Things Were Good for A while anyways

The Penguins rattled off 2 in a row and everything was good. The Pens handled a tampa bay team without much of a problem. Maf only had to make 15 saves. It actually was a lot closer than the scoreboard says, and Maf had to play a better game than his shots against would lead you to believe, but it was a win and that is just what Fleury and the Pens needed.

Next up came the Atlanta Thrashers. That was a hard fought contest that the pens again came out on top. To be honest i'm pretty impressed with whats going on in Atlanta. They dont have that 1 or 2 superstars but they have a bunch of good players and role players that get the job done. How is Kovalchuk doing on his new team? But the pens prevail so all is well.

Now we have last night with a division rival The New York Rangers. This was a game where the pens Dominated in every aspect of this game, except for the part of potting a goal behind Lundqvist. That dude was on something for 57 minutes. The Rangers had a 1-0 lead all the way til 2 or so minutes left in the game when Kunitz and Cooke beat Lundy for 2 in the matter of 37 seconds. game over right? The Pens are up a goal with 2 minutes left. As clutch as Lundy was the entire night he had one more trick up his sleeve. He decides to smash his stick on the cross bar and throw the broken half in a ref s direction. Thus getting an unsportsman like penalty. This my friends was the play of the game. You're down by a goal your best chance is to go against the pens power play. The Pens with a man advantage are going to take this oppurtunity to ice the clock. No Bylsma is sending his top unit out there to get a goal. I take that back he wanted them to pass around in the zone for the rest of the game. Meanwhile the Pens are 0-6 so far with only 6 shots. At what point did Bylsma have enough faith in his putrid power play to believe they could accomplish this task. Maybe it was a Test.....................FAIL

Do I need to go over what happened next. Do i need to get a youtube video of the cross ice pass Malkin would try. How about the part where everybody stands around and watches Mark Staal (brother of Jordan) get to a loose puck. How about a shot that goes off Letangs stick, off Fleurys shoulder, of the left post, off the crossbar before dropping behind the goal line. Do i Need to get that video.

The All goes back to Lundy making a quick decision that if you want to beat the penguins you have to give them power play chances. I hate to blame any Penguin for what happened, heck i thought the game would end 1-0 for the Rags. Blaming a penguin would take credit away from the genius play of Queen Henrik.

I'm actually not even going to say anything about the OT period. By this point the penguins deserved everything they got in my book. A 2-1 lead with 1 1/2 minutes left, I'm happy with Adams, Crosby and Rupp kicking it around the boards with Orpik and Letang manning the points. If the puck pops out to Orpik whats he going to do? dump it!!! Nope we put are number one unit out there to start the play. Even if we needed a Power play goal, I would have trouble sending the number one unit out there.

for 58 minutes you couldn't ask for a better game. Bottom line is Henrik Lundqvist is a Genius......



Go Pens