DEAN JACOBS – OVATHLETICS.COM
Rivalries will never get stale. But for players, they begin to despise seeing the same old teams, players, faces, and fans. Especially when you continually lose to the same team. These feelings were being felt on both sides of the ice in every game the Penguins played this week. Pittsburgh has spent more than a week on the road, and the first two games of this week against New Jersey and Boston would be the 4th and 5th games of a 5 game road trip. The final game of the week was at home against the always-pesky Carolina Hurricanes. Let’s see how the Pens stacked up against these familiar foes.
The first game of the week was on Wednesday against the hated New Jersey Devils. The Devils have beaten the Penguins in every meeting between the two clubs this season. Because of Malkin’s absence, the lines were adjusted. Pascal Dupuis was on the first line with Ponikarovsky and Letang. Going into the game, Dupuis was on a 5 game point streak.
It was a quick and great start for the Guins on Wednesday evening. After several good shots on goal within the 1st 5 minutes of the game, the Penguin’s early tenacity paid off. Chris Kunitz scored on a long wrist shot from a bad angle, which managed to get past Jersey’s goalie, Martin Brodeur. The Pens led 1-0 until on a Penguin’s change, a blocked pass led to a quick breakaway and Dainius Zubrus smoked Fleury to tie the game at 9:09 of the opening period. And all of a sudden the momentum was gone, but the Penguins tried not to let up. The first period ended with the same score, 1-1.
Within the first 2 minutes of the 2nd Period, the Devils got their second goal on another poor pass and turnover, a pattern that had been happening all game, and now was painfully noticeable. The Devils were reading the Penguins pass, picking the puck off in the neutral zone and developing breakaways from it. Jersey had two of these situations in the matter of a minute, right after their opening goal of the period. The first of 1 Jersey breakaways was a big save by Fleury, and the 2nd was a shorthanded intercepted pass for a goal by Patrick Elias to put the Devils up 3-1. Things weren’t looking good for the Pens. The next thing that happened, as a Penguin’s Power play was expiring, the Guins turned the puck over again leading to yet another odd man advantage for the Devils, and resulting in the 4th goal against Marc Andre Fleury, causing him to be pulled from the game in the 2nd Period. Johnson came in and made some big saves immediately, and the 2nd period ended.
The 3rd period opened with the score 4-1 in favor of the New Jersey Devils. The only remaining glimmer of hope for Pittsburgh came at 14:37 in the final period. Ruslan Fedotenko took a shot and squeezed in the 2nd Penguins goal of the game. The puck went in off the knee of a Devil and behind Brodeur. But that was it, though the Penguins continued to fight through a couple more hard-fought minutes of hockey, and several more chances for themselves, the game ended. The finally score was 4-2 in favor of the Devils, and Pittsburgh had to part again from Jersey with another loss to go along.
Thursday night showcased the Penguins traveling east to take on the Boston Bruins for the final game of the Guin’s 5-game road trip. The game against Boston was hyped beyond belief, and the tension, anticipation, and excitement were in the air. Earlier in the season against the Bruins, Matt Cooke had a hard hit on Boston’s best offenseman, Marc Savard and knocked him out for the season. In this rematch everyone was expecting “vengeance”.
The game got underway, and in the 2nd minute of the game there was already a fight between Joe Thornton and Matt Cooke. Several minutes after that, Tyler Kennedy skated in to the Devil’s zone, basically uncontested and flicked a quick wrister past Boston’s goalie for the first goal of the game, and his first in the last 19 contests. The Pens were up 1-0, but the Bruin’s remained on the hunt. Through a few Power plays, a more than several good chances for each team, the 1st period ended with just 1 goal.
The 2nd period began and ended with out much happening, but just as it was about to end, and as Boston just killed a Penguin’s power play; off a Letang shot, Alex Ponikarovsky scored with 15 seconds left, to give Pittsburgh the 2-1 lead. Then the 3rd period: At 14:46 in the 3rd, Michael Rupp got a jump on a puck in the neutral zone, skated in ahead of 2 defenders and ripped a shot for the 3rd goal of the game for the Pens, and all but sealing the fate of the Boston Bruins on Thursday night. Coming from 3 goals down in the final period just isn’t Boston’s “thing”. Also, as he’s becoming known to do, Marc Andre Fleury bounced back and played well, a game after being yanked against Jersey, and shutout the Boston Bruins in this game. The Pens as a team, dealt with the hype, handled the roughness, and played well in all phases to get the decisive 3-0 victory.
To round out the week, the Penguins played a game on Saturday afternoon. They finally came home after 5 games, and were taking on the Carolina Hurricanes at Mellon Arena. Carolina has the worst road record in the league, and another added bonus was the return of Evgeni Malkin after being out for 2 games, after being hit in the ankle with a Letang shot.
Even though it appeared the Pens were outplaying the Canes early on, it didn’t really matter. After one bad pass, and a good bounce for Carolina, the Hurricanes had a 1-0 lead. The momentum shifted towards Carolina, and the rest of the 1st period was theirs. At the end of 1 it remained 1-0 Carolina. The shots were 9-4 in favor of the Canes.
In the Second, again there was a lot of action and offense, but balanced with solid defense for both teams. There was no more scoring until just 2 minutes left to play in the 2nd. The Penguins created a Power play for themselves, and as the advantage and the period were about to end, and after a lot of pressure but not a lot of shots, the Pens finally saw an opening and took advantage of it. On a beautiful pass from Ponikarovsky to Jordan Stall, the Guins tied the game at 1. Seconds later the period ended, and the game was now knotted at 1.
The entertainment level didn’t drop in the 3rd, and as time wound down with the score still tied at 1, the tension began to mount. As it reached an apex, the stalemate was broken. With under 7 minutes left to play, Evgeni Malkin, on his triumphant return, ripped a quick wrister past Carolina’s goalie, giving the Penguins a 2-1 lead, and their first lead of the game. Penguin’s fans were hopeful. Then with 4 minutes left, Carolina’s Joni Pitkanen wound up on a long slap shot, and burnt it by Marc Andre Fleury, to tie the game again at 2. The Penguins spent basically the final 2 minutes of the game killing a penalty. So the game went into Overtime.
In OT, both teams continued to make great chances for themselves, while both goalies still shut it all down. The OT had it all: Firing shots, big blocks, hitting goal posts, flurries of offense. Unfortunately it came to an end with less than 2 seconds left, when Jamie McBain beat Fleury on an odd-man break. The game ended in favor of Carolina 3-2 in Overtime. The Guins got a point, but a Win would have been better.
So the week ended on a not so good note, and over all Pittsburgh accrued 1 more loss than they did win, 1 and 2. Losing to Jersey at the beginning of the week, and Carolina at the end, the Penguin only win came on Thursday against the Boston Bruins. The Penguins are still ahead of New Jersey in the standings; so home ice in the playoffs is still looking good. But the Guins have yet to beat the Devils this year, and they will probably have to play them in the postseason. In the more near future, next week the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the Redwings, Capitals, Flyers and Leafs on Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. After the 4 games next week, there is only 1 game left in the month of March, and 6 games left in the regular season. For the Penguins, it’s crunch time, time to buckle down, focus, come together as a team, fix problems and maintain consistency heading toward the rapidly approaching playoffs. The world is watching, hopefully the Penguins will stand up and prove themselves again, as the Champions they were last year.
