, it was hard to get a good feel for the hit until I was able to digest it on replay over and over again once I got home.
My take?
I think the hit was dangerous and, in some ways, bush league, but mostly legal.
I don't think Sutton left his feet in making the hit and, for the most part, he seemed to keep his shoulder tucked close to his body when he made contact with Leopold.
Pens' defenseman Brooks Orpik seems to agree, since he was in the minority in the Penguin locker room in saying that he felt the hit was relatively clean.
Sutton is just so big that, by his plain size, his shoulder is going to be more likely to make contact with an opponent's head than if another player was making the same hit -- and even more so if that opponent has his head down, as Leopold did before the play.
In all fairness, I don't think Sutton deserves a shorter end of the stick simply because he's as big as he is.
But what I don't like about the play is that Leopold was still somewhat engaged with another Senators player at the time -- forward Mike Foligno -- when Sutton pinched up at his blueline and took the run at Leopold.
That's a dangerous play every time.
Former Penguin forward Colby Armstrong used to do that a lot. It resulted in a lot of big-time collisions, but won't curry favor and respect around the game.
Here's a look at the hit for anyone who hasn't seen it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u18CBH2s7-4&feature=player_embedded
After the game, Sutton was questioned hard by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Ray Fittipaldo about the legality of the collision, and that led to an interesting exchange between the two, as Pens' blogger Brian Metzer summarizes here:
http://www.versus.com/blogs/nhl/sutton-elbow-a-heated-topic/
Leopold did not return to the game, and that left the Penguins with 5 defenseman for the remainder of the contest.
And all 5 of them were outstanding in the last 43 minutes.
Moreover, it wasn't just the blueliners that seemed embattled by the Sutton hit. The whole team seemed that way. They had already upped their physical play, and they just continued to take it to the Senators after Leopold left the ice. They laid 52 total hits on Ottawa in the game, which were 2 more than the season high 50 they put up on the New York Rangers in a regular season overtime win back on March 4 (in a game they also ran up a season high 55 shots).
Talk about body bangin'!!
The Senators, by comparison, had only 31 hits.
Despite that demonstrative advantage, though, the score remained tied at one through the second period and then into the third.
With about 7 mintues to go, Crosby got the second part of his 'hat trick' when he swooped behind Fleury just as a shot from Volchenkov got behind #29 and was skittering towards the goal line and knocked it to safety.
It looked to me like the puck had just about stopped short of the goal line and woudn't have gone in before Crosby got there, but you certainly don't want to leave that biscuit lying around there, so kudos are in order for Sid's 'Save' on that play.
Then, he completed the trifecta and sent the Penguins' fans home happy when, with 4 minutes left, he displayed so much dominance on the puck back and forth behind the Senators' goal, he basically spun the guy checking him -- Speeza -- into the ice like a corkscrew. After leaving Speeza not knowing whether to cry or wind his watch (to quote Pens' Hall of Fame Radio Play-By-Play man Mike Lange) Crosby found Letang wide open at the point.
Tanger made no mistake, finding the top corner with the game winner and giving the Penguins not just a 31-20 shot edge that reflected their overall better play in the game, but a big momentum boost going into game 3 in Ottawa at Scotiabank Place on Sunday night (6:30 PM EST, VERSUS).
Obviously, game 3 is going to be a big one in this series. The Penguins did a much better job defensively in game 2, and showed both the requisite intensity and physicality needed to win. All of that was missing in game 1.
On the other hand, the Senators were that close to pulling out the "W" and going up 2-0 in the series, and if they ever start to get contributions from their three key offensive performers -- Speeza, Daniel Alfredsson and Mike Fisher, all of whom have been MIA thusfar -- Pittsburgh isn't going to have it easy.
On the other hand, the Penguins have plenty of their own players who need to start pinching in offensively, too -- with Alexei Ponikarovsky chief among them -- so it will be interesting to see what happens from here.
The Pens' have been a real strong road team a lot of this year, so we'll see if they can take their first lead of the series in the next 24 hours.
Recap on Monday.
Let's Go Pens!
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