The nice thing about writing a blog that no one reads and I don't get paid for is that I can do it at my own leisure. So in lieu of St. Patty's day celebrations, here is your late recap!
Canadiens 3 Pens 0
I don't even want to recap this game. There isn't a positive thing to say about this one. Fleury was pulled after 3 goals on 12 shots. The first goal was less than a minute into the game when Montreal won an offensive zone faceoff and Tomas Plekanec somehow came in on Fleury by himself. Fleury went for his usually effective poke check, but Plekanec pulled the puck away and backhanded it past a vulnerable Fleury. The Pens survived the rest of the first period, but still played listlessly and didn't get much on Carey Price.
The second period started even worse if that's possible, with the Canadiens scoring in less than 30 seconds. Kris Letang's outlet pass from the zone was intercepted and quickly turned into a tic tac toe goal by Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta, and the goal scorer Travis Moen. About 6 minutes later, Zbynek Michalek made an uncharacteristic turnover in the slot to Jeff Halpern, who passed it along to Mike Cammalleri for an easy 3-0 lead. A frustrated Fleury was pulled at this point.
The rest of the game contained little action. The Pens tightened up on defense and Brent Johnson only saw 8 shots in the game. Carey Price saw a total of 26 shots and stopped them all. The Penguins did have a couple of chances in the last half of the game, but nothing spectacular. The only excitement the rest of the way was Max Talbot's fight...which actually turned into Paul Mara crushing him in the 2nd period.
3 Stars:
#3 - Plekanec
#2 - Cammalleri
#1 - Price
Notes/Thoughts:
- F this, let's move on to the Edmonton game (both my actual thought and recap thought)
Pens 5 Oilers 1
Though clearly a major difference in the standings between Montreal (6th in the East) and Edmonton (last in everything everywhere), the game after a demoralizing loss is important. For a team that is missing 2 stars in Crosby and Malkin, every bump in the road is magnified because they are that much harder to recover from. You'll hear the phrase "character win" about 23,868 times in the next month. So here's time #1, it was a big CHARACTER WIN for the Penguins.
The first period was a bit tense. The Pens outplayed Edmonton through most of the period, but had trouble hitting the net. It was one of those periods where you worry about how much you can dominate a team and not score before they get a lucky break that puts you in a hole. Late in the period, that lucky break looked to be there as the Oilers went on a 5 on 3 powerplay for 1:46. But alas, the Penguins have been one of the best penalty killing teams all season and flexed that strength against Edmonton. Craig Adams, Matt Cooke, and Zbynek Michalek took the ice for a majority of the penalty kill and played fantastic, blocking shots and breaking up numerous passes. The NHL can say what they want about Cooke, yeah he's dirty at times, but you have to give him credit, he can play the game and is great defensively.
The Penguins managed to kill the 5 on 3 and received a huge boost in momentum, finally waking up a seemingly hungover crowd. With less than a minute left, that momentum was put to use as Tyler Kennedy got the puck to Chris Kunitz in front of the net all alone. Kunitz skated across the front of the crease and backhanded the puck through Devan Dubnyk's 5 hole to give the Pens a 1-0 lead going into the first intermission.
Pittsburgh continued rolling with momentum in the 2nd period. Ben Lovejoy sprung Max Talbot for a breakaway about 6 minutes into the period and he scored on a beautiful deke as he was falling to the ground. The goal was Talbot's 8th of the season and hopefully will get him started on a run to the playoffs that he badly needs if he wants to stay with this team next year.
Marc-Andre Fleury also put on a show of his own in the 2nd period, stopping a point blank slapshot about half way through the period from Gilbert Brule purely on reaction time as he kicked out his right pad. Fleury was on top of his game throughout the game as he often is after a game in which he's been pulled.
The game was essentially put away at the end of the 2nd when Tyler Kennedy wristed a puck that trickled through Dubnyk's 5 hole, and Jordan Staal dove to poke it past the goal line for his 8th goal of the season. The third period started with a similar goal being scored on Fleury as Ryan Jones poked the puck in from behind him. With the game at 3-1, the Penguins tightened up and Zbynek Michalek put the game out of a reach with a hard slapshot from the blue line. Michalek's goal was his 2nd in 3 games after scoring none in his previous 92. The scoring finished with Chris Kunitz ending the Penguins awful 5 game powerplay drought by one timing a James Neal pass past Dubnyk.
Notes/Thoughts:
- The Pens played with 13 forwards and 5 defensemen because Matt Niskanen was out with the flu.
- Mark Letestu had a tough game and that Kovalev-Letestu-Neal line looks questionable.
- Related to that, Kennedy-Staal-Cooke looked fantastic and they are hitting on all cylinders right now.
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