Yawn.
This is what it has come to for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Be opportunistic offensively. Play stifiling defense. Don't allow a power play goal. Get the usual effort from your #1 goaltender.
And so it was last night, as the Pens broke out the same blueprint to beat the blueshirts at Madison Square Garden, 3-1, for their seventh straight victory, and 10th in their last 12 games.
Pittsburgh got an early goal from forward Max Talbot 5 minutes into the game when he came from the blindside to steal a puck from a Ranger player (I forget who) that gloved the biscuit out of the air in his own zone and put it down to play it, only to find that Fu-Man-Chu swooped in, got to it first, and quickly snapped a puck to the far side past surprised New York netminder Henrik Lundqvist.
When Defenseman Kris Letang and forward Chris Conner then scored goals about a minute apart just beyond the halfway mark of the second period, the game might as well have been all over but the cryin.
Sidney Crosby was the primary assist on Letang's marker, by the way, dishing him a beautiful pass in the slot to finish a 3-on-2 rush, and in the process, upping his scoring streak to 13 games.
Marion Gaborik scored in the third period for New York, but all that did was nick The Flower's quest to lower his personal statistics some more, which he otherwise did in stopping all 25 of the other Ranger shots in the game.
As he has over the last three weeks, Fleury once more looked tall, confident and controlled between the pipes.
The Pens' PK unit also came up big again, killing off all 3 man-advantages the Rangers had in the contest, including two in the third period when New York was desperately trying to get back in the game.
Let me tell you folks --- Brooks Orpik, Zybnek Michalek, Paul Martin, Matt Cooke, Pascal Dupuis, Craig Adams and Talbot are not just killing off every penalty against, they are making it look easy. They jump over the boards with confidence killing penalties, and it's simple to see why. They cut off passing lanes well, show tenacity down low, demonstrate intelligence around the net, and transition off each other so well when the opposition has the puck around the outside.
And when pucks get through, Fleury slams the door.
One thing that all the players on the team haven't gotten enough credit for -- and which, I think, is an important ingredient to the unit's success -- is the fact that they simply don't take very many penalties against in the first place.
It's one thing if a PK unit has to knock off 5 or 6 power plays a game. When that happens, the odds of your opponents breaking through eventually are fairly good.
But the Penguins are only taking 2 or 3 or, at most, 4 penalties against per contest. They've done that consistently over the last few weeks, and that little foundational element to success of the PK when they do have to go over the boards shouldn't be overlooked.
It's funny --- I'm acutally highly anxious each time Pittsburgh has to kill a penalty now because I want to see how many straight they can kill. They're up to 32 and counting.
Now 16-8-2 and tied atop the Atlantic Division with the Philadelphia Flyers with 34 points, Pittsburgh is off until Thursday when they visit a hot Thrashers team in Atlanta that has won 5 straight games behind the hot goaltending of Ondrej Pavelec and strong play of defenseman-convert Dustin Byfuglien.
More soon.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Happy Holidays: Penguins Gobble Up Sabres, Senators, Flames
The Pittsburgh Penguins will lose again this season.
At some point.
They'll probably even allow a power-play goal.
Maybe.
But their train is rolling on the fast track right now and devouring pretty much anything in its path.
Finishing off a 5-game-in-8-day stretch, the Penguins swept through their last three contests with wins against the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night (1-0), the Ottawa Senators on Friday afternoon (2-1), and the Calgary Flames on Saturday afternoon (4-1).
You know, it's a good thing I've been doing this blog for several years or I'd start to think that their strong play was attributable to my absence over the holidays.
In reality, though, it has more to do with strong defensive work, led by none other than goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
Ironically, Fleury wasn't supposed to start Wednesday's game, as it was the team's second of two on their annual Dad's trip. Since Fleury started the first of those two games on Monday at Florida against the Panthers, Head Coach Dan Bylsma's plan was for backup Brent Johnson to start.
But Johnson has been battling a bit of an illness the last several days, and that forced Disco Dan to give #29 the call again.
The Flower has been as hot lately as he was cold to start the season, and he continued that great work Wednesday night in Buffalo when he stopped all 30 shots the Sabres threw at him and, in the process, helped a Pascal Dupuis tally in the first period stand up as the only goal the Penguins would need to win.
Pens' Captain Sidney Crosby made a nice play to assist on Dupuis' goal, and extended his scoring streak to 10 games in doing so.
On Friday afternoon back at home against the Senators, Crosby ran that streak to 11 when he got the 2nd helper on the Penguins' first of two power-play goals in the game.
Evgeni Malkin got that goal in the 2nd period, tying the game at 1 after a first period tally by Ottawa forward Jesse Winchester gave the Sens the early lead.
In truth, the Penguins were fortunate they were only down 1-zip at that point, because Pittsburgh looked like they were excessively lethargic on the ice after their Thanksgiving meals the day before.
At least they all did except Fleury, who was exceptional in stopping the OTHER 20 pucks Ottawa threw at him in the 1st period ALONE, then slammed the door on the other 23 they tossed his direction in the final two periods.
#29 finished with 43 saves on 44 total Senators shots, and earned the deserving #1 star as a result of it once defenseman Alex Goligoski got the game-winning power play goal in the third period on the back-end of two penalties called on Ottawa forward Chris Kelly on the same sequence.
It's a good thing the Pens got those man-advantage goals because, despite putting up 40 shots of their own against Ottawa goaltender Pascal LeClaire, they failed to get one past him at even strength.
But with that win in the bag, the Penguins continued their momentum by burning out the Calgary Flames on Saturday thanks to Sidney Crosby's 6th career hat trick.
With the 3 tallies, not only did Sid up his scoring streak to 12 games -- a league high this season -- he managed to net his 200th career goal in the process.
His strong work in the game also gave him a sniff of one of the many feats accomplished by his now-former landlord and current Penguins' owner Mario Lemieux that is unlikely to ever be matched.
Crosby scored on the power play, at even strength, and short-handed in the game. His short-handed goal was an empty net tally, to boot. What upset him the most, however, was the fact that he had a chance to score another way earlier in the game when he had a penalty shot against Flames' netminder Mikko Kiprusoff, but let the finn swallow him up pretty easily.
Crosby moved in and gave the high leg kick deke that he used so famously to abuse Montreal Canadiens' netminder Carey Price in a shootout several seasons ago, but Kiprusoff had none of it this time.
Had Crosby moved in with more speed, and made the kick fake a second later, he might have gotten Kiprusoff to bite. As it was, he was going a bit too slow, and made the move too far out for Kiprsoff to really go for it.
Had Crosby scored on that goal, he would have come close to matching Lemieux's magical game against the New Jersey Devils on New Year's Eve in 1988 when he did something no other player has ever done in the history of this great game: score 5 goals 5 different ways -- at even strength, on the power play, short-handed, on a penalty shot, and into an empty net.
Of course, Crosby's short-handed tally against Calgary doubled as an empty-net goal, so it wouldn't have been quite up to Lemieux's feat had he even scored on the penalty shot earlier, but it would have been close.
Curiously, for as good in the shootout as he has become, Crosby is now 0-for-3 in his career on penalty shots. Still, his effort Saturday afternoon was good enough for him to overtake Steven Stamkos as the league's scoring leader.
Sid now has 18 goals and 22 assists for 40 points in 25 games.
Defenseman Kris Letang had a real strong game against the Flames as well, assisting on 3 of the 4 Pens' goals, including the first of the contest -- and only other one by a Penguin not wearing #87 on his back -- by winger Aaron Asham.
Brent Johnson was also solid in the pipes for Pittsburgh, getting the start and only allowing a late goal by Calgary forward Rene Bourque. He stopped 30 of 31 shots overall.
While the Penguins caught Calgary on the final contest of a 5-game east coast road trip, the Penguins deservedly showed them no mercy, crossing the 40 barrier in shots for the 2nd straight game (they had 43 in all). If it wasn't for Kiprusoff, the score would have been a lot worse.
With their last 3 victories, the Penguins have raised their record to an impressive 15-8-2, good for 32 points, but still second in the Atlantic Division, two points behind the Philadelphia Flyers.
With six straight wins and a 9-1-1 record in their last 11, Pittsburgh is also now only 4 points off the Washington Capitals for the best record in the NHL.
One thing the Penguins have done well during this latest stretch is beat teams they should beat.
Take a look at their victims the last month or so and you see the likes of the Carolina Hurricanes, the Senators, the Atlanta Thrashers, the Sabres, the Senators, etc. Sure, admittedly, not world-beaters, all. And the Penguins' schedule looks more like that in coming weeks, with games against the Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs, among others.
But this is the National Hockey League folks. Every team comes to play every night and somewhere along the line, any team can beat you. Stringing together the stretch of victories the Penguins have lately is a feat no matter who the opponents have been.
Perhaps the best part about the Pens' latest run, though, is that they've been doing it with good defense and even better penalty killing.
After their stellar effort the last three games, when they only gave up two total goals, Pittsburgh is now 5th overall in goals against per game, at 2.44.
Better still, their PK unit is now the top ranked group in the entire National Hockey League, killing off penalties at a 90.2% clip. They haven't let up a power play goal in the last 30 plus chances against.
And all this without stalwart Selke Trophy nominee Jordan Staal, who is now skating, but still not gripping a stick with anything other than a strange contraption on his broken hand. He's still about 3 weeks or so away from returning.
Tonight, the Pens' incredible PK run and their team winning streak are back on the line in New York against the Rangers (7:00 PM EST).
I'm back in the post-holiday groove, so I'll have a recap tomorrow. Thanks for your patience with me as I fully digested my turkey.
Let's Go Pens!
At some point.
They'll probably even allow a power-play goal.
Maybe.
But their train is rolling on the fast track right now and devouring pretty much anything in its path.
Finishing off a 5-game-in-8-day stretch, the Penguins swept through their last three contests with wins against the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night (1-0), the Ottawa Senators on Friday afternoon (2-1), and the Calgary Flames on Saturday afternoon (4-1).
You know, it's a good thing I've been doing this blog for several years or I'd start to think that their strong play was attributable to my absence over the holidays.
In reality, though, it has more to do with strong defensive work, led by none other than goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
Ironically, Fleury wasn't supposed to start Wednesday's game, as it was the team's second of two on their annual Dad's trip. Since Fleury started the first of those two games on Monday at Florida against the Panthers, Head Coach Dan Bylsma's plan was for backup Brent Johnson to start.
But Johnson has been battling a bit of an illness the last several days, and that forced Disco Dan to give #29 the call again.
The Flower has been as hot lately as he was cold to start the season, and he continued that great work Wednesday night in Buffalo when he stopped all 30 shots the Sabres threw at him and, in the process, helped a Pascal Dupuis tally in the first period stand up as the only goal the Penguins would need to win.
Pens' Captain Sidney Crosby made a nice play to assist on Dupuis' goal, and extended his scoring streak to 10 games in doing so.
On Friday afternoon back at home against the Senators, Crosby ran that streak to 11 when he got the 2nd helper on the Penguins' first of two power-play goals in the game.
Evgeni Malkin got that goal in the 2nd period, tying the game at 1 after a first period tally by Ottawa forward Jesse Winchester gave the Sens the early lead.
In truth, the Penguins were fortunate they were only down 1-zip at that point, because Pittsburgh looked like they were excessively lethargic on the ice after their Thanksgiving meals the day before.
At least they all did except Fleury, who was exceptional in stopping the OTHER 20 pucks Ottawa threw at him in the 1st period ALONE, then slammed the door on the other 23 they tossed his direction in the final two periods.
#29 finished with 43 saves on 44 total Senators shots, and earned the deserving #1 star as a result of it once defenseman Alex Goligoski got the game-winning power play goal in the third period on the back-end of two penalties called on Ottawa forward Chris Kelly on the same sequence.
It's a good thing the Pens got those man-advantage goals because, despite putting up 40 shots of their own against Ottawa goaltender Pascal LeClaire, they failed to get one past him at even strength.
But with that win in the bag, the Penguins continued their momentum by burning out the Calgary Flames on Saturday thanks to Sidney Crosby's 6th career hat trick.
With the 3 tallies, not only did Sid up his scoring streak to 12 games -- a league high this season -- he managed to net his 200th career goal in the process.
His strong work in the game also gave him a sniff of one of the many feats accomplished by his now-former landlord and current Penguins' owner Mario Lemieux that is unlikely to ever be matched.
Crosby scored on the power play, at even strength, and short-handed in the game. His short-handed goal was an empty net tally, to boot. What upset him the most, however, was the fact that he had a chance to score another way earlier in the game when he had a penalty shot against Flames' netminder Mikko Kiprusoff, but let the finn swallow him up pretty easily.
Crosby moved in and gave the high leg kick deke that he used so famously to abuse Montreal Canadiens' netminder Carey Price in a shootout several seasons ago, but Kiprusoff had none of it this time.
Had Crosby moved in with more speed, and made the kick fake a second later, he might have gotten Kiprusoff to bite. As it was, he was going a bit too slow, and made the move too far out for Kiprsoff to really go for it.
Had Crosby scored on that goal, he would have come close to matching Lemieux's magical game against the New Jersey Devils on New Year's Eve in 1988 when he did something no other player has ever done in the history of this great game: score 5 goals 5 different ways -- at even strength, on the power play, short-handed, on a penalty shot, and into an empty net.
Of course, Crosby's short-handed tally against Calgary doubled as an empty-net goal, so it wouldn't have been quite up to Lemieux's feat had he even scored on the penalty shot earlier, but it would have been close.
Curiously, for as good in the shootout as he has become, Crosby is now 0-for-3 in his career on penalty shots. Still, his effort Saturday afternoon was good enough for him to overtake Steven Stamkos as the league's scoring leader.
Sid now has 18 goals and 22 assists for 40 points in 25 games.
Defenseman Kris Letang had a real strong game against the Flames as well, assisting on 3 of the 4 Pens' goals, including the first of the contest -- and only other one by a Penguin not wearing #87 on his back -- by winger Aaron Asham.
Brent Johnson was also solid in the pipes for Pittsburgh, getting the start and only allowing a late goal by Calgary forward Rene Bourque. He stopped 30 of 31 shots overall.
While the Penguins caught Calgary on the final contest of a 5-game east coast road trip, the Penguins deservedly showed them no mercy, crossing the 40 barrier in shots for the 2nd straight game (they had 43 in all). If it wasn't for Kiprusoff, the score would have been a lot worse.
With their last 3 victories, the Penguins have raised their record to an impressive 15-8-2, good for 32 points, but still second in the Atlantic Division, two points behind the Philadelphia Flyers.
With six straight wins and a 9-1-1 record in their last 11, Pittsburgh is also now only 4 points off the Washington Capitals for the best record in the NHL.
One thing the Penguins have done well during this latest stretch is beat teams they should beat.
Take a look at their victims the last month or so and you see the likes of the Carolina Hurricanes, the Senators, the Atlanta Thrashers, the Sabres, the Senators, etc. Sure, admittedly, not world-beaters, all. And the Penguins' schedule looks more like that in coming weeks, with games against the Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs, among others.
But this is the National Hockey League folks. Every team comes to play every night and somewhere along the line, any team can beat you. Stringing together the stretch of victories the Penguins have lately is a feat no matter who the opponents have been.
Perhaps the best part about the Pens' latest run, though, is that they've been doing it with good defense and even better penalty killing.
After their stellar effort the last three games, when they only gave up two total goals, Pittsburgh is now 5th overall in goals against per game, at 2.44.
Better still, their PK unit is now the top ranked group in the entire National Hockey League, killing off penalties at a 90.2% clip. They haven't let up a power play goal in the last 30 plus chances against.
And all this without stalwart Selke Trophy nominee Jordan Staal, who is now skating, but still not gripping a stick with anything other than a strange contraption on his broken hand. He's still about 3 weeks or so away from returning.
Tonight, the Pens' incredible PK run and their team winning streak are back on the line in New York against the Rangers (7:00 PM EST).
I'm back in the post-holiday groove, so I'll have a recap tomorrow. Thanks for your patience with me as I fully digested my turkey.
Let's Go Pens!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Mike Comrie In The Spotlight
As the Pittsburgh Penguins get ready to finish their Dad's Trip tonight in Buffalo against the Sabres, it looks like frequently-scratched forward Mike Comrie is going to get a chance to get back in the lineup this evening.
It's been a tough season for Comrie -- something that has been well-documented everywhere, including in this space.
Everyone hoped he'd be a $500K steal when Pens' GM Ray Shero took the chance on him late in free agency, and after a hot pre-season, it looked like he might be just that.
One quarter into the season, though, he's given Penguin Nation something to talk about for all the wrong reasons.
Hey -- at least we can enjoy the 'celebrity' factor his wife, actress/singer/author Hilary Duff, brings to the blogosphere.
Recently, Mrs. Comrie was interviewed on a radio show, where she talked -- among other things -- about how she and the Mr. sext each other to keep their long-distance relationship fresh.
No word on whether this actually goes on in the CONSOL Energy Center press box, where Comrie has spent so much time lately.
The first part of that radio interview can be found HERE
The second part of the interview -- where the sexting remarks are referenced at the beginning -- can be found HERE, which is a post from a few days ago by one of the best hockey bloggers on this planet, Greg Wyshynski, who regularly writes on his Yahoo Puck Daddy blog.
While things in Comrie's world are clearly hot off the ice, we can only hope he'll make the best of his anticipated appearance on the ice tonight against a Sabres' team that is going to be missing franchise goaltender Ryan Miller, who suffered a groin injury a few days ago and won't be able to go.
In his place, the Penguins are likely to see rookie netminder Jhonas Enroth.
Buffalo will also be missing forward Tim Connolly tonight, who also is dealing with an injury.
They will, however, have former Penguin Jordan Leopold in the lineup.
Leopold, who is having a strong season for the Sabres after leaving Pittsburgh in the off-season and signing a 3-year deal with the Sabres, leads the Sabres' in ice-time and points among blueliners, with 5 goals and 14 points in 22 games. He's playing with 2nd year rearguard Tyler Myers, and it's a good thing because after a stellar rookie season, Myers has terribly regressed in year 2.
Myers is a -8 in 22 games.
Brent Johnson is expected to start in goal for the Penguins tonight.
Defenseman Deryk Engelland, as anticipated, will also be back in the lineup.
Let's Go Pens!
It's been a tough season for Comrie -- something that has been well-documented everywhere, including in this space.
Everyone hoped he'd be a $500K steal when Pens' GM Ray Shero took the chance on him late in free agency, and after a hot pre-season, it looked like he might be just that.
One quarter into the season, though, he's given Penguin Nation something to talk about for all the wrong reasons.
Hey -- at least we can enjoy the 'celebrity' factor his wife, actress/singer/author Hilary Duff, brings to the blogosphere.
Recently, Mrs. Comrie was interviewed on a radio show, where she talked -- among other things -- about how she and the Mr. sext each other to keep their long-distance relationship fresh.
No word on whether this actually goes on in the CONSOL Energy Center press box, where Comrie has spent so much time lately.
The first part of that radio interview can be found HERE
The second part of the interview -- where the sexting remarks are referenced at the beginning -- can be found HERE, which is a post from a few days ago by one of the best hockey bloggers on this planet, Greg Wyshynski, who regularly writes on his Yahoo Puck Daddy blog.
While things in Comrie's world are clearly hot off the ice, we can only hope he'll make the best of his anticipated appearance on the ice tonight against a Sabres' team that is going to be missing franchise goaltender Ryan Miller, who suffered a groin injury a few days ago and won't be able to go.
In his place, the Penguins are likely to see rookie netminder Jhonas Enroth.
Buffalo will also be missing forward Tim Connolly tonight, who also is dealing with an injury.
They will, however, have former Penguin Jordan Leopold in the lineup.
Leopold, who is having a strong season for the Sabres after leaving Pittsburgh in the off-season and signing a 3-year deal with the Sabres, leads the Sabres' in ice-time and points among blueliners, with 5 goals and 14 points in 22 games. He's playing with 2nd year rearguard Tyler Myers, and it's a good thing because after a stellar rookie season, Myers has terribly regressed in year 2.
Myers is a -8 in 22 games.
Brent Johnson is expected to start in goal for the Penguins tonight.
Defenseman Deryk Engelland, as anticipated, will also be back in the lineup.
Let's Go Pens!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Penguins' Special Teams Shine In Win Over Panthers
Going into last night's game against the Florida Panthers in the Sunshine State, the Pittsburgh Penguins were on a 5-1-1 run and had a chance to continue to build on that streak against a team that played them closely last season in four separate one-goal games (including three in overtime).
In games that close, we all know that special teams often can make the difference.
And so it went again last night in the first contest against the Panthers this year, as the Penguins' special teams brought home a 3-2 victory thanks to two first-period power play goals in 3 overall chances, and a penalty killing unit that again was stellar, snuffing out all 5 Florida power plays in the game -- including one late in the third period.
Kris Letang got the Pens' on the board first 4 minutes in on a slapshot from the right point. It was the culmination of a sequence that started with a clean face-off win by Captain Sidney Crosby in Florida's zone.
Obviously not satisfied with that work, Crosby upped the Pens' lead to 2-0 seven minutes later when he finished a 3-on-2 with Evgeni Malkin and Tyler Kennedy by taking TK's crossing pass in the low slot and getting Panthers' netminder Tomas Vokoun to slide out of position before easily depositing a backhand into the vacated cage.
Cory Stillman scored for Florida later that period on a play that required video review to see if Stillman knocked the puck into the net with his hand. From what I could see on the replays, it was difficult to tell whether Stillman got the puck with his glove or the shaft of his stick, but the call on the ice was a goal, and there obviously wasn't enough evidence in Toronto to overturn that.
Panthers' defenseman Bryan McCabe then tied the game in the second period on what looked like an innocent 2-on-2 rush into the Pens' zone.
That is, until Pens' center Mark Letestu flubbed his effort to intercept Florida forward David Booth's attempted pass to the oncoming blueliner.
Letestu did have the puck on his stick for a minute but didn't corral it cleanly, and it just rolled right off his blade to McCabe, who shot the puck in one motion from 30 feet on Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
Fleury got a piece of McCabe's shot, but it squeaked under his arm. In my opinion, Fleury could have had that one, although he might have let his guard down for a half-second when he thought Letestu had the play covered.
Fortunately for Pittsburgh, the Pens' rookie atoned for his miscue in the third period.
With about 7 minutes left in the game, Letestu took the puck into Florida's zone and drove hard down the near boards just around and past the defending McCabe enough that he was able to curl a one-armed pass back towards the right circle to the oncoming Chris Conner.
Conner made no mistake, quickly releasing the puck and beating the surprised Vokoun above the right pad near side for a 3-2 Pittsburgh lead.
"A great play all around, from the breakout to the entry to the final play and the finish," said Pens' Captain Sidney Crosby of Conner's goal.
Florida got no closer, and with that, game 1 of Pittsburgh's annual fathers trip was a wrap. Fleury stopped 27 of 29 shots overall, and the Pens' ran their streak to 6-1-1 in their last 8.
Given that the Pens have historically tried to give every guy on the roster a chance to play in front of their dad during the 2-game journey each year, there will probably be a few lineup changes when Pittsburgh visits Buffalo to play the Sabres Wednesday night.
Last night, defenseman Deryk Engelland and forwards Mike Comrie and Mike Rupp were healthy scratches. While Comrie has been sitting, Engelland and Rupp watched from the press box at the expense of Ben Lovejoy and Eric Godard. Expect both of those two to watch the Sabres' game in street clothes while Engelland and Rupp return to the lineup.
And even though Comrie has been just a shade short of awful this year, I wouldn't rule out him getting back in the lineup on Wednesday either. If he does play, I'm not sure who will sit at this point. Of course, with the team playing so well overall, Head Coach Dan Bylsma may opt against changing his lineup that much and keep Comrie out of the lineup.
We'll see.
By the way, I may not have the opportunity to post a timely recap of that game on Turkey day, since this is the first year my family and I are hosting everyone on the holiday, and that means chances are my wife will have me completely pre-occupied that morning. If I don't get anything up right away, forgive me in advance. And have a happy Thanksgiving.
More soon.
In games that close, we all know that special teams often can make the difference.
And so it went again last night in the first contest against the Panthers this year, as the Penguins' special teams brought home a 3-2 victory thanks to two first-period power play goals in 3 overall chances, and a penalty killing unit that again was stellar, snuffing out all 5 Florida power plays in the game -- including one late in the third period.
Kris Letang got the Pens' on the board first 4 minutes in on a slapshot from the right point. It was the culmination of a sequence that started with a clean face-off win by Captain Sidney Crosby in Florida's zone.
Obviously not satisfied with that work, Crosby upped the Pens' lead to 2-0 seven minutes later when he finished a 3-on-2 with Evgeni Malkin and Tyler Kennedy by taking TK's crossing pass in the low slot and getting Panthers' netminder Tomas Vokoun to slide out of position before easily depositing a backhand into the vacated cage.
Cory Stillman scored for Florida later that period on a play that required video review to see if Stillman knocked the puck into the net with his hand. From what I could see on the replays, it was difficult to tell whether Stillman got the puck with his glove or the shaft of his stick, but the call on the ice was a goal, and there obviously wasn't enough evidence in Toronto to overturn that.
Panthers' defenseman Bryan McCabe then tied the game in the second period on what looked like an innocent 2-on-2 rush into the Pens' zone.
That is, until Pens' center Mark Letestu flubbed his effort to intercept Florida forward David Booth's attempted pass to the oncoming blueliner.
Letestu did have the puck on his stick for a minute but didn't corral it cleanly, and it just rolled right off his blade to McCabe, who shot the puck in one motion from 30 feet on Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
Fleury got a piece of McCabe's shot, but it squeaked under his arm. In my opinion, Fleury could have had that one, although he might have let his guard down for a half-second when he thought Letestu had the play covered.
Fortunately for Pittsburgh, the Pens' rookie atoned for his miscue in the third period.
With about 7 minutes left in the game, Letestu took the puck into Florida's zone and drove hard down the near boards just around and past the defending McCabe enough that he was able to curl a one-armed pass back towards the right circle to the oncoming Chris Conner.
Conner made no mistake, quickly releasing the puck and beating the surprised Vokoun above the right pad near side for a 3-2 Pittsburgh lead.
"A great play all around, from the breakout to the entry to the final play and the finish," said Pens' Captain Sidney Crosby of Conner's goal.
Florida got no closer, and with that, game 1 of Pittsburgh's annual fathers trip was a wrap. Fleury stopped 27 of 29 shots overall, and the Pens' ran their streak to 6-1-1 in their last 8.
Given that the Pens have historically tried to give every guy on the roster a chance to play in front of their dad during the 2-game journey each year, there will probably be a few lineup changes when Pittsburgh visits Buffalo to play the Sabres Wednesday night.
Last night, defenseman Deryk Engelland and forwards Mike Comrie and Mike Rupp were healthy scratches. While Comrie has been sitting, Engelland and Rupp watched from the press box at the expense of Ben Lovejoy and Eric Godard. Expect both of those two to watch the Sabres' game in street clothes while Engelland and Rupp return to the lineup.
And even though Comrie has been just a shade short of awful this year, I wouldn't rule out him getting back in the lineup on Wednesday either. If he does play, I'm not sure who will sit at this point. Of course, with the team playing so well overall, Head Coach Dan Bylsma may opt against changing his lineup that much and keep Comrie out of the lineup.
We'll see.
By the way, I may not have the opportunity to post a timely recap of that game on Turkey day, since this is the first year my family and I are hosting everyone on the holiday, and that means chances are my wife will have me completely pre-occupied that morning. If I don't get anything up right away, forgive me in advance. And have a happy Thanksgiving.
More soon.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Penguins At The Quarter Pole
As the Pittsburgh Penguins hit the approximate quarter pole of this season, it's a great time to take a look at where they've been and where they're going.
They currently have an 11-8-2 record, good for 24 points and 2nd in the Atlantic Division. After the Philadelphia Flyers' shootout victory over the Washington Capitals last night, they trail their cross-state rivals by 4 points.
Pittsburgh also sits tied for 4th in the conference behind those two squads and the Montreal Canadiens, and even with the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning.
League-wide, the Penguins are 5th overall in scoring. They are 3rd in the East in that category.
On the goals-against side, they are 6th overall in the East, but tied for only 17th overall in the entire NHL.
While I'd rather not talk about this, I have to. The Penguins are 25th overall on the power-play, clicking at a continued substandard 13.5%. As it has often been around here, the Penguins' individual parts remain more efficient than the sum of the collective whole --- at least on its underachieving man-advantage.
And this, despite having more power plays than any other team in the National Hockey League.
On the opposite side of the ledger, it's hard to do anything but praise the Penguins' penalty killers, which are ranked 4th overall and killing an impressive 88.5% of the penalties called against them.
The Penguins lead the league in fewest shots against, at 27.1 per game, and are 12th overall in the number of shots per contest they take, at 31.6. Western Conference powers Detroit, Chicago and San Jose -- probably not surprisingly -- are at the top of the latter list.
Individually, the Penguins players have run hot and cold this year so far, which makes their record not that all surprising. After all, if you take the 5-1-1 streak they are currently on out of the picture, you can see that their record is one of an average hockey team and nothing more.
Still, Captain Sidney Crosby has had a real strong start to the season -- one of the best in his career in fact. He currently has 33 points on the strength of 14 goals and 19 assists in 21 games. He's on an 8-game point streak with 18 points in the last 10 games overall, and on pace for 55 goals and 129 points, both of which would be career highs.
He remains one point behind Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning for the league lead.
Defenseman Kris Letang is 2nd overall in scoring among blueliners with 3 goals and 15 assists for 18 points in 21 games. He's also a +9.
For comparison's sake, defenseman Sergei Gonchar -- who signed with the Ottawa Senators in the off-season -- is ranked 13th among blueliners with 4 goals and 13 points. He's an awful minus 13 on the season, though.
Another guy off to a pretty good start to the season is LW Matt Cooke, who has 4 goals and 11 points in 21 games. He's also a +8 on the year.
Flipping the script forces us to look at defenseman Zbynek Michalek, who is a -5 in 12 games -- a statistic that doesn't speak highly to the level of defensive excellence he was expected to bring to the team. I'm willing to continue to give Michalek a pass, however, as the shoulder injury he suffered which cost him 9 games interrupted his ability to get more familiar with the system and otherwise blend more seamlessly with his teammates. In the second half of the season, I'm expecting him to really pick it up.
Fellow blueliners Alex Goligoski and Paul Martin have cooled considerably from the hot starts they had when the two of them and Letang were 2, 3 and 4 in overall scoring among defensemen in the first 10 games of the season.
Of course, slowing down after a fast start is nothing new for Goligoski, but it's curious for Martin. One would have expected him to start slowly in a new system then heat up, but it's been the opposite for him.
Up front, Hilary Duff's husband (a.k.a. Mike Comrie) is the poster child for how you can't put too much stock in a great pre-season.
Comrie was on fire before the year started, leading the Penguins in goals and looking like the biggest $500K bargain in the game.
Since then, he only has 5 assists, is a -4, and has been a healthy scratch enough times that he's only suited up in 15 contests. He's now riding the pine in favor of Wilkes-Barre call-up Chris Conner and, worse, it doesn't look like Comrie is going to get back in the lineup anytime soon.
Rookie Mark Letestu is another guy that has gone the way of the Antarctic.
#10 had 7 points in his first 7 games this year and was making a real impact up front for the Penguins, but in the 14 contests that have followed, he's only put up 2 points.
To his defense, Letestu was getting a lot of time in the top 6 during that intital stretch, and he's since been confined to the 3rd line and 2nd power-play unit, but he still has shown he's capable of producing more than he has even in those roles. I was real excited about the Penguins' having an 'impact' rookie on their roster who wasn't a first round pick for the first time in a while, but my hopes might have been premature.
Finally, a lot already has been said about Marc-Andre Fleury this season, and I'm not sure revisiting all of it here makes much sense. And that's true even more since his whole first quarter itself has been a dichotomy. First he was a disaster, and now he looks more like the Fleury of old. Let's see what happens for him in the 2nd quarter of the season. At that point, we can better evaluate him at the midpoint.
THREE THINGS THE PENGUINS NEED TO KEEP DOING
1) Keep up the good work on the penalty kill. The Pens' PK has helped them win games, including against the Vancouver Canucks this past wednesday. For as long as the power-play keeps failing them, the penalty killers can keep them in the mix.
2) Produce from the backline. Even with Goligoski and Martin cooling off, the Penguins still have more points from their blueliners than any team in the game. For a squad with a suspect group of wingers, Pittsburgh needs production from their defense to keep up. They've been getting it and it makes a difference.
3) Make sure Marc-Andre Fleury stays in his groove. For as oustanding as Brent Johnson was while Fleury was trying to get his head screwed on straight, we all knew that him playing at that level had a shelf life. Fleury has put together a string of strong starts and, not coincidentally, the team is on a run as well. Pittsburgh needs him to maintain that if they are going to climb the standings in the 2nd quarter.
THREE THINGS THE PENGUINS NEED TO CHANGE
1) Keep Jordan Staal out of the trainers' room. The Penguins have been fortunate the last 4 years to have Gronk on the ice with them game-in and game-out since it's obvious now what they miss when he's not in the lineup. It's hard to imagine Staal's frustrating run of injuries continuing and that's a good thing because the team is a lot better in both ends with him out there.
2) Do something -- anything -- with the power play. The Penguins have done a decent job moving the puck around on the man advantage this season, and that's something they've preached a lot more with Head Coach Dan Bylsma running the PP this year. But even with all the skilled individual talent the Penguins have, skillfully passing the puck to find the open man doesn't always cut the mustard on the power play. The Penguins need to do a better job outworking other teams and getting dirty goals around the cage when they're up a man.
3) Find a way to get Evgeni Malkin to return to form. Malkin has shown better signs of recapturing his game during the Penguins' last little run of success, and that may be attributed to sliding him back to his natural center position during that stretch. It's probably worth keeping him there for the next month or so and not necessarily shifting him back to wing when Staal returns. Of course, Malkin was subpar last season while suiting up exclusively at the center spot, too, but Geno hasn't been nearly the difference maker he can be, and getting him back up to speed should be just about as much of a team priority as it was to get Fleury back in groove.
Okay boys and girls, that's my quarter-pole analysis. Feel free to let me know what you think. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing if the Penguins can continue their run this week leading into the Thanksgiving holiday.
More soon.
They currently have an 11-8-2 record, good for 24 points and 2nd in the Atlantic Division. After the Philadelphia Flyers' shootout victory over the Washington Capitals last night, they trail their cross-state rivals by 4 points.
Pittsburgh also sits tied for 4th in the conference behind those two squads and the Montreal Canadiens, and even with the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning.
League-wide, the Penguins are 5th overall in scoring. They are 3rd in the East in that category.
On the goals-against side, they are 6th overall in the East, but tied for only 17th overall in the entire NHL.
While I'd rather not talk about this, I have to. The Penguins are 25th overall on the power-play, clicking at a continued substandard 13.5%. As it has often been around here, the Penguins' individual parts remain more efficient than the sum of the collective whole --- at least on its underachieving man-advantage.
And this, despite having more power plays than any other team in the National Hockey League.
On the opposite side of the ledger, it's hard to do anything but praise the Penguins' penalty killers, which are ranked 4th overall and killing an impressive 88.5% of the penalties called against them.
The Penguins lead the league in fewest shots against, at 27.1 per game, and are 12th overall in the number of shots per contest they take, at 31.6. Western Conference powers Detroit, Chicago and San Jose -- probably not surprisingly -- are at the top of the latter list.
Individually, the Penguins players have run hot and cold this year so far, which makes their record not that all surprising. After all, if you take the 5-1-1 streak they are currently on out of the picture, you can see that their record is one of an average hockey team and nothing more.
Still, Captain Sidney Crosby has had a real strong start to the season -- one of the best in his career in fact. He currently has 33 points on the strength of 14 goals and 19 assists in 21 games. He's on an 8-game point streak with 18 points in the last 10 games overall, and on pace for 55 goals and 129 points, both of which would be career highs.
He remains one point behind Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning for the league lead.
Defenseman Kris Letang is 2nd overall in scoring among blueliners with 3 goals and 15 assists for 18 points in 21 games. He's also a +9.
For comparison's sake, defenseman Sergei Gonchar -- who signed with the Ottawa Senators in the off-season -- is ranked 13th among blueliners with 4 goals and 13 points. He's an awful minus 13 on the season, though.
Another guy off to a pretty good start to the season is LW Matt Cooke, who has 4 goals and 11 points in 21 games. He's also a +8 on the year.
Flipping the script forces us to look at defenseman Zbynek Michalek, who is a -5 in 12 games -- a statistic that doesn't speak highly to the level of defensive excellence he was expected to bring to the team. I'm willing to continue to give Michalek a pass, however, as the shoulder injury he suffered which cost him 9 games interrupted his ability to get more familiar with the system and otherwise blend more seamlessly with his teammates. In the second half of the season, I'm expecting him to really pick it up.
Fellow blueliners Alex Goligoski and Paul Martin have cooled considerably from the hot starts they had when the two of them and Letang were 2, 3 and 4 in overall scoring among defensemen in the first 10 games of the season.
Of course, slowing down after a fast start is nothing new for Goligoski, but it's curious for Martin. One would have expected him to start slowly in a new system then heat up, but it's been the opposite for him.
Up front, Hilary Duff's husband (a.k.a. Mike Comrie) is the poster child for how you can't put too much stock in a great pre-season.
Comrie was on fire before the year started, leading the Penguins in goals and looking like the biggest $500K bargain in the game.
Since then, he only has 5 assists, is a -4, and has been a healthy scratch enough times that he's only suited up in 15 contests. He's now riding the pine in favor of Wilkes-Barre call-up Chris Conner and, worse, it doesn't look like Comrie is going to get back in the lineup anytime soon.
Rookie Mark Letestu is another guy that has gone the way of the Antarctic.
#10 had 7 points in his first 7 games this year and was making a real impact up front for the Penguins, but in the 14 contests that have followed, he's only put up 2 points.
To his defense, Letestu was getting a lot of time in the top 6 during that intital stretch, and he's since been confined to the 3rd line and 2nd power-play unit, but he still has shown he's capable of producing more than he has even in those roles. I was real excited about the Penguins' having an 'impact' rookie on their roster who wasn't a first round pick for the first time in a while, but my hopes might have been premature.
Finally, a lot already has been said about Marc-Andre Fleury this season, and I'm not sure revisiting all of it here makes much sense. And that's true even more since his whole first quarter itself has been a dichotomy. First he was a disaster, and now he looks more like the Fleury of old. Let's see what happens for him in the 2nd quarter of the season. At that point, we can better evaluate him at the midpoint.
THREE THINGS THE PENGUINS NEED TO KEEP DOING
1) Keep up the good work on the penalty kill. The Pens' PK has helped them win games, including against the Vancouver Canucks this past wednesday. For as long as the power-play keeps failing them, the penalty killers can keep them in the mix.
2) Produce from the backline. Even with Goligoski and Martin cooling off, the Penguins still have more points from their blueliners than any team in the game. For a squad with a suspect group of wingers, Pittsburgh needs production from their defense to keep up. They've been getting it and it makes a difference.
3) Make sure Marc-Andre Fleury stays in his groove. For as oustanding as Brent Johnson was while Fleury was trying to get his head screwed on straight, we all knew that him playing at that level had a shelf life. Fleury has put together a string of strong starts and, not coincidentally, the team is on a run as well. Pittsburgh needs him to maintain that if they are going to climb the standings in the 2nd quarter.
THREE THINGS THE PENGUINS NEED TO CHANGE
1) Keep Jordan Staal out of the trainers' room. The Penguins have been fortunate the last 4 years to have Gronk on the ice with them game-in and game-out since it's obvious now what they miss when he's not in the lineup. It's hard to imagine Staal's frustrating run of injuries continuing and that's a good thing because the team is a lot better in both ends with him out there.
2) Do something -- anything -- with the power play. The Penguins have done a decent job moving the puck around on the man advantage this season, and that's something they've preached a lot more with Head Coach Dan Bylsma running the PP this year. But even with all the skilled individual talent the Penguins have, skillfully passing the puck to find the open man doesn't always cut the mustard on the power play. The Penguins need to do a better job outworking other teams and getting dirty goals around the cage when they're up a man.
3) Find a way to get Evgeni Malkin to return to form. Malkin has shown better signs of recapturing his game during the Penguins' last little run of success, and that may be attributed to sliding him back to his natural center position during that stretch. It's probably worth keeping him there for the next month or so and not necessarily shifting him back to wing when Staal returns. Of course, Malkin was subpar last season while suiting up exclusively at the center spot, too, but Geno hasn't been nearly the difference maker he can be, and getting him back up to speed should be just about as much of a team priority as it was to get Fleury back in groove.
Okay boys and girls, that's my quarter-pole analysis. Feel free to let me know what you think. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing if the Penguins can continue their run this week leading into the Thanksgiving holiday.
More soon.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Sidney Crosby Is Ridiculous
How good is Sidney Crosby with the puck?
We've seen highlight shootout-winning goals ... an Olympic gold-medal winner ... heck, even a shot up a ramp through field goal uprights.
But for those who have yet to see this wicked piece of artwork on nhl.com or pittsburghpenguins.com, click on THIS and take a gander at what #87 can do with the puck when he's just fooling around.
I'm not sure what's more impresive -- the fact that he can zing five straight shots from 35 feet, EACH one in off the iron; or that he can knock a pyramid of pucks off the bench boards basically ONE AT A TIME TOP TO BOTTOM, from about 50 feet, then pick off the puck that rolls down the wall with a single shot from the same distance.
There's little Sidney Crosby does doesn't amaze anymore, but that was some footage.
And while I'm talking about Crosby, here's one other great piece about him from Pittsburgh Magazine.
Okay ... this was just an extra. Come back tomorrow for my look at the squad after the 1st quarter.
We've seen highlight shootout-winning goals ... an Olympic gold-medal winner ... heck, even a shot up a ramp through field goal uprights.
But for those who have yet to see this wicked piece of artwork on nhl.com or pittsburghpenguins.com, click on THIS and take a gander at what #87 can do with the puck when he's just fooling around.
I'm not sure what's more impresive -- the fact that he can zing five straight shots from 35 feet, EACH one in off the iron; or that he can knock a pyramid of pucks off the bench boards basically ONE AT A TIME TOP TO BOTTOM, from about 50 feet, then pick off the puck that rolls down the wall with a single shot from the same distance.
There's little Sidney Crosby does doesn't amaze anymore, but that was some footage.
And while I'm talking about Crosby, here's one other great piece about him from Pittsburgh Magazine.
Okay ... this was just an extra. Come back tomorrow for my look at the squad after the 1st quarter.
This Time Penguins, Crosby Finish The Job
The Pittsburgh Penguins had to be feeling a little deja vu late in their game against the Carolina Hurricanes last night at The Bird House.
After all, just 2 games before, they took a lead in the third period before allowing their opponent -- then the New York Rangers -- to tie the game late, and that's just what Carolina did last evening, scoring with less than a minute in the contest to tie the score at 4.
Surely Pittsburgh had to be concerned about the possibility of blowing their 5th lead in a game this season already -- a malady that plagued them over and over again two years ago.
But there would be no relapse this time, as the Penguins and Hurricanes went through the overtime scoreless, and the Pens won decisively in the shootout, 5-4, on goals from Kris Letang and Sidney Crosby.
The win allowed the Penguins to raise their record to 11-8-2 and get 2 points closer to the division-leading Philadelphia Flyers, who have 26.
Pittsburgh is now 5-1-1 in their last 7 contests.
And they beat the odds a little bit to get there too, since Carolina was 7-0 this year when scoring first, which is exactly what they did last night less than a minute into the game when Brandon Sutter scored to make it 1-0.
The Hurricanes did a great job attacking with speed on Sutter's goal. They only had 3 forwards on the rush to go against the Penguins' 2 blueliners and 2 backcheckers, but they moved the puck around so quickly that they were able to create a brief 2-on-1 at the end of the rush that Sutter finished.
The Penguins obviously learned something from that because they did the same thing past the 11 minute mark of the 1st when Crosby used a quick pass at the Canes' blueline to allow Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz to create a late 2-on-1 on their rush, and Kunitz made no mistake tying the score by lifting a puck over the shoulder of Carolina backup netminder Justin Peters.
Pittsburgh took the lead about 3 minutes later, this time finishing a 3-on-1 rush when a Kris Letang shot from the slot caromed off the Carolina defenseman and went right to Crosby to Peters' right. Rather than shoot it in himself, Sid easily tapped the puck across the open crease to a wide-open Tyler Kennedy for the goal.
Before the period ended however, Patrick Dwyer tied the game at 2 by bouncing on a loose puck in front of Penguins' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and chipping it by him.
Pittsburgh went back in front at the 8 minute mark of the 2nd period when Crosby easily whipped a rebound of a Zbynek Michalek point shot past Peters.
Malkin got the 2nd assist on the play, his 250th of his career and 400th career point.
Unfortunately, that lead was short lived as Jussi Jokinen tied the score about 3 minutes later, getting loose to Fleury's right and finishing a nice pass from defenseman Jamie McBain across the low slot.
But the Pens' got a break at the 9 minute mark of the third period when Kunitz was awarded his second goal of the night -- on a power play -- following a sequence where he got a shot off from down low against Peters that Peters seemed to corral just enough for a whistle, before the puck ultimately did slide across the goal line.
When the zebras went to the NHL's War Room in Toronto to review the play, however, they must have noticed something different north of the border, because they awarded Kunitz the goal.
Clearly, the puck did go over the line, but on the live replay -- with the audio -- it seems pretty clear that the referree did blow his whistle before that happened.
Which ALSO means he had the intent to blow the whistle even before THAT. When the official loses sight of the puck, intend to stop the action is all that is needed to make the play dead, so I'm not sure what the big boys in Canada were considering when they overruled the official on the ice and gave Pittsburgh the marker. Certainly they look at plays with audio for that reason.
All that goal did, however, was set the stage for Jokinen's tying goal with less than a minute left in the game -- a goal which happened on a strange play with the puck bouncing around in the Penguins' zone and Carolina getting a bit of a break when Hurricanes' forward Eric Staal collided with Pens' blueliner Brooks Oprik (and actually knocked him down) only to find the biscuit finally settled down conveniently at his feet. He quickly tapped it to Jokinen about 5-7 feet away, and that was just enough to keep Fleury slightly out of position and unable to stop Jokinen's quick wrister.
Once Pittsburgh got to the shootout, though, they clearly had the advantage against the inexperienced Peters, and sure enough, that's the way it played out, with Letang beating him on a backhand and the Captain slipping one between his legs.
When Fleury stopped Canes' forward Jeff Skinner and then Jokinen, it was all over but the cryin' for Carolina.
Sidney Crosby finished with his goal and helpers on all three Penguin tallies, while Malkin added two more assists to go with his 400th career point. Add in Kunitz' two goals and the big guys carried the load for Pittsburgh last night.
Pittsburgh outshot Carolina, 36-34, by the way.
With his 4 points on the evening, Crosby now has 33 on the year and remains one point behind Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning -- who had 4 points of his own the night before in a barn-burning 8-7 win over the Flyers -- for the league lead. Stamkos still leads the league in goals, however, and is on an incredible goal-a-game pace with 19 in 19 contests. He's turning out to be a wizard in this league, and making people forget about Alexander Ovechkin, who sits back a ways in the points race with 25 points. At least for now.
The Pens' go on the road next for their two games before turkey day. Monday they are in Florida against the Panthers; Wednesday they are in Buffalo against the Sabres.
Next time, I'll take a look at our Boys of Winter and evaluate them at this season's quarter-pole.
Stay tuned.
After all, just 2 games before, they took a lead in the third period before allowing their opponent -- then the New York Rangers -- to tie the game late, and that's just what Carolina did last evening, scoring with less than a minute in the contest to tie the score at 4.
Surely Pittsburgh had to be concerned about the possibility of blowing their 5th lead in a game this season already -- a malady that plagued them over and over again two years ago.
But there would be no relapse this time, as the Penguins and Hurricanes went through the overtime scoreless, and the Pens won decisively in the shootout, 5-4, on goals from Kris Letang and Sidney Crosby.
The win allowed the Penguins to raise their record to 11-8-2 and get 2 points closer to the division-leading Philadelphia Flyers, who have 26.
Pittsburgh is now 5-1-1 in their last 7 contests.
And they beat the odds a little bit to get there too, since Carolina was 7-0 this year when scoring first, which is exactly what they did last night less than a minute into the game when Brandon Sutter scored to make it 1-0.
The Hurricanes did a great job attacking with speed on Sutter's goal. They only had 3 forwards on the rush to go against the Penguins' 2 blueliners and 2 backcheckers, but they moved the puck around so quickly that they were able to create a brief 2-on-1 at the end of the rush that Sutter finished.
The Penguins obviously learned something from that because they did the same thing past the 11 minute mark of the 1st when Crosby used a quick pass at the Canes' blueline to allow Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz to create a late 2-on-1 on their rush, and Kunitz made no mistake tying the score by lifting a puck over the shoulder of Carolina backup netminder Justin Peters.
Pittsburgh took the lead about 3 minutes later, this time finishing a 3-on-1 rush when a Kris Letang shot from the slot caromed off the Carolina defenseman and went right to Crosby to Peters' right. Rather than shoot it in himself, Sid easily tapped the puck across the open crease to a wide-open Tyler Kennedy for the goal.
Before the period ended however, Patrick Dwyer tied the game at 2 by bouncing on a loose puck in front of Penguins' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and chipping it by him.
Pittsburgh went back in front at the 8 minute mark of the 2nd period when Crosby easily whipped a rebound of a Zbynek Michalek point shot past Peters.
Malkin got the 2nd assist on the play, his 250th of his career and 400th career point.
Unfortunately, that lead was short lived as Jussi Jokinen tied the score about 3 minutes later, getting loose to Fleury's right and finishing a nice pass from defenseman Jamie McBain across the low slot.
But the Pens' got a break at the 9 minute mark of the third period when Kunitz was awarded his second goal of the night -- on a power play -- following a sequence where he got a shot off from down low against Peters that Peters seemed to corral just enough for a whistle, before the puck ultimately did slide across the goal line.
When the zebras went to the NHL's War Room in Toronto to review the play, however, they must have noticed something different north of the border, because they awarded Kunitz the goal.
Clearly, the puck did go over the line, but on the live replay -- with the audio -- it seems pretty clear that the referree did blow his whistle before that happened.
Which ALSO means he had the intent to blow the whistle even before THAT. When the official loses sight of the puck, intend to stop the action is all that is needed to make the play dead, so I'm not sure what the big boys in Canada were considering when they overruled the official on the ice and gave Pittsburgh the marker. Certainly they look at plays with audio for that reason.
All that goal did, however, was set the stage for Jokinen's tying goal with less than a minute left in the game -- a goal which happened on a strange play with the puck bouncing around in the Penguins' zone and Carolina getting a bit of a break when Hurricanes' forward Eric Staal collided with Pens' blueliner Brooks Oprik (and actually knocked him down) only to find the biscuit finally settled down conveniently at his feet. He quickly tapped it to Jokinen about 5-7 feet away, and that was just enough to keep Fleury slightly out of position and unable to stop Jokinen's quick wrister.
Once Pittsburgh got to the shootout, though, they clearly had the advantage against the inexperienced Peters, and sure enough, that's the way it played out, with Letang beating him on a backhand and the Captain slipping one between his legs.
When Fleury stopped Canes' forward Jeff Skinner and then Jokinen, it was all over but the cryin' for Carolina.
Sidney Crosby finished with his goal and helpers on all three Penguin tallies, while Malkin added two more assists to go with his 400th career point. Add in Kunitz' two goals and the big guys carried the load for Pittsburgh last night.
Pittsburgh outshot Carolina, 36-34, by the way.
With his 4 points on the evening, Crosby now has 33 on the year and remains one point behind Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning -- who had 4 points of his own the night before in a barn-burning 8-7 win over the Flyers -- for the league lead. Stamkos still leads the league in goals, however, and is on an incredible goal-a-game pace with 19 in 19 contests. He's turning out to be a wizard in this league, and making people forget about Alexander Ovechkin, who sits back a ways in the points race with 25 points. At least for now.
The Pens' go on the road next for their two games before turkey day. Monday they are in Florida against the Panthers; Wednesday they are in Buffalo against the Sabres.
Next time, I'll take a look at our Boys of Winter and evaluate them at this season's quarter-pole.
Stay tuned.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Penguins Beat Canucks In Most Complete Game Of Season
Yesterday, I spoke in this space about my eagerness to find out how much mettle the Pittsburgh Penguins would show in their next game against Western Conference power Vancouver after their come-from-ahead home OT loss to the New York Rangers on Monday night.
About my anxiousness to see if they'd answer the bell and continue a string of fairly solid play without being brought down by those discouraging circumstances.
Ding.
The Penguins played their most complete game of the season last night in washing their hands of the Vancouver Canucks to the tune of 3-1.
Pittsburgh had just about everything they needed in this game offensively, defensively, and between the pipes.
Offensively, they got out to an early 1-0 lead in the first period when Captain Sidney Crosby just happened to step out of the penalty box when a loose puck came by.
Heading in on a breakaway against Canadian Olympic teammate and Canucks' netminder Roberto Luongo, Sid skated in with purpose and just blew a wrister past Luongo low on the stick side.
The Pens blitzed Luongo and the Canucks with 2 goals in less than a minute in the second period, with Max Talbot scoring on a wraparound -- shorthanded, no less -- and Aaron Asham chipping in a loose puck to pad the Pittsburgh lead to 3-0.
While Vancouver defenseman Dan Hamhuis scored not long after to make it 3-1 on a play where the Penguins got caught running around in their own zone a bit, Marc-Andre Fleury just slammed the door the rest of the way and the Canucks got no closer.
I have to say, this was Fleury's best game this season. I haven't seen him that confident in the cage in a while. He was focused all night, and made several solid stops -- 29 of 30 overall.
The Flower was also very controlled with his movements last night, I thought, which for him is a sign his head is really in the game.
Fleury got a lot of help from the Penguins defensively last night, too. The Canucks can bring it up front, and were strong at times in the offensive zone moving the puck around last night. But the Pens' largely kept them to the outside and limited their good scoring chances.
Pittsburgh's penalty killers also shut down the Canucks power play on all 5 chances last night. They've been fabulous all year -- after all, the PK was ranked 4th best in the league coming into the game -- but Vancouver rolled into The Bird House last night touting one of the NHL's best man-advantages on the road.
Individually, blueliners Brooks' Orpik and Zbynek Michalek were particuarly tough last night. They both had real strong games.
Despite the Penguins' relative control of the game for most of the 60 minutes the teams shared the ice, at least some Canucks' players walked away from their trip to town relatively unimpressed with Pittsburgh.
"This is a team I think we should beat," said Canucks' winger Daniel Sedin.
"I don't think Pittsburgh did anything special," said Luongo.
I don't care that this was their last game on a 9-day, 5-contest road trip. Personally, I'd love to see the Canucks again in the Stanley Cup Final.
Wait a minute -- Luongo isn't good enough to get them there.
Oops.
The Penguins are now 4-1-1 in their last 6. They're 2nd in the Atlantic Division, 4th in the Eastern Conference, and 8th-best league-wide with 22 points. Let's hope they can keep it going in their next contest, at CONSOL on Friday night against a Carolina Hurricanes' team that waxed the Ottawa Senators, 7-1, last night, behind a hat trick by Center Eric Staal.
More soon.
About my anxiousness to see if they'd answer the bell and continue a string of fairly solid play without being brought down by those discouraging circumstances.
Ding.
The Penguins played their most complete game of the season last night in washing their hands of the Vancouver Canucks to the tune of 3-1.
Pittsburgh had just about everything they needed in this game offensively, defensively, and between the pipes.
Offensively, they got out to an early 1-0 lead in the first period when Captain Sidney Crosby just happened to step out of the penalty box when a loose puck came by.
Heading in on a breakaway against Canadian Olympic teammate and Canucks' netminder Roberto Luongo, Sid skated in with purpose and just blew a wrister past Luongo low on the stick side.
The Pens blitzed Luongo and the Canucks with 2 goals in less than a minute in the second period, with Max Talbot scoring on a wraparound -- shorthanded, no less -- and Aaron Asham chipping in a loose puck to pad the Pittsburgh lead to 3-0.
While Vancouver defenseman Dan Hamhuis scored not long after to make it 3-1 on a play where the Penguins got caught running around in their own zone a bit, Marc-Andre Fleury just slammed the door the rest of the way and the Canucks got no closer.
I have to say, this was Fleury's best game this season. I haven't seen him that confident in the cage in a while. He was focused all night, and made several solid stops -- 29 of 30 overall.
The Flower was also very controlled with his movements last night, I thought, which for him is a sign his head is really in the game.
Fleury got a lot of help from the Penguins defensively last night, too. The Canucks can bring it up front, and were strong at times in the offensive zone moving the puck around last night. But the Pens' largely kept them to the outside and limited their good scoring chances.
Pittsburgh's penalty killers also shut down the Canucks power play on all 5 chances last night. They've been fabulous all year -- after all, the PK was ranked 4th best in the league coming into the game -- but Vancouver rolled into The Bird House last night touting one of the NHL's best man-advantages on the road.
Individually, blueliners Brooks' Orpik and Zbynek Michalek were particuarly tough last night. They both had real strong games.
Despite the Penguins' relative control of the game for most of the 60 minutes the teams shared the ice, at least some Canucks' players walked away from their trip to town relatively unimpressed with Pittsburgh.
"This is a team I think we should beat," said Canucks' winger Daniel Sedin.
"I don't think Pittsburgh did anything special," said Luongo.
I don't care that this was their last game on a 9-day, 5-contest road trip. Personally, I'd love to see the Canucks again in the Stanley Cup Final.
Wait a minute -- Luongo isn't good enough to get them there.
Oops.
The Penguins are now 4-1-1 in their last 6. They're 2nd in the Atlantic Division, 4th in the Eastern Conference, and 8th-best league-wide with 22 points. Let's hope they can keep it going in their next contest, at CONSOL on Friday night against a Carolina Hurricanes' team that waxed the Ottawa Senators, 7-1, last night, behind a hat trick by Center Eric Staal.
More soon.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Rollercoaster Continues
Just when it looks like the Penguins are going to start to build some momentum, they find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Monday night at The Bird House, the Penguins played a pretty strong hockey game against the arch-rival New York Rangers.
For about 58 minutes.
While trailing at the 57 minute mark thanks to a Rangers' goal by former Penguin Erik Christensen, Pittsburgh had peppered New York netminder Henrik Lundqvist all game, and were pressing for the tying goal, which they finally got when LW Chris Kunitz chipped in a rebound with 2 and 1/2 minutes left in the game.
Riding that momentum, Pens' LW Matt Cooke then whipped the CONSOL Energy Center crowd into a frenzy by beating Lundqvist short side about 35 seconds later for a sudden -- and shocking -- 2-1 advantage.
To top things off, Lundqvist was so upset about the Cooke goal, he smashed and broke his stick over the crossbar, then earned a two-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty by tossing the broken handle of it over towards one of the referrees near the penalty box.
So, with less than 2-minutes left and a stunning 2-1 lead, the Penguins were going on a power play. Of course, the power play had miserably failed all night up to that point, going 0-for-5, But fortunately, for them, they didn't have to score on this man-advantage. All they had to do was run out the clock. They'd win, and get a big emotional boost in the process.
"We had a chokehold on the game," Cooke said.
But the Penguins found a new way to fail.
Not once.
Not twice.
Three times.
In one sequence.
First of all, for some inexplicable reason, head coach Dan Bylsma sent out his top power play unit.
MEMO TO THE COACH: YOU DON'T NEED TO SCORE THERE!
Unfortunately, though Evgeni Malkin apparently tried to do just that. He had the puck on the near boards and sent a careless pass towards the middle of the ice, where Ranger penalty killer Brandon Dubinsky easily took the puck and rushed up the ice. He was joined by New York rearguard Marc Staal.
Not a good decision by Geno, for sure, but even then, the Penguins had all 5 guys back on the play.
2-on-5 doesn't seem like very good odds, does it?
Well, they are when two of the guys can't stop Dubinsky from making a pass to Staal while the other 3 lazily cover him. Sure enough, Staal gets off a shot that Pens' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury can't really see because of how many backcheckers are in the area. Worse, since he's not expecting a real shot there, Fleury's back in his net.
The puck goes off his shoulder and in to unbelievably tie the score with 86 seconds left.
Then, in overtime, the Penguins' star off-season blue line additions decided to go swimming.
First, defenseman Zbynek Michalek blew a tire and went down at center ice, allowing Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan to go in 2-on-1 against partner Paul Martin.
Dubinsky was carrying the puck down the near side and instead of shading towards Callahan -- as you're supposed to do when defending that rush -- Martin drifted towards Dubinsky.
Then, he left his feet to try and block a pass from coming across.
That's not always a bad play, but if you do it, your timing and positioning have to be right.
Martin's was not.
While Dubinsky showed great patience in curl-dragging the puck, Martin slid himself and his desperately-reaching stick both right out of the play past Dubinsky, then watched him feed the puck to Callahan at Fleury's left for effectively what amounted to a 2-on-0 tap-in game-winner.
And with that, the Penguins got a point, a whole lot of heartache, and blunted momentum following 2-straight wins.
The optimist in me sees that the Penguins are playing better hockey of late. They are generating a lot of shots, and getting more to of their game that way.
But they are still making questionable decisions out there. And while I can't blame Fleury for Staal's tying goal because him even being in that position was more a by-product of those bad decisions his teammates were making, it sure would have been nice to see him step up and just get his body in the way.
In the end, Pittsburgh gave the game away.
And the challenge the Penguins now face tonight back at CONSOL against a very good Vancouver Canucks team is to show how they can bounce back.
It won't be easy against the reigning Hart and Art Ross trophy winner Henrik Sedin, brother Daniel, Roberto Luongo and company, that's for sure, but I'm anxious to see what kind of mettle they put on display.
Recap tomorrow.
Monday night at The Bird House, the Penguins played a pretty strong hockey game against the arch-rival New York Rangers.
For about 58 minutes.
While trailing at the 57 minute mark thanks to a Rangers' goal by former Penguin Erik Christensen, Pittsburgh had peppered New York netminder Henrik Lundqvist all game, and were pressing for the tying goal, which they finally got when LW Chris Kunitz chipped in a rebound with 2 and 1/2 minutes left in the game.
Riding that momentum, Pens' LW Matt Cooke then whipped the CONSOL Energy Center crowd into a frenzy by beating Lundqvist short side about 35 seconds later for a sudden -- and shocking -- 2-1 advantage.
To top things off, Lundqvist was so upset about the Cooke goal, he smashed and broke his stick over the crossbar, then earned a two-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty by tossing the broken handle of it over towards one of the referrees near the penalty box.
So, with less than 2-minutes left and a stunning 2-1 lead, the Penguins were going on a power play. Of course, the power play had miserably failed all night up to that point, going 0-for-5, But fortunately, for them, they didn't have to score on this man-advantage. All they had to do was run out the clock. They'd win, and get a big emotional boost in the process.
"We had a chokehold on the game," Cooke said.
But the Penguins found a new way to fail.
Not once.
Not twice.
Three times.
In one sequence.
First of all, for some inexplicable reason, head coach Dan Bylsma sent out his top power play unit.
MEMO TO THE COACH: YOU DON'T NEED TO SCORE THERE!
Unfortunately, though Evgeni Malkin apparently tried to do just that. He had the puck on the near boards and sent a careless pass towards the middle of the ice, where Ranger penalty killer Brandon Dubinsky easily took the puck and rushed up the ice. He was joined by New York rearguard Marc Staal.
Not a good decision by Geno, for sure, but even then, the Penguins had all 5 guys back on the play.
2-on-5 doesn't seem like very good odds, does it?
Well, they are when two of the guys can't stop Dubinsky from making a pass to Staal while the other 3 lazily cover him. Sure enough, Staal gets off a shot that Pens' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury can't really see because of how many backcheckers are in the area. Worse, since he's not expecting a real shot there, Fleury's back in his net.
The puck goes off his shoulder and in to unbelievably tie the score with 86 seconds left.
Then, in overtime, the Penguins' star off-season blue line additions decided to go swimming.
First, defenseman Zbynek Michalek blew a tire and went down at center ice, allowing Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan to go in 2-on-1 against partner Paul Martin.
Dubinsky was carrying the puck down the near side and instead of shading towards Callahan -- as you're supposed to do when defending that rush -- Martin drifted towards Dubinsky.
Then, he left his feet to try and block a pass from coming across.
That's not always a bad play, but if you do it, your timing and positioning have to be right.
Martin's was not.
While Dubinsky showed great patience in curl-dragging the puck, Martin slid himself and his desperately-reaching stick both right out of the play past Dubinsky, then watched him feed the puck to Callahan at Fleury's left for effectively what amounted to a 2-on-0 tap-in game-winner.
And with that, the Penguins got a point, a whole lot of heartache, and blunted momentum following 2-straight wins.
The optimist in me sees that the Penguins are playing better hockey of late. They are generating a lot of shots, and getting more to of their game that way.
But they are still making questionable decisions out there. And while I can't blame Fleury for Staal's tying goal because him even being in that position was more a by-product of those bad decisions his teammates were making, it sure would have been nice to see him step up and just get his body in the way.
In the end, Pittsburgh gave the game away.
And the challenge the Penguins now face tonight back at CONSOL against a very good Vancouver Canucks team is to show how they can bounce back.
It won't be easy against the reigning Hart and Art Ross trophy winner Henrik Sedin, brother Daniel, Roberto Luongo and company, that's for sure, but I'm anxious to see what kind of mettle they put on display.
Recap tomorrow.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Weekend Recap: Pens, Fleury Show Mettle -- Sweep Lightning and Thrashers
Reeling a bit after blowing a 4-2 third-period lead to the tune of 5 goals and a 7-4 home loss to the Boston Bruins this past Wednesday night, the Penguins had two choices going into their weekend slate of games -- on Friday at home against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and on Saturday on the road against the Atlanta Thrashers.
Find a way to bounce back.
Or continue to spiral into the season's quarter pole with seemingly little direction.
The Penguins wisely chose the former -- temporarily at least -- by stepping up their game when it counted to beat the Lightning, 5-1, then followed that up with a 4-2 victory over the Thrashers.
Both games were close, but Pittsburgh took over each in the third period.
And they did so behind beleaguered netminder Marc-Andre Fleury, who started -- and played well in -- both contests.
Fleury was particularly good early in each game, making several good saves to keep the Pens' in each until they were able to take over in the third period.
After a scoreless first period on Friday night against Tampa Bay, the Pens' upped the ante in the second period with a deflection goal by Pascal Dupuis -- his 5th of the season -- and an virtual open netter by pinching rearguard Alex Goligoski.
While Lightning All-Star Steven Stamkos took advantage of a 5-on-3 power play early in the 3rd period to tie the game, Pittsburgh held the fort and then blew the game open with 3 goals ina 6-minute span -- including a 2-on-1 goal by Max Talbot, a goal by Captain Sidney Crosby, and the first career NHL goal by defenseman Deryk Engelland on a point blast.
The Penguins did a great job against the Lightning defensively. They only allowed Tampa 16 shots in the game, and shut down the Lightning power play on every chance out of 8 except the 5-on-3 tally by Stamkos.
Pittsburgh had to rely on Fleury a lot more on Saturday night, and again, he was up for the task. The Flower made several big stops and let the Penguins ultimately pull away from what had been a 1-1 3rd period tie which had been forged to that point thanks to goals by defenseman Brent Sopel for Atlanta and Evgeni Malkin for the Penguins.
When Crosby tallied once and Malkin scored twice (including an empty netter, for a hat trick) in the third period, it was clear that the Penguins have started to regain their focus some.
Sid assisted on both of Malkin's 3rd period scores, by the way, giving him 5-straight multi-point games right now -- a first of his career, believe it or not. He's playing really well right now.
After the weekend, the Penguins now sit at 9-8-1 and 2nd place in the Atlantic Division with 19 points. They're 5 behind the first-place Philadelphia Flyers, and they're right back in action back at The Bird House looking to gain more ground tomorrow (Monday) night hosting the New York Rangers for the first time this season.
Can they -- and Fleury -- keep it going? That will be a true test of how much identity they've gained over the weekend. While the two back-to-back wins this weekend were positive, the Penguins need to get on a streak, beacuse the stark reality of their uneven play so far this season remains evident simply by recognizing that if the Rangers beat them, they're still at a below-standard .500 record.
We'll see.
More this week.
Find a way to bounce back.
Or continue to spiral into the season's quarter pole with seemingly little direction.
The Penguins wisely chose the former -- temporarily at least -- by stepping up their game when it counted to beat the Lightning, 5-1, then followed that up with a 4-2 victory over the Thrashers.
Both games were close, but Pittsburgh took over each in the third period.
And they did so behind beleaguered netminder Marc-Andre Fleury, who started -- and played well in -- both contests.
Fleury was particularly good early in each game, making several good saves to keep the Pens' in each until they were able to take over in the third period.
After a scoreless first period on Friday night against Tampa Bay, the Pens' upped the ante in the second period with a deflection goal by Pascal Dupuis -- his 5th of the season -- and an virtual open netter by pinching rearguard Alex Goligoski.
While Lightning All-Star Steven Stamkos took advantage of a 5-on-3 power play early in the 3rd period to tie the game, Pittsburgh held the fort and then blew the game open with 3 goals ina 6-minute span -- including a 2-on-1 goal by Max Talbot, a goal by Captain Sidney Crosby, and the first career NHL goal by defenseman Deryk Engelland on a point blast.
The Penguins did a great job against the Lightning defensively. They only allowed Tampa 16 shots in the game, and shut down the Lightning power play on every chance out of 8 except the 5-on-3 tally by Stamkos.
Pittsburgh had to rely on Fleury a lot more on Saturday night, and again, he was up for the task. The Flower made several big stops and let the Penguins ultimately pull away from what had been a 1-1 3rd period tie which had been forged to that point thanks to goals by defenseman Brent Sopel for Atlanta and Evgeni Malkin for the Penguins.
When Crosby tallied once and Malkin scored twice (including an empty netter, for a hat trick) in the third period, it was clear that the Penguins have started to regain their focus some.
Sid assisted on both of Malkin's 3rd period scores, by the way, giving him 5-straight multi-point games right now -- a first of his career, believe it or not. He's playing really well right now.
After the weekend, the Penguins now sit at 9-8-1 and 2nd place in the Atlantic Division with 19 points. They're 5 behind the first-place Philadelphia Flyers, and they're right back in action back at The Bird House looking to gain more ground tomorrow (Monday) night hosting the New York Rangers for the first time this season.
Can they -- and Fleury -- keep it going? That will be a true test of how much identity they've gained over the weekend. While the two back-to-back wins this weekend were positive, the Penguins need to get on a streak, beacuse the stark reality of their uneven play so far this season remains evident simply by recognizing that if the Rangers beat them, they're still at a below-standard .500 record.
We'll see.
More this week.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Situation Serious: Pens Blow 2-Goal Third Period Lead; Collapse To Bruins 7-4
What in the hell was that?!?!
Leading 4-2 going into the third period last night in their first game at The Bird House in more than a week, the Pittsburgh Penguins had a meltdown of significant proportions, allowing 5 goals in a 16-minute span and embarrassing themselves on their home ice in falling 7-4 to the Boston Bruins.
If Head Coach Dan Bylsma wants to put on a clinic for his players on how to NOT play defensively, all he has to do is cue up last night's game tape.
And it started early.
After winger Aaron Asham got his first goal as a Penguin just over a minute into the game to get the crowd rolling, defenseman Alex Goligoski foreshadowed what would be an abysmal night for him when he turned the puck over behind his own net, leading to a sequence which allowed 42-year old former Penguin Mark Recchi to tie the score at about the 8 minute-mark of the first.
After Bruins forward Brad Marchand scored following a neutral zone turnover by LW Chris Kunitz, rearguard Brooks Oprik tied it at 2 before the period ended, then the Penguins took control in the second on goals by Kunitz and Captain Sidney Crosby, both in the final 5 minutes of the frame.
You'd think that would give Pittsburgh strong momentum going into the final period, right?
"The talk in our dressing room going out for the third was managing the puck," Bylsma said after the game.
I can only assume they meant managing it for THEMSELVES, but if I'm right after stepping out on a limb on that one, they must have missed the mesage, because all they did when they actually got out there to play the final twenty minutes was manage it for the Bruins.
Boston forward Nathan Horton made it 4-3 about 4 minutes in, shooting a laser past screened Pens' netminder Brent Johnson after capitalizing on some lackadaisical play from the Penguins in their own zone.
Before the Penguin fans could stop booing Horton's goal, Bruins' rearguard Zdeno Chara tied it at 4 by finishing a 3-on-2 rush with a shot from the slot that went over Johnson's shoulder as he dropped to his knees a bit early.
8 minutes later, the bleeding started again, when Goligoski made a bad decision to try and pinch in and keep a puck in on the wall in the offensive zone -- especially since he failed -- and that led to a 2-on-1 which Bruins' goon Shawn Thornton finished by again seeing Johnson go down to soon and beating him over the shoulder to make it 5-4.
The onslaught continued a little more than 3 minutes later when Pittsburgh defenseman Zbynek Michalek got meekly checked off the puck by the aging Recchi while trying to retrieve it behind his own net, then watched helplessly as Recchi slid the puck to teammate Blake Wheeler in front, who quickly beat a stunned Johnson with a backhand.
Milan Lucic ended the madness with an empty net goal before the horn finally -- mercifully -- sounded.
The Penguins actually outshot Boston 46-33 in this game, if you believe that. But, as Crosby said afterwards, "We got into playing risky hockey. We made big mistakes."
Typical of a team below .500, really, but still difficult to watch.
Goligoski, as I mentioned, was awful in this game. Michalek has struggled mightily of late, too. Ben Lovejoy -- who got in the lineup at the expense of teammate Deryk Engelland, who played poorly in the Pens' last game in Phoenix and even was benched for a period of time -- was an overwhelmingly unimpressive -3 in the contest.
There's no doubt that the Penguins' defensive zone play and decision-making needs a lot of work. To see how they fared in those areas last night (READ: POORLY) erases a lot of the good things they had accomplished in the last two games against the Anaheim Ducks and Phoenix.
Only 7 other teams now have given up more goals than the local hockey club has this season so far.
If Pittsburgh doesn't straighten those areas out soon, they could be embarrassed again in their next game on Friday when a strong offensive team in the Tampa Bay Lightning visit the CONSOL Energy Center.
Another thing worth noting is that Johnson was below-average last night between the pipes as well.
In his last two starts, he's allowed 11 goals, with an intervening strong performance in relief of Marc-Andre Fleury against the Coyotes on Saturday.
Could the bloom be starting to come off Johnson's rose? Him going down to his knees as often -- and as early -- as he did last night was a clear sign he was fighting the puck.
Fleury night have his chance to start several games in a row sooner than many anticipated.
Either way, it's a gloomy Thursday in Penguin Nation after last night's sobering defeat.
More soon.
Leading 4-2 going into the third period last night in their first game at The Bird House in more than a week, the Pittsburgh Penguins had a meltdown of significant proportions, allowing 5 goals in a 16-minute span and embarrassing themselves on their home ice in falling 7-4 to the Boston Bruins.
If Head Coach Dan Bylsma wants to put on a clinic for his players on how to NOT play defensively, all he has to do is cue up last night's game tape.
And it started early.
After winger Aaron Asham got his first goal as a Penguin just over a minute into the game to get the crowd rolling, defenseman Alex Goligoski foreshadowed what would be an abysmal night for him when he turned the puck over behind his own net, leading to a sequence which allowed 42-year old former Penguin Mark Recchi to tie the score at about the 8 minute-mark of the first.
After Bruins forward Brad Marchand scored following a neutral zone turnover by LW Chris Kunitz, rearguard Brooks Oprik tied it at 2 before the period ended, then the Penguins took control in the second on goals by Kunitz and Captain Sidney Crosby, both in the final 5 minutes of the frame.
You'd think that would give Pittsburgh strong momentum going into the final period, right?
"The talk in our dressing room going out for the third was managing the puck," Bylsma said after the game.
I can only assume they meant managing it for THEMSELVES, but if I'm right after stepping out on a limb on that one, they must have missed the mesage, because all they did when they actually got out there to play the final twenty minutes was manage it for the Bruins.
Boston forward Nathan Horton made it 4-3 about 4 minutes in, shooting a laser past screened Pens' netminder Brent Johnson after capitalizing on some lackadaisical play from the Penguins in their own zone.
Before the Penguin fans could stop booing Horton's goal, Bruins' rearguard Zdeno Chara tied it at 4 by finishing a 3-on-2 rush with a shot from the slot that went over Johnson's shoulder as he dropped to his knees a bit early.
8 minutes later, the bleeding started again, when Goligoski made a bad decision to try and pinch in and keep a puck in on the wall in the offensive zone -- especially since he failed -- and that led to a 2-on-1 which Bruins' goon Shawn Thornton finished by again seeing Johnson go down to soon and beating him over the shoulder to make it 5-4.
The onslaught continued a little more than 3 minutes later when Pittsburgh defenseman Zbynek Michalek got meekly checked off the puck by the aging Recchi while trying to retrieve it behind his own net, then watched helplessly as Recchi slid the puck to teammate Blake Wheeler in front, who quickly beat a stunned Johnson with a backhand.
Milan Lucic ended the madness with an empty net goal before the horn finally -- mercifully -- sounded.
The Penguins actually outshot Boston 46-33 in this game, if you believe that. But, as Crosby said afterwards, "We got into playing risky hockey. We made big mistakes."
Typical of a team below .500, really, but still difficult to watch.
Goligoski, as I mentioned, was awful in this game. Michalek has struggled mightily of late, too. Ben Lovejoy -- who got in the lineup at the expense of teammate Deryk Engelland, who played poorly in the Pens' last game in Phoenix and even was benched for a period of time -- was an overwhelmingly unimpressive -3 in the contest.
There's no doubt that the Penguins' defensive zone play and decision-making needs a lot of work. To see how they fared in those areas last night (READ: POORLY) erases a lot of the good things they had accomplished in the last two games against the Anaheim Ducks and Phoenix.
Only 7 other teams now have given up more goals than the local hockey club has this season so far.
If Pittsburgh doesn't straighten those areas out soon, they could be embarrassed again in their next game on Friday when a strong offensive team in the Tampa Bay Lightning visit the CONSOL Energy Center.
Another thing worth noting is that Johnson was below-average last night between the pipes as well.
In his last two starts, he's allowed 11 goals, with an intervening strong performance in relief of Marc-Andre Fleury against the Coyotes on Saturday.
Could the bloom be starting to come off Johnson's rose? Him going down to his knees as often -- and as early -- as he did last night was a clear sign he was fighting the puck.
Fleury night have his chance to start several games in a row sooner than many anticipated.
Either way, it's a gloomy Thursday in Penguin Nation after last night's sobering defeat.
More soon.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Penguin Hits and Happenings: Conner Recalled; Johnson to Start Against Bruins; What To Do With Fleury?
Coming off a stretch of 7 of 8 away from The Bird House, the Pittsburgh Penguins return home to the CONSOL Energy Center tonight to host the Boston Bruins (7:00 PM EST) and kick off a stretch where they'll play 7 of their next 10 games at home.
The Bruins -- 7-3-1 on the year so far -- will pose a good challenge for the Pens' tonight. They've been fantastic defensively, while just getting enough offensive contributions to win.
For their part, Pittsburgh has done a better job of getting to its game the last two times out, against the Anaheim Ducks and Phoenix Coyotes, respectively. And that's true even if they split those games.
Brent Johnson is going to get the call in the net for the Boys of Winter tonight.
Undoubtedly, he'll match up opposite one of the few guys in the league who can say he has better statistics than Johnson this year -- Boston netminder Tim Thomas, who's been off-the-charts white hot this season to-date.
The Bruins will be missing forwards David Krejci, Marco Sturm, and Marc Savard, the latter of which has been back on the shelf this whole season after having some recurring concussion symptoms this summer following the blow he took to the head last March on a hit from Pens' forward Matt Cooke.
Savard's case is a bit of curious one, since he returned to play in the post-season for the Bruins last year seemingly without any problems. For some reason, though, he began to have issues again this past summer while preparing for this season.
Pittsburgh recalled forward Chris Conner yesterday and he joined the team for the morning skate today. He isn't expected to be in the lineup, though, and instead was brought up more for insurance, since several members of the team have been battling the flu bug recently, including Johnson and Hilary Duff's husband, among others.
(Who doesn't think Comrie just wanted to say home and have his wife take care of him? Ahem.)
It looks like Evgeni Malkin is going to play tonight --- this after leaving yesterday's practice early while he still deals with a bit of a sore knee.
If Geno can get it going again, it might take some of the attention in Pittsburgh and national media circles off goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, whose continued poor play has kept him on the short list of topics associated with the Penguins worth talking about.
Fleury has acknowledged having just about no confidence right now, but he's going to have to shake that off. Head Coach Dan Byslma has attempted to give him some rope to work out his issues, but it hasn't happened yet.
Whether Fleury is at the stage of his career now where he should be so affected mentally by a slump is a topic for another day, but in the meantime, Captain Sidney Crosby suggested yesterday that, like any player, Fleury needs to get into a groove for several consecutive games to shake out of his malaise.
Of course, in the immeidate aftermath of that, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Rob Rossi wrote an unnecessarily-hyped column in yesterday's editions saying that Crosby and Blysma -- who wouldn't commit to giving Fleury that many games in a row right now -- are at odds over how to deal with Fleury's issues.
In other words, play him for multiple games in a row regardless of the result, or ask him to recover his confidence bit by bit -- even if it takes a longer time -- will they ride the hot Johnson.
Personally, I think there's much ado about nothing on this point.
Crosby speaks the truth, in my estimation. Fleury probably does need an extended stretch to get back going. But I agree with Blysma -- Fleury has been so bad, you just can't afford to give that to him right now.
Blysma wants to see more from Fleury on the concentration and focus front -- starting in practice.
The time will come when Fleury gets his chance to get that many games in a row. Personally, I think Bylsma is handling it right. The Penguins need the points now. And better to wait to do it until the team is playing better overall without all the abject inconsistentcy they're showing all the time right now.
By then, let's hope Fleury's confidence problem doesn't go from the current 3-alarm stage its in to a full-blazing 5-alarm mess. For him and the franchise.
Recap tomorrow.
Let's Go Pens!
The Bruins -- 7-3-1 on the year so far -- will pose a good challenge for the Pens' tonight. They've been fantastic defensively, while just getting enough offensive contributions to win.
For their part, Pittsburgh has done a better job of getting to its game the last two times out, against the Anaheim Ducks and Phoenix Coyotes, respectively. And that's true even if they split those games.
Brent Johnson is going to get the call in the net for the Boys of Winter tonight.
Undoubtedly, he'll match up opposite one of the few guys in the league who can say he has better statistics than Johnson this year -- Boston netminder Tim Thomas, who's been off-the-charts white hot this season to-date.
The Bruins will be missing forwards David Krejci, Marco Sturm, and Marc Savard, the latter of which has been back on the shelf this whole season after having some recurring concussion symptoms this summer following the blow he took to the head last March on a hit from Pens' forward Matt Cooke.
Savard's case is a bit of curious one, since he returned to play in the post-season for the Bruins last year seemingly without any problems. For some reason, though, he began to have issues again this past summer while preparing for this season.
Pittsburgh recalled forward Chris Conner yesterday and he joined the team for the morning skate today. He isn't expected to be in the lineup, though, and instead was brought up more for insurance, since several members of the team have been battling the flu bug recently, including Johnson and Hilary Duff's husband, among others.
(Who doesn't think Comrie just wanted to say home and have his wife take care of him? Ahem.)
It looks like Evgeni Malkin is going to play tonight --- this after leaving yesterday's practice early while he still deals with a bit of a sore knee.
If Geno can get it going again, it might take some of the attention in Pittsburgh and national media circles off goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, whose continued poor play has kept him on the short list of topics associated with the Penguins worth talking about.
Fleury has acknowledged having just about no confidence right now, but he's going to have to shake that off. Head Coach Dan Byslma has attempted to give him some rope to work out his issues, but it hasn't happened yet.
Whether Fleury is at the stage of his career now where he should be so affected mentally by a slump is a topic for another day, but in the meantime, Captain Sidney Crosby suggested yesterday that, like any player, Fleury needs to get into a groove for several consecutive games to shake out of his malaise.
Of course, in the immeidate aftermath of that, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Rob Rossi wrote an unnecessarily-hyped column in yesterday's editions saying that Crosby and Blysma -- who wouldn't commit to giving Fleury that many games in a row right now -- are at odds over how to deal with Fleury's issues.
In other words, play him for multiple games in a row regardless of the result, or ask him to recover his confidence bit by bit -- even if it takes a longer time -- will they ride the hot Johnson.
Personally, I think there's much ado about nothing on this point.
Crosby speaks the truth, in my estimation. Fleury probably does need an extended stretch to get back going. But I agree with Blysma -- Fleury has been so bad, you just can't afford to give that to him right now.
Blysma wants to see more from Fleury on the concentration and focus front -- starting in practice.
The time will come when Fleury gets his chance to get that many games in a row. Personally, I think Bylsma is handling it right. The Penguins need the points now. And better to wait to do it until the team is playing better overall without all the abject inconsistentcy they're showing all the time right now.
By then, let's hope Fleury's confidence problem doesn't go from the current 3-alarm stage its in to a full-blazing 5-alarm mess. For him and the franchise.
Recap tomorrow.
Let's Go Pens!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Status Stable: Penguins Come Back To Defeat Coyotes
You heard it here first, folks.
In my last post, following the Penguins' 3-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks last Friday night, I spoke of the difficulty the team has had recently because of a lack of production from several key components up front.
Those players who were on the "WANTED" poster were Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz, Mark Letestu and Mike Comrie.
And for what it's worth, those sentiments were echoed by Pens' Radio host Bob Grove, who opened the broadcast of Saturday night's game against the Phoenix Coyotes in Glendale, AZ by highlighting the struggles of those same 4 players.
In fact, the only thing Grover didn't say -- even though he should have -- was that he read by blog before the pre-game show.
Then it was obviously not a conicidence that after the Penguins got key contributions from 3 of those 4 players (Comrie was obviously still off somewhere taking care of Hilary's needs), Pittsburgh buckled down and showed the gumption that has been missing so often this year thusfar by overcoming an early 2-0 deficit and another terrible showing from goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to beat Phoenix 4-3 in a shootout.
To go with a goal by Sidney Crosby, Malkin and Kunitz both scored in regulation, while Letestu added a key assist on Kunitz' tying goal before being the only shooter to score in the shootout to give the Pens' the win and save them from an extremely disappointing 1-3 road trip.
Not to mention an ugly flight home.
Brent Johnson is another player that had a lot to do with this win, coming in after Fleury allowed 2 goals on the first 5 shots he faced, and looking strong and confident in stopping 22 of 23 shots the rest of the way, while his teammates ran up 36 on Coyotes' netminder Ilya Bryzgalov.
In fact, the only puck to get by Johnson pinballed by him on a play that started with a bad break when the puck bounced right over defenseman Alex Goligoski's stick just as he tried to clear the zone with it. Otherwise, he was solid the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Fleury, who looked a little uncertain and tentative on the first Coyotes' goal, then let another biscuit squeeze between his legs for their second goal -- a play that was somewhat controversial and required video review.
Speaking of requiring further review, the current state of the Penguins' goaltending may soon be next on the menu.
Fleury was notably dejected after being pulled Saturday night. After being designated as the surprise starter before the game by head coach Dan Bylsma, it was obvious that Disco Dan was trying jumpstart Fleury. By giving him a chance to rebound after suffering defeat Friday night, the reasoning went, it would boost the Flower's confidence.
And, if the Penguins stuck to their game plan and won, it would give him an even greater boost.
Well, so much for that plan.
After being yanked, Fleury sat on the bench for the remainder of the period with his mask and gloves still on, obviously discouraged and despondent over his continued inability to come up with anything resembling confident, consistent goaltending.
Then he watched Brent Johnson do it all again for the Penguins in relief, including slamming the door on all 3 Coyotes' shootout attempts.
Just when you think #29's confidence can't sink lower, it does.
And each time it does, it looks like the hill to climb to get out of his malaise gets even bigger.
"Obviously not a good result or what you want from your starting goaltender," said Bylsma after the game. "Marc has been a big time goaltender and has got to be a big time goaltender. He's got to find that."
But will he? And if so, how long is it really going to take?
One month into the season, there are more and more doubts about the former, and assuming you even get past that, there's nothing but wide guesswork at this point about the latter.
And in the meantime, the Penguins are meandering along at .500 with inconsistent play from other parts of their lineup and a power play that other teams want to send on the ice.
In short, Pittsburgh isn't playing well enough to just allow Fleury to work out his struggles. And becuase of that, it will shock nobody if Bylsma continues to give Johnson a bulk of the work in the near future, starting with the Pens' next game on Wednesday at home against red-hot goaltender Tim Thomas and the Boston Bruins.
I certainly can't sanction anything less. Fleury is just awful right now, and shows no signs of getting over his funk.
I'm not going to pass any long-term judgments right now, but if this pattern continues through year-end, it's only going to be fair to start to wonder ......
For now, at least the Pens' cardiac condition is stable.
More later this week.
In my last post, following the Penguins' 3-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks last Friday night, I spoke of the difficulty the team has had recently because of a lack of production from several key components up front.
Those players who were on the "WANTED" poster were Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz, Mark Letestu and Mike Comrie.
And for what it's worth, those sentiments were echoed by Pens' Radio host Bob Grove, who opened the broadcast of Saturday night's game against the Phoenix Coyotes in Glendale, AZ by highlighting the struggles of those same 4 players.
In fact, the only thing Grover didn't say -- even though he should have -- was that he read by blog before the pre-game show.
Then it was obviously not a conicidence that after the Penguins got key contributions from 3 of those 4 players (Comrie was obviously still off somewhere taking care of Hilary's needs), Pittsburgh buckled down and showed the gumption that has been missing so often this year thusfar by overcoming an early 2-0 deficit and another terrible showing from goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to beat Phoenix 4-3 in a shootout.
To go with a goal by Sidney Crosby, Malkin and Kunitz both scored in regulation, while Letestu added a key assist on Kunitz' tying goal before being the only shooter to score in the shootout to give the Pens' the win and save them from an extremely disappointing 1-3 road trip.
Not to mention an ugly flight home.
Brent Johnson is another player that had a lot to do with this win, coming in after Fleury allowed 2 goals on the first 5 shots he faced, and looking strong and confident in stopping 22 of 23 shots the rest of the way, while his teammates ran up 36 on Coyotes' netminder Ilya Bryzgalov.
In fact, the only puck to get by Johnson pinballed by him on a play that started with a bad break when the puck bounced right over defenseman Alex Goligoski's stick just as he tried to clear the zone with it. Otherwise, he was solid the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Fleury, who looked a little uncertain and tentative on the first Coyotes' goal, then let another biscuit squeeze between his legs for their second goal -- a play that was somewhat controversial and required video review.
Speaking of requiring further review, the current state of the Penguins' goaltending may soon be next on the menu.
Fleury was notably dejected after being pulled Saturday night. After being designated as the surprise starter before the game by head coach Dan Bylsma, it was obvious that Disco Dan was trying jumpstart Fleury. By giving him a chance to rebound after suffering defeat Friday night, the reasoning went, it would boost the Flower's confidence.
And, if the Penguins stuck to their game plan and won, it would give him an even greater boost.
Well, so much for that plan.
After being yanked, Fleury sat on the bench for the remainder of the period with his mask and gloves still on, obviously discouraged and despondent over his continued inability to come up with anything resembling confident, consistent goaltending.
Then he watched Brent Johnson do it all again for the Penguins in relief, including slamming the door on all 3 Coyotes' shootout attempts.
Just when you think #29's confidence can't sink lower, it does.
And each time it does, it looks like the hill to climb to get out of his malaise gets even bigger.
"Obviously not a good result or what you want from your starting goaltender," said Bylsma after the game. "Marc has been a big time goaltender and has got to be a big time goaltender. He's got to find that."
But will he? And if so, how long is it really going to take?
One month into the season, there are more and more doubts about the former, and assuming you even get past that, there's nothing but wide guesswork at this point about the latter.
And in the meantime, the Penguins are meandering along at .500 with inconsistent play from other parts of their lineup and a power play that other teams want to send on the ice.
In short, Pittsburgh isn't playing well enough to just allow Fleury to work out his struggles. And becuase of that, it will shock nobody if Bylsma continues to give Johnson a bulk of the work in the near future, starting with the Pens' next game on Wednesday at home against red-hot goaltender Tim Thomas and the Boston Bruins.
I certainly can't sanction anything less. Fleury is just awful right now, and shows no signs of getting over his funk.
I'm not going to pass any long-term judgments right now, but if this pattern continues through year-end, it's only going to be fair to start to wonder ......
For now, at least the Pens' cardiac condition is stable.
More later this week.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Penguins Compete Again; Still Lose To Ducks, 3-2
Well, it looked like the real Pittsburgh Penguins showed up on Friday night at the Honda Center against the Anaheim Ducks.
But whether that's a good thing or a bad thing remains the question.
Now, compared to Wednesday night's abysmal 5-2 loss to the Dallas Stars, the Pens were a lot better. That's positive.
They competed harder, skated better and hit more.
But it still added up to a 3-2 defeat to the last place team in the Pacific Division.
Anyone knows that when you play the Ducks, you have to corral their top line of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan. Anaheim is basically a one-trick pony with that group of 3.
Maybe the Penguins missed that memo while they were just worried about bouncing back from Wednesday's loss.
(and that says something, doesn't it?)
Anyway, Ryan got the Ducks on the board first in the 2nd period beating Pens' netminder Marc-Andre Fleury -- starting after Brent Johnson's defeat to the Stars' 2 days earlier -- easily from about 35 feet with a clear shot.
While not a soft goal, stopping shots he has a clear look at from that distance has been one of Fleury's several issues this season.
Getzlaf increased Anaheim's lead to 2-0 about 5 minutes later by crashing the net and getting the benefit of a bit of a bounce to slip the puck by Fleury.
Ducks' forward Saku Koivu made it 3-zip about 2 minutes later when he went to the net and deposited a rebound into an empty cage after Fleury a bit carelessly took himself out of position making a save on a shot from Anaheim blueliner Lubomir Visnovsky.
Sidney Crosby helped make the score close by scoring twice -- the first time on the power play (YES .... ON THE POWER PLAY) before the second period ended when he tipped a shot past Ducks' goaltender Jonas Hiller, and the second time 3 minutes into the final frame when he beat Hiller five-hole -- but that's as close as they got.
Pittsburgh did outshoot Anaheim 32-19 in the game and 27-12 over the final two periods, but it wasn't enough. They lost for the second straight game and 5 out of the last 6.
You simply can't put yourself in a 3-0 hole and expect to win. Especially against a guy like Hiller, who is a lot like current St. Louis Blue and former Montreal Canadien Nemesis Jaroslav Halak. He thrives on a lot of work and can frustrate a team.
And so, with Fleury now at 1-6 on the season and the Pens' now below .500, the Penguins will try to salvage that very record on their road trip tonight against the Phoenix Coyotes (9:00 PM EST).
Head Coach Disco Dan Bylsma needs to get the troops together before things start to get ugly with his team.
Maybe he can start by getting a search party together for Evgeni Malkin -- a guy who's world-class talent has allowed him to score only 9 points and a -5 rating in 13 games this year so far.
Wherever he's found, he's probably with Hilary Duff's husband (a.k.a, Mike Comrie) who continues to go dry after a blazing pre-season. Comrie has yet to score this year in 13 games and is -3.
LW Chris Kunitz is probably there, too. #14 was supposedly healthy and ready for a bit of a bounceback season this year, but has only 6 points in 14 games despite playing on the top line and getting 1st power play minutes. He, too, is -3.
Even Pens' rookie Mark Letestu, who started the season on fire, has cooled noticeably of late. He doesn't have a point in 5 or 6 games, still sitting at 7 for the season.
If Pittsburgh doesn't start getting contributions from those guys, they're going to continue to middle around winning and losing games with equal regularity.
Needless to say, that's below standard in Penguin nation.
Will the struggling group bounceback tonight? We'll see.
More soon.
Let's Go Pens!
But whether that's a good thing or a bad thing remains the question.
Now, compared to Wednesday night's abysmal 5-2 loss to the Dallas Stars, the Pens were a lot better. That's positive.
They competed harder, skated better and hit more.
But it still added up to a 3-2 defeat to the last place team in the Pacific Division.
Anyone knows that when you play the Ducks, you have to corral their top line of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan. Anaheim is basically a one-trick pony with that group of 3.
Maybe the Penguins missed that memo while they were just worried about bouncing back from Wednesday's loss.
(and that says something, doesn't it?)
Anyway, Ryan got the Ducks on the board first in the 2nd period beating Pens' netminder Marc-Andre Fleury -- starting after Brent Johnson's defeat to the Stars' 2 days earlier -- easily from about 35 feet with a clear shot.
While not a soft goal, stopping shots he has a clear look at from that distance has been one of Fleury's several issues this season.
Getzlaf increased Anaheim's lead to 2-0 about 5 minutes later by crashing the net and getting the benefit of a bit of a bounce to slip the puck by Fleury.
Ducks' forward Saku Koivu made it 3-zip about 2 minutes later when he went to the net and deposited a rebound into an empty cage after Fleury a bit carelessly took himself out of position making a save on a shot from Anaheim blueliner Lubomir Visnovsky.
Sidney Crosby helped make the score close by scoring twice -- the first time on the power play (YES .... ON THE POWER PLAY) before the second period ended when he tipped a shot past Ducks' goaltender Jonas Hiller, and the second time 3 minutes into the final frame when he beat Hiller five-hole -- but that's as close as they got.
Pittsburgh did outshoot Anaheim 32-19 in the game and 27-12 over the final two periods, but it wasn't enough. They lost for the second straight game and 5 out of the last 6.
You simply can't put yourself in a 3-0 hole and expect to win. Especially against a guy like Hiller, who is a lot like current St. Louis Blue and former Montreal Canadien Nemesis Jaroslav Halak. He thrives on a lot of work and can frustrate a team.
And so, with Fleury now at 1-6 on the season and the Pens' now below .500, the Penguins will try to salvage that very record on their road trip tonight against the Phoenix Coyotes (9:00 PM EST).
Head Coach Disco Dan Bylsma needs to get the troops together before things start to get ugly with his team.
Maybe he can start by getting a search party together for Evgeni Malkin -- a guy who's world-class talent has allowed him to score only 9 points and a -5 rating in 13 games this year so far.
Wherever he's found, he's probably with Hilary Duff's husband (a.k.a, Mike Comrie) who continues to go dry after a blazing pre-season. Comrie has yet to score this year in 13 games and is -3.
LW Chris Kunitz is probably there, too. #14 was supposedly healthy and ready for a bit of a bounceback season this year, but has only 6 points in 14 games despite playing on the top line and getting 1st power play minutes. He, too, is -3.
Even Pens' rookie Mark Letestu, who started the season on fire, has cooled noticeably of late. He doesn't have a point in 5 or 6 games, still sitting at 7 for the season.
If Pittsburgh doesn't start getting contributions from those guys, they're going to continue to middle around winning and losing games with equal regularity.
Needless to say, that's below standard in Penguin nation.
Will the struggling group bounceback tonight? We'll see.
More soon.
Let's Go Pens!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Jekyll & Hyde -- Penguins Awful In Absorbing 5-2 Loss To Dallas
One game after a controlling road performance against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Pittsburgh Penguins continued their road trip in Dallas against the Stars at American Airlines Arena last night.
Or, at least someone masquerading as the Penguins showed up.
Pittsburgh looked listless and was "outbattled and outplayed" according to Dan Bylsma in a miserable 5-2 defeat.
"They played with a purpose, and we didn't," said Pens' forward Mike Rupp of the loss.
Rupp and his teammates gave goaltender Brent Johnson little help and, for the first time this season, he suffered a regulation loss, stopping only 24 of 29 Stars' shots in defeat.
Dallas got up early on the Pens' 2-0 in the first period on the strength of goals by defenseman Stephane Robidas and center Brad Richards, but just as it looked like the Penguins were going to get back in the game in the 2nd period when Tyler Kennedy, the wheels came off for Pittsburgh when Steve Ott scored just past the 10-minute mark, and winger Loui Eriksson added a penalty shot goal just a minute later to effectively put the game away at 4-1.
That prompted an immediate series of fisticuffs between the teams -- and mostly initiated by the Penguins, but not by the likes of Eric Godard and Deryk Engelland, who were both in the lineup last night.
Instead, Kris Letang, Captain Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz all dropped the mitts in succession.
Letang was goaded into a boat with Stars' Captain Brendan Morrow, and agreed to go despite the fact that he's been suffering from a hand injury.
As a result, he didn't return for the rest of the 2nd period, but did play in the 3rd.
Because Crosby took offense to Morrow going after Letang, he went after Stars' blueliner Matt Niskanen and handled him pretty easily.
Kunitz and Stars' winger Jamie Benn followed that up with a spirited fight.
At least the Penguins showed some spirit that way, because it was pretty much missing in every other facet of their game last night, and late goals traded by LW Matt Cooke and a second one by Eriksson did little to change anything but the final score.
While so many things were disturbing about the loss, not the least of which is that it continued a trend where the Penguins haven't played anything other than average hockey (and their 6-6-1 record in the standings right now confirms that), perhaps the most troublesome thing to come out of last night's contest in this writer's opinion is that the team's power play again came up empty, this time in 4 chances (including a 5-on-3 in the first period) against the league's worst penalty kill
Pittsburgh has now failed to score a power play goal in 26 consecutive opportunities, and that doesn't begin to indicate how their failures on the man-advantage are getting to the point where they are a severe liability for the club.
And so, the Penguins continue on their road trip tomorrow night in Anaheim at the Honda Center against the Ducks, before heading over to Phoenix where they'll probably play in front of about 7,000 people against the Coyotes on Saturday night.
The Penguins can no longer rely on injuries as an excuse for their average record, since just about everyone -- including Evegni Malkin, who played last night -- is back in the lineup (except for Jordan Staal).
Instead, they're having major issues with focus, inconsistency and decision-making, to say nothing of the awful power-play.
And if they don't turn it around soon, the heat is only going to get hotter in their kitchen.
Or, at least someone masquerading as the Penguins showed up.
Pittsburgh looked listless and was "outbattled and outplayed" according to Dan Bylsma in a miserable 5-2 defeat.
"They played with a purpose, and we didn't," said Pens' forward Mike Rupp of the loss.
Rupp and his teammates gave goaltender Brent Johnson little help and, for the first time this season, he suffered a regulation loss, stopping only 24 of 29 Stars' shots in defeat.
Dallas got up early on the Pens' 2-0 in the first period on the strength of goals by defenseman Stephane Robidas and center Brad Richards, but just as it looked like the Penguins were going to get back in the game in the 2nd period when Tyler Kennedy, the wheels came off for Pittsburgh when Steve Ott scored just past the 10-minute mark, and winger Loui Eriksson added a penalty shot goal just a minute later to effectively put the game away at 4-1.
That prompted an immediate series of fisticuffs between the teams -- and mostly initiated by the Penguins, but not by the likes of Eric Godard and Deryk Engelland, who were both in the lineup last night.
Instead, Kris Letang, Captain Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz all dropped the mitts in succession.
Letang was goaded into a boat with Stars' Captain Brendan Morrow, and agreed to go despite the fact that he's been suffering from a hand injury.
As a result, he didn't return for the rest of the 2nd period, but did play in the 3rd.
Because Crosby took offense to Morrow going after Letang, he went after Stars' blueliner Matt Niskanen and handled him pretty easily.
Kunitz and Stars' winger Jamie Benn followed that up with a spirited fight.
At least the Penguins showed some spirit that way, because it was pretty much missing in every other facet of their game last night, and late goals traded by LW Matt Cooke and a second one by Eriksson did little to change anything but the final score.
While so many things were disturbing about the loss, not the least of which is that it continued a trend where the Penguins haven't played anything other than average hockey (and their 6-6-1 record in the standings right now confirms that), perhaps the most troublesome thing to come out of last night's contest in this writer's opinion is that the team's power play again came up empty, this time in 4 chances (including a 5-on-3 in the first period) against the league's worst penalty kill
Pittsburgh has now failed to score a power play goal in 26 consecutive opportunities, and that doesn't begin to indicate how their failures on the man-advantage are getting to the point where they are a severe liability for the club.
And so, the Penguins continue on their road trip tomorrow night in Anaheim at the Honda Center against the Ducks, before heading over to Phoenix where they'll probably play in front of about 7,000 people against the Coyotes on Saturday night.
The Penguins can no longer rely on injuries as an excuse for their average record, since just about everyone -- including Evegni Malkin, who played last night -- is back in the lineup (except for Jordan Staal).
Instead, they're having major issues with focus, inconsistency and decision-making, to say nothing of the awful power-play.
And if they don't turn it around soon, the heat is only going to get hotter in their kitchen.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
A Bad Break
It's a confirmed (bad) break.
After leaving practice yesterday following a freak hand injury, the Penguins' announced that 2-way center Jordan Staal suffered a broken right hand, and would be out approximately 6 weeks, give or take.
According to Pens' GM Ray Shero, Staal got hit with a puck and just suffered a freak accident.
Staal will have surgery today to repair the break. With luck, he should be back before Christmas.
Gronk's latest injury is a tough blow for him and the team, who looks like it may now have to continue to play without a full compliment of players until near the New Year. In part because of that, it's hard for it to be a surprise that they're middling along a little bit right now at 6-5-1.
I hate to think where Pittsburgh would be without the incredible play of goaltender Brent Johnson so far this season.
That said, what choice do the Penguins have but to adjust and keep rolling? They've been playing without Staal for a month now; they just have to do it longer.
Now that #11 is going to stay on the shelf for a while, can Hilary Duff's husband please stand up and be accounted for?
I'll preview the Penguins and Stars' matchup tomorrow.
After leaving practice yesterday following a freak hand injury, the Penguins' announced that 2-way center Jordan Staal suffered a broken right hand, and would be out approximately 6 weeks, give or take.
According to Pens' GM Ray Shero, Staal got hit with a puck and just suffered a freak accident.
Staal will have surgery today to repair the break. With luck, he should be back before Christmas.
Gronk's latest injury is a tough blow for him and the team, who looks like it may now have to continue to play without a full compliment of players until near the New Year. In part because of that, it's hard for it to be a surprise that they're middling along a little bit right now at 6-5-1.
I hate to think where Pittsburgh would be without the incredible play of goaltender Brent Johnson so far this season.
That said, what choice do the Penguins have but to adjust and keep rolling? They've been playing without Staal for a month now; they just have to do it longer.
Now that #11 is going to stay on the shelf for a while, can Hilary Duff's husband please stand up and be accounted for?
I'll preview the Penguins and Stars' matchup tomorrow.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Jordan Staal Suffers Another Injury
After missing 4-5 months while dealing with a torn tendon on the top of his foot -- and the extremely stubborn infection which followed -- Penguins' Selke Trophy Finalist Jordan Staal had been practicing for the last 10-14 days and was poised to give Pittsburgh a big boost by returning to the lineup on Wednesday night against the Dallas Stars.
Now, after suffering what is preliminarily being reported as a fairly meaningful hand injury in practice today, it appears that Staal won't be making his season debut against Dallas after all and instead will be out "weeks" because of this latest problem.
There's no word yet on exactly how the injury occured; more on that may be revealed tomorrow.
What doesn't need to be revealed, however, is how discouraging this is -- not only for the team that was on the verge of having him battle with them in game action once again, but also for a player who was noticably frustrated with the many setbacks he had to overcome from his foot injury just to get to this point.
Staal's latest malady clearly makes it a bit more important that the Penguins get Evegni Malkin back in the lineup Wednesday, as well.
Malkin missed Saturday's 3-0 shutout victory at Carolina with a bruised knee and is regarded as day-to-day right now.
To go from the expectation that both of those guys would be in the lineup to possibly having neither is a difficult blow.
Another player who is questionable for Wednesday is Kris Letang, who also is dealing with an injured hand. Letang played some of the game against the Hurricanes, but couldn't finish.
On the bright side, it looks as if defenseman Zbynek Michalek will be able to return Wednesday. He's been on track for several days now and, unless the injury bug continues to bite the team, should see his first action since early in the season when he suffered his shoulder injury.
I hope to have more information on Staal tomorrow.
Stay tuned ....
Now, after suffering what is preliminarily being reported as a fairly meaningful hand injury in practice today, it appears that Staal won't be making his season debut against Dallas after all and instead will be out "weeks" because of this latest problem.
There's no word yet on exactly how the injury occured; more on that may be revealed tomorrow.
What doesn't need to be revealed, however, is how discouraging this is -- not only for the team that was on the verge of having him battle with them in game action once again, but also for a player who was noticably frustrated with the many setbacks he had to overcome from his foot injury just to get to this point.
Staal's latest malady clearly makes it a bit more important that the Penguins get Evegni Malkin back in the lineup Wednesday, as well.
Malkin missed Saturday's 3-0 shutout victory at Carolina with a bruised knee and is regarded as day-to-day right now.
To go from the expectation that both of those guys would be in the lineup to possibly having neither is a difficult blow.
Another player who is questionable for Wednesday is Kris Letang, who also is dealing with an injured hand. Letang played some of the game against the Hurricanes, but couldn't finish.
On the bright side, it looks as if defenseman Zbynek Michalek will be able to return Wednesday. He's been on track for several days now and, unless the injury bug continues to bite the team, should see his first action since early in the season when he suffered his shoulder injury.
I hope to have more information on Staal tomorrow.
Stay tuned ....
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