Main Storylines:
- Some roster changes going into this one. Brent Johnson is “ill”, so Brad Thiessen is on emergency recall to back up Fleury. Also, Eric Tangradi was called up and is expected to play on the 4th line. Expect Cal O’Reilly, and potentially Dustin Jeffrey to sit.
- Bylsma stated that the team wanted to call up Tangradi to add a physical presence and forecheck to the 3rd and 4th lines. Other rumors swirling: showcase for a trade, keep him up in case someone else gets traded
- Brooks Orpik is also out with an upper body injury. He is day to day and Ben Lovejoy will take his place. It appears the top pairing will be Martin-Letang….oh no.
Result:
Pens 2 Rangers 0
Goals: Malkin (33) from Letang, Dupuis
Sullivan (11) (PP) from Malkin, Cooke
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| The Pens gave the Rangers a swift kick to...I'll just stop there. |
The Good:
- Start with the milestones: Malkin recorded his 300th career assist and Fleury recorded his 22nd career shutout, tying Barrasso’s franchise record.
- Offensive pressure: The Pens had a period of over 3 minutes in the 1st during which the puck did not leave the offensive zone. Though they didn’t score during it, it forced the Rangers to use their timeout, which turned out to be nice a 2-0 close win. The Kunitz-Malkin-Neal line and Dupuis-Staal-Sullivan line were masterful during those shifts
- Defensive intelligence: By my count at least, Fleury only faced 2 clean odd man breaks in that game, a massive reduction from either of the past 2 games. The defense was very smart about stepping up, and committed far fewer turnovers than usual. Everyone on the defense played well (yes, including Paul Martin).
- Malkin’s goal was just flat out gorgeous. It was a great outlet off the boards by Letang to spring him on a breakaway, and then Geno just showed an amazing amount of patience in waiting for Lundqvist to be completely out of the play before shooting.
- Sullivan is one of the last players on this roster that I would expect to score on a slapshot from the point on the powerplay…kudos to him. It was a perfect shot and a great screen by Cooke as well.
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| Even he doesn't look sure that he did it. |
- Literally everyone played a solid game, so I’m just going to highlight my 3 standouts for the night.
Zbynek Michalek – Michalek has been playing lights out since he was taken away from Paul Martin. He led the team yet again with 3 blocked shots and got his stick on several passes to slow the Rangers down. His positioning has been very sound and he looks very comfortable and confident now. He has definitely reverted back to the player that the Pens wanted to pay $4 mil/yr.
Marc-Andre Fleury – Fleury had an outstanding effort in earning his 22nd shutout. He made 27 saves, including a breakaway, and was masterful in his rebound control tonight. Hell, he didn’t even have any mishaps in playing the puck, that’s how in the zone Fleury was tonight. The commitment to team defense tonight let Fleury do his thing, his positioning was great, he didn’t overcommit on any shots or passes, and he simply was unbeatable tonight.
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| Thiessen's recall clearly made all the difference. |
Kris Letang – Letang gets here, not for his assist, but for his outstanding defensive awareness tonight. He led the team with over 28 minutes of ice time and didn’t get caught too far up at all. He didn’t try and force the offense, he just played his game and took open looks as he saw them. I was concerned with him and Martin being paired together, but both played very well together. Letang’s patience and commitment to defense tonight was simply perfect against a Rangers team that tends to be opportunistic.
The Bad:
- Lovejoy played a very solid game and had a nice set of shots, getting 3 on one shift. One thing that I could have done without was his delay of game penalty, of course.
- Martin also played a very solid game, my only complaint for him was on one play, where he missed his coverage and allowed the one breakaway on Fleury. Aside from that gaffe though, Martin was definitely in the good category.
- Arron Asham made a very boneheaded play when he took his penalties. Adams drew a penalty with a hard drive to the net, and Asham needlessly started shoving with Bickel as every player skated to the benches. Asham’s gotta be smarter than that, Bickel didn’t even do anything to him to lead to it. I would categorize throwing a powerplay away as ugly.
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| With 2 healthy scratches a game, better play smart to stay in the lineup. |
Thoughts:
- Nothing against Eric Tangradi, he played well in his 5:39 of ice time. But why call him up to play 5:39? Wouldn’t he be better served playing in the minors with a regular shift? We aren’t doing him or ourselves any favors by calling him up to play that little.
- On a related note, what did Dustin Jeffrey do to get booted from the lineup? He could have played that 5:39 just as well, with the addition of he has PK capabilities and can take faceoffs. I don’t think he’s done anything in the past few games to warrant getting a healthy scratch.
- The special teams continue to be outstanding this year. The powerplay went 1 for 2 and the PK went 3 for 3. Another sign of a Cup favorite.
- As Phil Bourque said on the radio after the game, this is the type of game that the Pens need to circle and reference. No matter what ups and downs are left in this season, this game against the Rangers was a complete 60 minute effort, with a team commitment to defense and doing the little things right. The Pens will not lose a best of 7 series to anyone with efforts like this.
- By the way, this was all without Crosby. Can you imagine the possibilities?
Pens Record: 34-21-5, 73 pts, 4th in the Atlantic, 6th in the East
Next Game: 2/25 vs TB, 1pm
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