Blues 3 Pens 2 (OT)
Goals: Sullivan (3) (PP) from Malkin, Kennedy
Neal (13) from Malkin
Top 3:
1) Brooks Orpik. Orpik’s physical game had been lacking…until this one. Many forget that he was sidelined early in the season after having surgery for a sports hernia, but it finally appears that Orpik is back to 100% with the way he threw the body against the Blues. He looked fundamentally sound and led the team with a whopping 9 hits, knocking quite a few Blues off the puck. He also accounted for 8 blocked shots, giving him a very strong night on the blue line.
 |
| Back to the days of Free Candy |
2) Evgeni Malkin. Malkin continues to skate well with the return of Sid and it appears that he has that speed burst ability that he had been missing earlier in the season. Here’s another case where Malkin may not have been 100% until recently and he’s showing it now. He assisted on both Penguins goals and went 7 for 10 in the faceoff circle, a much better number than we’ve seen recently. |
3) Steve Sullivan. Sullivan scored in his 2nd straight game and looks to be getting some better breaks in the offensive zone after spending the last month snakebitten. Even beyond his goal, some of the best parts of his game involved his defensive coverage and backchecking. The defense did not have a strong night, but Sullivan was often there to help pick up the slack.
Bottom 3:
1) Paul Martin. Martin managed to cause a goal against all by himself with a blatant turnover to the Blues in the slot, followed by screening Fleury and then deflecting the shot past him. He looked shaky at best in this one, having trouble controlling the puck at the points and generally looking hesitant with his play. His confidence clearly suffered after that 1st giveaway for the goal.
2) Kris Letang. Letang also put together a very poor game, giving the puck away countless times and having trouble on the points as well, especially on the powerplay. Letang had a team high 4 giveaways (says the box score, but I counted 6) and made the errant pass that led to the Blues overtime winner. It was just a case of poor foresight for Letang in this one. Every pass was predictable or poorly made.
 |
| Letang, carefully considering which Blues player to pass to |
3) Jordan Staal. The man that is normally the best defensive forward was probably the worst in this one. He misplayed the puck to lead to the Blues 2nd goal and missed his coverage completely on the Blues OT winner off of the Letang turnover. Staal played generally well in the offensive zone and with faceoffs. But the goals against hurt his case in this game.
Injury Report:
- Brian Strait (elbow) is day to day at this point.
- Ben Lovejoy (wrist) will be out for at least 5 more weeks
- Dustin Jeffrey is expected to take the next 2 weeks to continue rehabbing his knee for strength and was placed on the IR
Random Notes:
- Zbynek Michalek played in his 500th game
Random Thoughts:
- Joe Vitale was scratched against his hometown Blues, kinda sad for him
- When Crosby tried to fight Backes, I’m pretty sure 18,583 were yelling “no, no, no” in the arena
- Fleury faced 43 shots in this game, a much higher number than he’s seen in a while. The Pens did not look ready on defense for this one
Takeaways:
1) Crosby Hangover. After clicking in every facet of the game on Monday, the Penguins looked awful in every facet (at least until the 3rd period) of this one. After all of the emotions of the Crosby return game, it appeared that the team felt the natural hangover effect of a “lesser” game (even though it wasn’t one). Hopefully this is just a fluke and doesn’t plague the team for more than this game.
2) Protecting Sid. As Sid and Backes went at it, Kunitz went straight in to stop Backes. Earlier in the game when Sid was in a different scrum, Michalek left his point position after the whistle blew and stepped into the scrum. Most notably, a linesman pulled Sid away by himself and kept him away from all of the action. Two big things to note here: a) No one is gonna keep a fiery Sid from getting into it with other players, and b) defensemen need to watch out for going in to protect him. While I like the idea of Michalek stepping in, the faceoff also gets moved out of the zone if the players on the points skate in for a scrum that they aren’t involved in. This could be a disadvantage we don’t need.
 |
| Keep your helmet on! |
3) Turnovers. The Pens committed more turnovers in this game than I’ve seen all season, by far. Pittsburgh has a potentially dominant offense, and a dominant defense, and a dominant goaltender. However, all 3 are meaningless if the Pens don’t protect the puck and give it away with regularity. St. Louis played quite opportunistically in this one. They are not a better team than the Pens, but they made far fewer mistakes, giving them a deserved win. The Pens didn’t even deserve a point and they would do well to remember that.
Pens Record: 12-6-4, 28 pts.
Goals For: 67
Goals Against: 53
PP %: 19% (18 for 93)
PK %: 90% (65 for 72)
Next Game: 11/25 vs Ott, 7pm LET’S GO PENS
No comments:
Post a Comment