Sorry I've been missing a few days, dear readers. That's what happens when you have to move your kid 3 hours away into his first apartment and get hospitalized with a kidney stone while you're doing it.
Then again, maybe it's a good thing I haven't been around.
After all, who wants to hear about the flashbacks I had Saturday night as the Penguins failed to capitalize on their chances, watched their #1 netminder let up an awful soft goal when the game was on the line, and let new Pittsburgh-killer Mike Camalleri again beat them -- all in a 3-2 home-ice defeat at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens.
Was I seeing last year's post-season against The Habs all over again or what?
In their 2nd game of the season -- and second in their new home, The Bird House -- Pittsburgh outshot Montreal, 38-27, and forced Canadiens' goaltender Carey Price to make several big saves. In the process, despite going 0-for-6 on the power play, they still managed to forge a two goal lead on a goal by Mark Letestu with about 11 minutes left in the game, then watched it evaporate faster than you could say "Sacre Bleu!" when Camalleri scored his second goal of the contest to tie the game with less than 3 minutes left, then Habs' forward Scott Gomez won it 24 seconds later by tossing a weak shot from the bottom of the left circle meekly and inexcusably through Marc-Andre Fleury's pads for the game-winner.
In watching that agony unfold, it was like the Penguins' 7-game, second-round defeat at the hands of Montreal last May being distilled to about 60 minutes.
And so, the Penguins remain winless in their new home while they get ready to play the New Jersey Devils in their first road game of the year.
Start time for the contest on this Columbus Day holiday is about an hour or so (4:00 PM EST).
In an effort to stop the bleeding, Head Coach Dan Bylsma has lineup changes in store for this afternoon's game.
Mike Comrie will move up from the second line to play on Sidney Crosby's RW on the #1 line, while Letestu will slide into Comrie's spot centering the 2nd unit with Evgeni Malkin and Eric Tangradi.
Max Talbot will move into Letestu's spot on the 3rd line between LW Matt Cooke and RW Tyler Kennedy, while Pascal Dupuis -- who Bylsma said has forgotten what made him successful last year -- will slip to the 4th line with Mike Rupp and Craig Adams.
Also, while there has yet to be any formal announcement of this, it's likely that Bylsma will go with backup goalie Brent Johnson between the pipes today, and give Fleury the day off.
While I don't believe sitting #29 is directly the result of the bad goal the Flower let up at the end of the Canadiens' game, Bylsma was unabashed in saying after the contest that it was a bad one for him to let in.
Hopefully, Johnson will come in and do what he does best, which is battle and give the Penguins a performance they can win with. They'll need it against a team who, despite also not having a win this season and leading the league in goals allowed at 5.50 per game after two contests, dominated them last year in 6 games, going undefeated and outscoring them 22-5.
If Pittsburgh falls on the road today, we'll undoubtedly hear even more comparisons to last season.
It would be helpful for the Pens' Captain to break out on the scoresheet more today, too.
Sidney Crosby hasn't played poorly thusfar -- and he made a nice assist to set up Malkin's goal just as a 4-on-3 power play was expiring Saturday night -- but Pittsburgh could clearly use an offensive boost, and who better to look at than #87 for a jumpstart?
The Penguins will also look to former New Jersey Devil Paul Martin today in his first game against his former team.
One thing the Penguins may have going for them this afternoon is that the Devils may be forced to play with only 16 players.
Two of New Jersey's key performers -- shot-blocking machine and free-agent defenseman signee Anton Volchenkov and reliable forward Brian Rolston -- were injured in Saturday's 7-2 defeat at the hands of the Washington Capitals, and while they didn't suffer long term injuries sufficient to put them on IR, neither took the morning skate today.
Normally that wouldn't be a big deal except that the Devils are flush up against the salary cap and can't call up a player to replace either unless someone goes on IR, which is a minimum 10-day absence.
Couple that with the fact that Devils forward Pierre Luc Letournau-Lebland (how do they get that name on a jersey plate anyway?) was automatically suspended for today's game after taking an instigating penalty in the final 5 minutes of Saturday's defeat, and the Devils' are suffering from significant manpower issues. Hopefully the Penguins can exploit that.
It should be interesting. Of course, I'll have a game recap tomorrow.
Let's Go Pens!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment