8 Obvious Observations Heading Into Game 3

Pens/Canadiens Game 3 is tonight. Skipping the long winded “there’s no reason the Pens shouldn’t crush this team” Game 2 recap, here are 8 very obvious things I’d like to see happen in the series:

1. Crosby needs to score.

2. Malkin needs to score.

3. Fleury needs to play better. He’s quietly allowed 6 goals on 52 shots this series for a Save Pct. of .885.

4. Guerin and Kunitz need to do anything, ever.

5. Brooks Orpik needs to not leave dudes open in the slot then take pointless holding penalties behind the net, directly resulting in two goals.

6. Alexei Ponikarosvky has been playing more noticeably this series than he did against Ottawa, but it’d be awesome if he ever found himself in the same zipcode as the scoresheet.

7. Hal Gill needs to not be allowed to randomly bear hug dudes.

8. Halak? Whatever. Fucking score on him.

Penguins Vs. Canadiens: The Unbearable Lightness Of Being Confident

I find every reason to be worried about the Penguins at all times. This prevailing mindset exists in all fans of all sports teams, regardless of the quality or recent performance of that team, for two main reasons:

1) As a devoted fan to a particular team, one is uniquely privy to that team’s subtle weaknesses.

Commentators and casual Penguin-watchers might remark that Marc-Andre Fleury is one of the best clutch goaltenders in the NHL, or that the Pens are loaded with offensive firepower on the blue line with Gonchar, Letang and Goligoski, and they wouldn’t be wrong. People who watch and root for the Penguins on a nightly basis, however, know that Fleury is capable of going into “Fleury…what??” mode and letting in unscreened wrist shots from any concessions stand on any given night, and that Gonchar, Letang and Goligoski all occasionally forget how to play the sport of hockey and become unable to stand in front of other human beings while in their defensive zone. These concerns aren’t extreme pessimism on the part of fans; they’re legitimate aspects that we notice and worry about because we’ve seen them happen hundreds of times.

2) Fans are always reserved about praising their own teams too highly for fear of jinxing them by celebrating prematurely.

Part of this is in a joking, supernatural “don’t want to jinx them!” kind of way, which people don’t actually believe (but dammit, we’re not deviating from it in the playoffs), but on a more practical level, fans also don’t want to appear overconfident and gloat and then have their team ultimately lose, which would make the situation far less digestible on all levels. By curbing our expectations in advance, we give ourselves an emotional safety net if our team loses, rather than the devastating free-fall we’d experience if we were positive the team was going to win and they didn’t.

Both of these reasons are completely legitimate and almost completely universal — you want to scream at Yankee fans when they get nervous when Mariano Rivera comes into the 9th inning of a game when the team’s up 3-1 in the playoff series, but that’s just what fans do. Who wants to be confident and rational about their own team? Douchebags, that’s who. Also rational people, I guess. No, only douchebags. There – proved it!

My point is, I am very much one of these always-worried people. I am extremely one of these people. And yet, having explained in depth all of this jargon about all fans making themselves worried at all times, I am extremely, almost dangerously confident about the Penguins heading into the Montreal series, and here’s why:

GAME THREE – Penguins 4, Senators 2: Pens’ New “Give A Shit” Initiative Proves Effective

Heading into the playoffs, I proposed that the outcome of the Pens/Ottawa series would depend entirely on two simple yet excruciating questions -

Question #1: Will the Penguins resume giving a shit? And…

Question #2: Will Fleury play well? Not “not-retardedly”, I mean, actually “well”?

In Game One, Question 1 was a “kinda” and Question 2 was a resounding “Mother Of Everything Holy No”, and the result was an unsurprising-in-hindsight 5-4 Senators victory.

In Game Two, Question 2 began on shaky ground when Fleury let in a wrist shot from Carson Street .3 seconds into the game — but SHAME SHAME on you for questioning Fleury ever, you un-knowledgable peasants, even though he’s played crappy for most of the last four months and directly cost the Pens Game One – he won a Cup and is thus absolved from any wrongdoing until the end of time — but the Pens responded to Question 1 so forcefully, they essentially eliminated any further need for Question 2 by totally shutting down Ottawa offensively (except for one wide-open Jason Spezza chance from the slot, on which he missed the net). The Penguins won 2-1, outshooting Ottawa 31-20.

In Game Three, the Pens answered Question 1 with another resounding “Yes”, getting an early boost from a weak Alexei Ponikarovsky goal, and though Ottawa was again limited in terms of chances, Fleury played pretty well (the first Ottawa goal was on Brooks Orpik for leaving Mike Fisher alone in the nation of Canada, and the second goal was standardly “meh” on Fleury’s part, but the game was basically in hand by then). Penguins 4, Senators 2. Again, exactly the outcome you’d expect from those particular answers.

And so I again add, until the Pens play a team that’s better than them on paper — and really, that’s only Washington and a couple Western teams — their playoff fate will continue to be completely dictated by how convincingly they can answer these two questions. Two “Yes”es, and they win, two “No”s, and they lose, and if it’s one-and-one, it’s going into Overtime and can go either way (unless either the “Yes” or the “No” is followed by an exclamation point, in which case, it’ll probably tip the game in favor of that outcome).

There you have it. Hockey analysis just doesn’t get more in-depth than this. Also, Sidney Crosby’s pretty good.

After the jump, my thoughts on the Sutton non-suspension:

Alexei Ponikarovsky’s Highlight Reel Is A Bad Sign

While Penguin Nation awaits the arrival of Alexei Ponikarovsky, the latest in the line of dudes we really hope are able to just tap one-timers into wide open nets, we’re forced to subsist on secondhand information about the 6’4″ winger, and I have to say, I got a little worried watching this Ponikarovsky highlight reel on Youtube — it’s probably not a good sign when a guy’s highlight reel includes an empty net goal…

Penguins Trade Luca Caputi And Martin Skoula To Leafs For Alexei Ponikarovsky

TSN reports that the Penguins are close to acquiring Alexei Ponikarovsky from the Toronto Maple Leafs for winger Luca Caputi. The deal isn’t finalized yet, as the Pens need to clear salary to fit Ponikarovski under the cap, which could be achieved by dealing away a depth defenseman or sending Ruslan Fedotenko down to Wilkes-Barre like Miroslav Satan a year ago (or, as my brother texted, “Maybe McKee turns up dead?”)

Caputi is only 21 and has 23 goals for Wilkes-Barre this season, and Ponikarovsky is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, so it’s an unambiguous, old-fashioned deadline roll of the dice on Ray Shero’s part. Ponikarovsky is a 6’4″ winger with 19 goals and 22 assists this year in 61 games, scored 23 a year ago, and he’s somehow a +5 on the Maple Leafs despite their Conference-worst -46 goal differential (and he was a +6 last season). Maybe he’s some secret does-the-little things, physical, responsible dude? I can’t honestly say I really know much more about him other than him being one of the most talked-about names leading up to trade deadline next to Ray Whitney and Raffi Torres, and he’s clearly a better fit for the Pens than either of them.

According to the photo on TSN, I’m not really liking his size:

But for a full verdict, I’ll have to count how many F-words I yell when Crosby or Malkin set him up for one-timers before I can judge. I can’t imagine he’ll top Kunitz’s 35/Game.

UPDATE (9:58 pm): The Pens are including Martin Skoula in the deal after failing to convince the NHL that they’d get under the cap by releasing a dude named Cappo McSalaryson.

Stay tuned to Elvis Has Left, the only place on the internet for Trade Deadline updates.