Pens lose

We just have no idea where to start with this post on today's game. Obviously when you're a huge fan, you get pretty pissed after a game and it tends to ruin a bit of your day, especially when the score is 5-2. But then you have to add in the insult of Ovie and the Caps and NBC's horrible coverage and that just about does you in. And then add in the fact that the weather totally sucks and it won't stop snowing...shitty day.

We felt the Pens came out pretty strong and played a good first period and still having the game within reach only being down by one goal, 2-1. But after having played a tough, physical game less than 24 hours before, we were worried they wouldn't be able to keep up a fast pace for another 60 minutes.

Yesterday we were thinking, please don't start Garon in net tomorrow. We remembered his only start with the Pens and it wasn't a good one. We failed to really think about the fact that these games were being played not only back-to-back, but less than 24 hours apart. What cruel scheduling. How could a goalie really be up to that task? Obviously you can never say for sure what caused Fleury's less than stellar day, but being tired is probably a pretty good bet. Although having said that, we still feel every goal wasn't his fault and the defense wasn't stellar either. Fleury also made some big saves. And we obviously could be wrong about Garon as well because after he came into the game, he did not allow another goal and looked good. We think the choice to change goalies when they did was the right choice, unfortunately for Fleury, and maybe Garon should have started to begin with.

As for the rest of the team, some things looked pretty good and others did not. They couldn't manage more than two goals and did have a fairly good amount of chances to get more than that even though it did seem like they were in their own end a lot of the time.

Speaking of being in their own end a lot, they sure were in their own end a lot on the power play. The power play today looked terrible. If Mike Yeo is in fact still running the power play then maybe it's time for a change there. Every time there was a power play opportunity for the Pens you wanted to shut your eyes and hope that the score was still the same when you opened them because you felt like the Caps had more of a chance of scoring short handed than the Pens did with the man advantage.

We're not going to make excuses for the Pens on this one, but fatigue had to be a factor in this game. Between yesterday's physical game and today's fast paced one, they had to be tired. We think you'd be nuts not to acknowledge the fatigue that would have had to be present, but you also can't use it as an excuse. It was a loss, but the Pens came out of their last four games with five points out of eight and that isn't the end of the world. If the Pens can keep this thing going and make it into the playoffs, you never know what may happen. Although for that to happen they obviously have to work even harder because they definitely have not fixed all of their problems. Also, please bring back Kris Letang! And one person in particular that we feel needs to step up is Jordan Staal. It seems like his play is lazy and completely sub-par all the way around. If he can step up his game, it would help the Pens a lot. He has so much potential and every time he misses the net you want to scream. Once it all comes together for him, he should be a really good hockey player.

We have to get this out of our system. What was with every person on NBC completely falling all over Ovechkin no matter what he did? OMG he's got a ton of shots! How about who cares? He hogs the puck and his shot count is ridiculous. He may be leading the league in goals, but we don't care for a selfish player. OMG he's the best player ever! You've got to be kidding us right now. How could you even ask if he's the best player to ever play? That should not even be an option for anyone at that age. He may be good, but let's not be saying he's the best player to ever play at this stage in the game. And also, let's not say he's the best player in the league by far. That made us sick. If you want to argue that he's the best in the league, we'll respect you for that, but please don't insult players like Malkin and Crosby by saying he is by far the best. We've said it before and we'll say it again, we feel Malkin is definitely the best player in the league right now, but we're not ignorant enough to say "by far." And we've definitely said this before, but our problem with Ovechkin isn't that he doesn't play for the Pens and isn't Crosby or Malkin, it's because he leaves some things to be desired when it comes to class. We feel lucky to have two great players that play for the Pens and are good people. If the Pens had Ovie, yeah it'd be great because he's a good player, but we don't love selfish and sometimes classless players.

We'll end our rant there, although we were happy to see an Evgeni Malkin segment during the second intermission. While he didn't speak much, his English was phenomenal. We were hoping it was on YouTube but it doesn't appear to be, at least not yet. It was nice to see Geno given a little credit.

Game recap

Aftermath: Pens vs. Caps

That was basically our completely erratic rundown of today's game. We know how all over the place that was but we get pretty frustrated after games like that. Basically adlkja;ldkjfaldkjfa;lsdjf! But in a not so good way.