Senators 6, Penguins 2: Were Fleury And The Power Play Also Injured?

The Pens got killed last night, but what were we to expect? The whole team’s injured. Oh wait, Malkin, Gonchar, Talbot, and Eaton all ended up playing? Oh. So they just sucked. Alright, I can accept that.

The Pens got outplayed last night from the millisecond after Jordan Staal poked in a Pascal Dupuis feed to make it 1-0 up until the final buzzer. They somehow only got outshot 31-27, but it felt a lot worse, their powerplay was painfully bad (they finished 1 for 5 but the 1 was in the last couple minutes when they were already down 6-1), Fleury played his worst game of the season, allowing several goals from angles that protractors aren’t capable of measuring, and the team carried a general lack of urgency that doomed them from the moment they fell behind 2-1.

Also, complaining about the Penguins (or any team) not shooting the puck enough is hockey’s Kneejerk Fan 101, but the Penguins reeeeally didn’t want to shoot the puck last night (except Dupuis, and if he’s the only one firing the puck, you are the worst team in the NHL). The telltale sign that the Pens aren’t shooting the puck, usually, is when they have a game where Crosby, Malkin, Staal, and Gonchar all keep trying to thread passes to other players in worse shooting positions than themselves, and this kept happening again and again; it’s bad enough that the people Malkin passes to will be, by definition, crappier finishers than him, but it’s even worse when it’s a risky pass and it’s to a dude who isn’t even in a better position to score than the person passing. Hopefully, the scoreboard at the end of the night will be enough of a cartoony slap across the faces of the Pens’ stars to wake them back up for Saturday night.

Other thoughts:

– Daniel Alfredsson looked as good last night as I’ve seen him in the last three seasons. He’s always been right on that fence between “Consistently Good Player” and “Superstar,” but last night he played like the latter.

– The Senators fans loudly booed every single penalty call against the team. Christ, Ottawa, you can relax — you’re not frickin’ Montreal, you’re allowed to derive pleasure from live hockey events.

– If there’s one positive to take out of the Senators game, at least the Penguins never traded anyone for Jonathan Cheechoo. Man, that dude has nothing left — he’s fallen all the way to the status of “Random Roleplayer Who Breaks Scoreless Drought Against Penguins.” Yeesh.

– In fairness to the Pens, they were at the end of a long road trip. Meaning, the trip from Pittsburgh to Ottawa.

Penguins 6, Bruins 5 (OT): Well, That Was Ridiculous

Not the best game for the Pens’ D, Brent Johnson or (for the first time ever) the power play, but nothing mattered — last night surpassed Jordan Staal vs. Detroit from last year as the most exciting Penguins regular season game since… I don’t know… something memorable Rico Fata probably did.

Not to be overlooked with Guerin’s game-tier or Dupuis’ bizarre winner were an insane deflection by Crosby, goals by Mark Eaton AND Jay McKee (on a Mike Rupp backhander), and…another goal by Pascal Dupuis.

Did this really happen?

Half-Assed Pens/Canes Prediction

I predicted the Pens over the Flyers in five, but they blew the fifth game and won in six, then I predicted Pens over the Caps in six, but they blew the sixth game and won in seven, so this round, why the hell not, I’ll take the Pens over the Canes in seven. Hopefully the Pens will rebound when they blow Game Seven in win this one in eight.

WHY I’M NERVOUS:

– Fleury. A lot of people talked about Fleury rebounding in Game Seven against Washington, which made no sense; he stopped Alex Ovechkin on a breakaway, which was a huge save, then the Pens went ahead 4-0 before Fleury had to even make 10 saves, and he still hasn’t strung together two consecutive above-average games this postseason. Saying he’s back on track because the Pens dominated one wacky game is like saying “my alcoholic friend made it through his son’s birthday party without drinking — I think he’s turned a corner.” Not really — when your alcoholic friend makes it through St. Patrick’s Day without drinking, then we can start praising him.

– Cam Ward is capable of stealing games in ways that Marty Biron and Simeon Varlamov simply cannot, and the Pens barely made Biron work in the majority of his series, and couldn’t bury pucks against the rookie Varlamov early off in the Washington series either (except Crosby). Given the types of ridiculous shot advantages the Pens had to rack up to just hang even with Washington’s effortless scoring, they could be in for some mounting frustration if Ward gets hot.

– Home ice advantage? The Hurricanes beat the Devils in New Jersey twice, including in a Game Seven, and the Bruins in Boston twice, including in a Game Seven. Obviously the Penguins would rather be home to open a series, but it’s not an automatic advantage if the Pens don’t seize the opportunity.

– The Hurricanes’ offense isn’t as deep as the Caps’ or Flyers’, but they do also have several right-handed players capable of roofing wrist shots (as does every NHL team). Hopefully this doesn’t prove to be an unsolvable problem again in this series.

WHY I’M CONFIDENT:

– Crosby and Malkin. Really, the only reason I’m confident in this series. Fedotenko has started finding the net, Scuderi and Eaton are coming off good serieses, the third line has regained its puck-possession ability, Gonchar’s back, and Miro Satan has even surprised, but really, as long as Crosby’s playing at this level, it’s just foolish to doubt this team. If Malkin returns to “Makes Opposing Defenders Look Like Little Nephews Trying To Steal A Football From Their Uncle In The Backyard” mode, it might not matter how well Cam Ward plays.

– As I’ve complained about many times, the Pens’ D allowed every 3-on-3 rush to turn into a 2-on-0 during much of the Capitals series, and Fleury continually just let random wrist shots in. This isn’t to say that the Pens necessarily will improve upon either of these things against a fundamentally sound team like the Hurricanes, but merely to suggest that the Pens haven’t even played their best hockey; they played mediocre D and Fleury didn’t play his best and they still came back from a 2-0 deficit to knock off the #2 seed in the East. If either of those aspects improve against Carolina, they could absolutely seize control of this series.

– Chris Kunitz is a proven playoff performer who can go to the net and pick up dirty goals when it matters. Oh whoops, meant to put this bullet point in the other section.

– I don’t professionally scout the Hurricanes or anything, but just from anecdotal observation, I’m not sold on Joe Corvo or Joni Pitkanen as playoff-caliber defensive defensemen. Given how often Crosby imposed his will on the Caps, if the Pens get the matchups they want against Carolina, there’s no reason to expect a drop-off in scoring chances, it’ll just be a matter of beating Cam Ward.

– Carolina is only scoring on 10.4% of its power plays so far this postseason and actually had a lower-ranked power play than the Pens this year (yep, it’s possible) — I still hesitate to mention this as an advantage, because they’re gonna score multiple power play goals by easily winning a faceoff and having Ray Whitney set up an untouched cross-slot one-timer to someone wide open to score within ten seconds of a man advantage in this series, I just hope they don’t come at crucial times.

– Both teams fired their coaches mid-season and went on incredible runs down the stretch. This isn’t an advantage for either team but just a cool factoid I wanted to reiterate somewhere in this post.

– And the #1 Reason I’m Confident: Cory Stillman isn’t on the Hurricanes anymore. Without Stillman’s career 9-points-per-period average against the Penguins to deal with, the Pens should be able to absorb Matt Cullen’s 2-goals-per-game career average against them.

GAME FOUR: Pens 5, Capitals 3 — A Goaltenders’ Duel…ON OPPOSITE DAY LOLOL

The Pens are back even in the series after an absurd 5-3 victory in Game 4, a highly entertaining if chaotic affair that likely chopped a few years off the lives of both head coaches. Lots to talk about after this one, but two elements stood out in particular:

1 — Simeon Varlamov quickly morphed from being alternatively unbeatable and untested by the Pens’ finishers to suddenly incredibly vulnerable, allowing inexcusable goals to Sergei Gonchar, Ruslan Fedotenko, and Max Talbot. All three were unscreened, undeflected shots from a relatively far distance, with the Fedotenko goal coming on an exceptionally pathetic bounce off Valramov’s lazy glove hand. Fleury also let up an awful goal to Nicklas Backstrom to let the Caps on the board early, but followed with a couple redemption saves including an absolutely sick glove-snatch of a Sergei Federov wrister heading into a wide open upper-corner. I hesistate to interpret Varlamov’s performance as anything other than a one-game anomaly, but it’ll be up to the Pens to be sure to test him early in Game 5 in front of a restless home crowd in a pivotal series game to force him to prove that it was indeed just a one-game funk.

2 — The officiating in this game was just outright horrible on both sides, and likely didn’t end up affecting the outcome because of its balanced stupidity. The Chris Clark cross-check on Max Talbot never happened, Sergei Federov’s stickless holding penalty on Evgeni Malkin looked like an infraction in real-time but definitely wasn’t one, and the Pens got away with a really clear interference of Tom Poti on their own power play (Poti has now thrown his arms up to the refs three times in two games, including the BS Dupuis penalty in Game 3 — Crosby is a whiner!!!). Meanwhile, Alex Ovechkin only received two minutes for a knee-to-knee injuring of Sergei Gonchar, which Empty Netters argues wasn’t a malicious hit and isn’t suspendable, but even the most random, careless high stick is a 4-minute penalty if it draws blood, so how can a half-intentional brutal kneeing only be two minutes? Matt Bradley also got away with two incredibly blatent interferences on the Capitals’ third goal, including pushing Brooks Orpik into the Penguins’ net right before the goal was scored. All in all, the game had a totally chaotic and choppy rhythm, and I’m hoping for the Pens’ crappy power play’s sake that Game 5 errs more on the side of few penalties for both sides as opposed to tons of man advantages for both sides.

Other odds and ends:

– Matt Cooke has had a horrible series against his former club, from the awful Ovechkin hold in Game 1 to the second Caps’ goal last night, where he was apparently covering the imaginary Ed Harris character from A Beautiful Mind on the right side of the net. Dupuis has also been ineffective, which is largely expected, but he can’t take dumb penalties like the slash in Game 4 during his twenty seconds of ice time.

– Miro Satan with a skillful, significant assist!!! And the contract is totally justified!!!

– Hal Gill, Rob Scuderi, and Mark Eaton have all played like legitimate, steady NHL defensemen in this series, and especially in the last two games. Eaton’s initially-regrettable two-year deal looks like a solid bargain for Ray Shero at the moment.

– The team that’s scored the first goal has now lost every game in the series. This is what we stats-lovers call, “A meaningless detail that we hope Versus tries to talk about as if it’s significant.”

GAME ONE: Capitals 3, Pens 2 — Hope Everyone Got Their Random Moment Of Horrible Out Of Their Systems

Apologies for the lack of updates, I was out of town this weekend, and whenever I’m pinched for blogging time I ultimately give preference to the website that actually pays me.

Because I’m sure you twenty people or so were dying for them, here are my Pens/Caps Game One thoughts:

- I’m not sure why everyone assumed Simeon Varlamov would be a liability for the Caps. He allowed 7 goals in 6 games against the Rangers, and yes, they’re the Rangers and scored 54 fewer goals than the Penguins during the regular season (albeit without Nik Antropov and Sean Avery most of the year), but that still means Varlamov allowed fewer than half the goals Marc-Andre Fleury let in against the Flyers in the same number of games. I see absolutely no reason to automatically assume that the on-and-off Fleury is some massive advantage over a goalie no one knows anything about.

Brooks Orpik offers this tidbit of well-meaning nonsense:

“I think you can [rattle a young goaltender],” Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik said. “The kid played pretty well in the first round, but he probably wasn’t challenged the way we’re going to challenge him.”

Watch out, Simeon, cause “Back o’ the Net” Brooks is gunning for you! Seriously though, I realize Orpik is saying that the Pens’ offense is superior to the Rangers’ and I agree with him in principle, but the Pens managed to test Martin Biron for about two and half total periods in the six-game Flyers series. Is anyone actually confident that the no-traffic, no-rebounds Pens will “rattle” Varlamov and throw him off his game and send him crying back to the bench, just like 21-year-old rookie Cam Ward when he was “rattled” in the 2006 postseason on his way to winning the Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy?

Rookie goalies aren’t automatic liabilities, they’re simply unknown quantities; yes, an occasional Carey Price may completely fold, but did anyone else see Martin “Mr. Experience” Brodeur cost his team Game 7 against the Hurricanes by allowing two identical far-side wrist shots including one with thirty seconds remaining in regulation? Experience is a helpful characteristic for a goaltender, but it doesn’t supersede simply playing well. If the Pens don’t test Varlamov, then his proneness to being rattled is irrelevant.

- The power play = My Lord. There are no negative words remaining in the English language that we haven’t used in conversations about the Pens’ power play this season, and I’m running out of creative hyphenated swear word combinations (there’s only so many). If the Pens don’t start giving a crap and battling for pucks with the man advantage the way they do 5-on-5, and Bylsma continues to leave Malkin, Crosby and Gonchar out for full 2-minute shifts, this garbage will continue. My brother was watching the game on a slight delay on DVR, and admitted that by the third period, he was literally fast-forwarding the Pens’ power plays rather than bear to watch.

- Remember how awesome Chris Kunitz was in the first two periods of Game 1 against Philly? He’s gotten progressively dumber with the puck ever since then, and has been a nonfactor for about the last 18 periods of the postseason. Ditto Guerin since his Game 2 overtime winner.

- Sergei Gonchar hasn’t totally reverted back to “who is this human and why is he attempting the sport of hockey” form from his first year with the Pens, but he’s been mostly awful this postseason, both offensively and defensively, and has to shoulder as much of the blame for the power play as anyone else. If he doesn’t start battling in the defensive zone and playing with some urgency and confidence rather than just throwing skilled but pointless saucer passes around the neutral zone and opposing blue line, he’s a waste of ice time. Not that Brooks “should I cover the guy busting to the net or the guy hanging back in the slot who’s already covered – how about neither?” Orpik has had much more of a positive impact.

- Hard to blame Fleury for the outcome of this one, and the Caps probably would’ve scored on the 5-on-3 anyway, but why was he flopping out towards Alexander Semin at all, let alone before he even shot the puck? He was more overcommitted than a whiny female girlfriend stereotype in a Bud Light commercial (snap?)

- If I were the Pens, I’d definitely bank on Mark Eaton continuing to score every game. Absolutely no way this will stop.

- Did anyone else watch Game 2 of Bruins/Hurricanes? Both of those teams looked embarrassingly better than both the Pens and Caps did in their first meeting.

- Because I didn’t feel confident picking the Ducks, Blackhawks, or Hurricanes in their respective series, and definitely didn’t want to just predict all 4 favorites advancing, I was going to predict Pens over the Caps in 6 on Friday but didn’t have the time to put a post together. I guess I’ll stick with that prediction now. Also, dammit.