We've all been in the situation.
At the bar. Drinks are flowin'. Conversation is rollin'. A little nightlife ... a little dancing. Then, at her house afterwards takin' care of business thinking you scored the conquest of the year.
Suddenly, the next morning, you wake up and -- in the blink of an eye -- realize things aren't quite as they seemed.
She looks like the bottom of your shoe in the light, has six toes and is spewing venom at you for the condition you left her bathroom in after the dump you took the night before.
Yep, it's a very thin line in the business, folks, and so it was for the Pittsburgh Penguins last night at the CONSOL Energy Center as they watched a late 2-0 third period lead evaporate into a nightmare 4-2 defeat in the final 200 seconds of the game.
Flashbacks to two months ago, anyone?
That's right. That's the game where the Penguins had another two goal lead on the Bruins, at home, in the third period, and promptly went out and watched goaltender Brent Johnson fish 5 pucks out of his net in the final frame of a 7-4 loss.
The Penguins looked to have things under control last night. They played relatively good hockey for 55 minutes on national television, and had built their two goal advantage on the strength of an beautiful, top-shelf even-strength goal by Mike Rupp and a power-play tally by Kris Letang, both in the second period against Bruins' backup goaltender -- with only 3 wins all season coming into the game -- Tukka Rask.
The Bruins were pressing the play in the third, but Pittsburgh's netminder on this evening, #1 man Marc-Andre Fleury, was consistenly slamming the door.
Then, the zebras took over, calling a ridiculous boarding minor on defenseman Brooks Orpik for not being able to stop from shoving a Bruins' player into the wall after he turned and showed his back to the Pens' assistant captain at the last second.
As I digress for a minute, did I mention how ridiculous that call was?
Those calls are garbage. That's exactly what NFL players have complained about this season under the bevy of significant fines their league office has dolled out to players hitting 'defenseless' receivers on passing plays.
Ask Steelers' linebacker James Harrison what he's supposed to do when a receiver changes his position at the last minute after he's already initiated his tackle, and see what he says.
It's the same thing in hockey, but it's been going on for years. A player lines up to check another player shoulder to shoulder, only to have the player along the wall turn and face the glass, showing his back to the checking player at the last minute. In that situation, the checking player will almost ALWAYS get the penalty, even though he can't do anything about the fact he was already in the act of making his check and the player about to get hit changed his position at the last second and did the stupid thing of making himself more vulnerable.
ANYway, the result of the call on Orpik last night was a knuckler from Bruins' defenseman Zdeno Chara that somehow got past Fleury from the point on the power play, and that only served to give Boston enough momentum to score again 12 seconds later when Brad Marchant capitalized on Chris Kunitz' laziness by beating him to the front of the net --- EASILY -- and depositing a pass behind Fleury for a tie score with about 3 minutes to go.
As if the Orpik call wasn't bad enough, the blind mice decided to call Jordan Staal for holding when he checked Bruins' blueliner Denis Seidenberg along the wall, and finished his check by pinning him there long enough for him to reach the puck -- that had squirted past him down the boards -- first.
Apparently, too long for the guys in black and white.
Normally, I could appreciate the possibility of holding up a player too long on the wall.
But in this case, Seidenberg was finished. He was basically on the ice. It's not like he was keeping his legs moving while still trying to get to the puck.
That penalty gave Boston the power play for just about the rest of the game and Mark Recchi made them pay when he knocked a rebound of a shot out of the air and past Fleury for what would be the game winner (Bruins' forward Gregory Campbell's subsequent empty-net goal notwithstanding).
On Recchi's goal, Fleury made a spectacular save on Boston winger Blake Wheeler, doing an excelling job holding his position on a shot cutting back against the grain, but when Pascal Dupuis took his turn at being lazy on the PK, Recchi had just enough time to capitalize from in front uncontested.
And so, for their part, after being outshot 13-2 in the final frame, the Penguins had their second blown third period lead to Boston in their own barn in two months.
For my part, I just about punched a hole in my flatscreen.
The Penguins have to be frustrated over this one -- their 5th loss in their last 6 games, including the last 3 straight without their Captain, Sidney Crosby. I know I am, and I'm not a part of the locker room.
"I don't know what happened," Rupp said afterwards. "We were up two goals. That should be a gimme."
What will be most interesting about the defeat, however, is how the Penguins respond to it in an effort to get out of their funk.
They played 55 good minutes of hockey. Can they forget about the last 5 and move on like a championship contender would? After all, some in local media circles (okay, Rob Rossi of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) are questioning that championship pedigree.
While I'm sometimes bothered by the quick-to-pessimism approach that Rossi frequently takes -- including this time -- I appreciate a part of his sentiment: other than the Penguins' 12-game run, they've played mostly .500 hockey before and after that.
Interestingly, it was much the same last season.
After Pittsburgh started the year so strongly, they played mostly .500 hockey from December on, without getting on a real run when things mattered most --- down the stretch of the season.
And you saw what happened to them in the playoffs. They managed to hold off Ottawa, but weren't clicking on enough cylinders to get it done against Montreal.
Unlike Rossi, I'm not ready to do anything like question the Pens' pedigree right now. As is usually the case with these Penguins, what they do now doesn't matter nearly like what they do in the spring does. Even Rossi would acknowledge that. Pittsburgh has time to get things together until then.
That would, of course, start with getting #87 back in the lineup.
Dan Blysma said yesterday that Crosby is "progressing" and "getting better", but would not offer any more crystal of a timetable for his return.
In the meantime, Disco Dan reunited the "nightmare" line of Staal, Matt Cooke and Tyler Kennedy last night, and let Evgeni Malkin center Kunitz and Dupuis.
Overall, I think that played to good results, and I'd expect to continue to see those top 2 lines -- at least for the foreseeable short-term until Sid returns to the lineup. It remains to be seen, however, whether Blysma will go back to the Staal and Malkin experiment for an extended period of time at that point.
Pittsburgh goes to Montreal (again) to play the Habs' tomorrow night, before getting a rematch with the Bruins in Boston on Saturday afternoon in it's continuing tournament against the Northeast Division.
More soon.
NOTES:
The Penguins' called up forward Dustin Jeffrey from Wilkes-Barre Scranton of the American Hockey League on an emergency basis yesterday, since winger Aaron Asham came down with the flu and was unable to suit up. Malkin, Orpik and Chris Conner also have been dealing with the bug, and both Orpik and Conner missed practice the day before, but played last night. Jeffrey had about 6 total minutes of ice-time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment