Holiday Hangover: Sens Beat Pens

It may not have been like Phil working over the tiger in The Hangover, but last night must have seemed a lot like a hangover for the Pittsburgh Penguins against the Ottawa Senators north of the border at Scotiabank place.

Maybe it was the huge win they banked in their last game -- a shootout victory over the arch rival Washington Capitals.

Maybe it was a post holiday-thing.

Either way, Ottawa took it to the Penguins in the first period and by the time 60 minutes were done, sent Pittsburgh home on the wrong end of a dissatisfying 3-1 defeat.

First, Carrie Underwood's husband -- Mike Fisher -- stuck a knife in Pens' Captain Sidney Crosby by scoring with him in the penalty box for a 1-0 lead, and then defenseman Erik Karlsson twisted it by scoring later that period on a delayed penalty that also belonged to #87 to make it 2-0.

When Karlsson added his second goal of the night on another power play 20 seconds into the 2nd frame, the game was quickly unraveling for The Boys of Winter.

The Penguins stabilized their play, though, and took the pace to the Senators for most of the final two periods.  In fact, after being outshot 12-6 in the first period, the Pens' outshot Ottawa by a whopping 39-12 the rest of the game.

Unfortunately, they were only able to get one of the 45 pucks they put on Ottawa netminder Brian Elliott past him, and that occurred with about 3 minutes left in the game.

Right about at that point, things were looking bleak for the prospect of Sid extending his career-long points streak to 24 games, but at least the hockey gods smiled on him for a moment when his quick shot from in tight was stopped by Elliott, but the rebound bounced off the pants of Ottawa defenseman Matt Carkner and just inside the far post to give Sid his 30th goal of the year and keep the streak alive.

Sid had to feel some redemption there -- especially since he was the victim of those first period penalties, as well as another cheap call in the third period -- but it really was too little, too late for Pittsburgh.

They had little jump off the hop in this one, and the early penalties also hurt their momentum -- much like it did against the Capitals early on the other night.

The fact of the matter, though, is that the game against Ottawa last night was poorly called on both sides throughout the contest.

Calls were missed and ignored and then, not surprisingly, the game got chippy.  Pittsburgh enforcer Eric Godard, for one, was on the wrong end of a fight with Carkner early in the game after taking a right to the eye.  His return was announced as doubtful, but when he did come back, he got one more shift and -- despite a very swollen eye and a look that suggested he was a few apples short of a bushel -- tried to engage Carkner again.

Perhaps fortunately for Godard, at least on this night, Carkner declined and Godard got a 10-minute misconduct penalty for his trouble.

Those were his 2 shifts on the evening.

The physicality in the game also ramped up after Pens' blueliner Kris Letang nailed Senators' star forward Jason Spezza into the boards early in the 2nd period, leaving him crumped on the ice for about 10 seconds before Spezza quickly gathered himself and immediatley went off to the locker room significantly favoring one of his arms.

Without trying to be a homer, I didn't see Letang at fault on the play.  He had actually started into his check on Spezza near the boards when Spezza turned his back to him.  There was nothing Tanger could do.

There was a lot of garbage in the game after that, though, with the Senators' Jarkko Ruutu and Chris Neil acting stupid -- or put another way, just doing what they usually do -- and Mike Foligno tangling with Deryk Engelland, which teammate Chris Phillips realized was a mistake before quickly intervening.

Pens' netminder Marc-Andre Fleury didn't have a bad game, but I think he'd tell you that he's played better.  He did have a beautiful stop on a penalty shot by Foligno in the third period that was awarded after a play where it looked like Foligno might have actually scored. 

In super slow motion replay -- and isolated close up -- of Foligno's live shot a few seconds before, it appeared to show a shade of white between the puck and edge of the red goal line, but apparently the folks in Toronto felt differently and decided to affirm the on-ice ruling of the zebras last night that there was no goal.

All in all, the Penguins just weren't able to get on track in this contest, and their power play also came up empty for them in 4 chances when they really needed some production from it to match what the Senators were doing with their man advantage against the Pens' #1 ranked PK unit.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the game, though, was the play of Elliott in the net for Ottawa.

I mean, this was the same guy that the Penguins made look bad in last year's first round playoff series, and a guy that had won only 1 of his last 10 decisions.

Last night, he was suddenly unbeatable.  A lot of what Pittsburgh threw at him hit him in the chest, and he looked a lot more confident and controlled than he has in the past.

Sure, the Penguins hit a post or two, and watched the likes of Chris Kunitz and Paul Martin fail on prime scoring chances, but Elliott clearly was a different goaltender in this one.

What wasn't a surprise was the play of Karlsson, who had a rough start to this season, but is starting to come on strong lately.

Karlsson has a little bit of Kris Letang in him.  He's not the defensive player Letang has, and doesn't have a lot of edge in his game defensively like #58, but he skates extremely well and has strong offenisve instincts.

It's a good thing because that other blueliner of theirs who wears #55 is having a terrible season and has even been called a collassal flop by the local media.

Anyway, the Penguins return home for a tilt on Tuesday against the Atlanta Thrashers, who continue to surprise folks this season, and then on Wednesday on the road against the New York Islanders, before the weekend's Winter Classic.

Speaking of the Classic, I'll have a review of episode 2 of HBO's "24/7 Penguins Capitals: Road To The Winter Classic" series tomorrow.  I caught it when it premiered last week, but with the Pens'/Caps' game last Thursday, then the holiday, I haven't been able to sit down and speak on it.

More then.


NOTES:

Backup goaltender Brent Johnson sat out last night's game still dealing with what seemed to be a groin injury sustained in last Wednesday's win over the Florida Panthers, while forward and teammate Aaron Asham also missed last night's game with the same ailment.

Meanwhile, Jordan Staal skated with his teammates yesterday morning for the first time since November 1.  I don't know whether he's been cleared for full contact, but I assume that his participation involved puck drills.  I have not been able to confirm that, however.

Not surprisingly, Staal is pushing the team to be released to play for this weekend's Winter Classic.  I still don't think that's likely, especially since the Penguins haven't even announced a formal timetable for his return.  I was under the impression that team brass hoped to establish that this week.

While we've seen Gronk return from injury much faster than anyone ever anticipated, I don't know whether that will be the case again this weekend or not.   We'll see.