(AP/Keith Srakocic)
The Pens beat the Islanders last night 1-0. What a game! Or not. Pretty boring hockey for the most part and quite frustrating. The Pens need to win against a team that is below them in the standings, especially the Islanders since they're the worst there is. The Pens should probably have been able to put the Islanders away easier than they did, but at the end of the year, that won't matter. They got two points and in order to stay in the race for the playoffs, that was a must-do, especially with the Panthers, Sabres, and Hurricanes all losing on Tuesday.
We don't even have a whole lot of notes on this game. Partially from being somewhat distracted and mostly because the game wasn't all that exciting, at least for the first two periods. There weren't even many penalties. The Pens didn't play badly, but they didn't play great either. There were some good things to take out of this game. The Pens weren't playing in their own zone all game, which is obviously good since you can't score goals playing in your own end all night. Fleury may not have been challenged a lot, but when he was, he made the saves he needed to.
As for making saves, the Pens didn't do Fleury any favors by not scoring any goals to back up all the pucks he had stopped. It seemed like the Pens had a million chances to put the puck in the net and it wasn't going in. A couple of those were pretty bad considering they wide open shots but then again they couldn't even score an empty netter at the end of the game. And there's also something the Pens seem to forget. The fact that you have to shoot the puck to score a goal. They seem to think that in passing it around it will somehow end up in the net. More than likely it won't, so shooting the puck may be of some help. It seems like no matter how many times they do actually shoot the puck, it doesn't go in but someone else gets the rebound and puts it home, they still don't get it. Please shoot the puck on net, good things may happen! The power play also still sucks. You'd think they were the team with one man down.
Petr Sykora had the game winning goal with only 2:28 left in the game. Guess how it was scored? Yes! Gonchar shot the puck on net and Sykora was there to put it home past a misplaced Yann Danis for the goal and the game winner. It was about time. Geno's play before that to keep the puck in the Islander's zone was the reason that goal even happened. In front of his parents once again, Geno made a little move to keep the puck in, which eventually led to the goal. It seems like Geno is doing everything these days. The Pens sure are lucky to have him. Especially the times that Crosby is out of the lineup.
And how can you not like Geno? His and Sykora's celebration after the goal was priceless. They looked like two kids in a candy store. We were going to post the video but so far can't find any on YouTube and the highlights over at the Pens site just cut off the celebration. No fun.
An article over at ESPN about the big three, Ovie, Sid, and Geno with an emphasis on Geno. Pretty good article. Have a read here.
1 comment:
I like the way the penguins are playing, we are getting more shots on goal. I wish they would shoot the Puck a little more though, too many passes in front of the net!
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