It was a good thing the third and even fourth lines came to play tonight. The top two lines did not have their best game. Malkin especially seemed to be out of sorts. It is hard to point out something negative with an extraordinary talent such as Malkin, but he did not play well tonight. He turned the puck over quite a bit. One of those turnovers resulting in the Sens only goal. It just wasn’t clicking for Malkin this evening. Though Crosby was held off the scoresheet, he did not play poorly. His line did account for a goal. (A very nice effort by Billy Guerin) The “role players” picked up some slack. Kennedy had two goals, Craig Adams was good for two assists, Eaton had an assist, Mike Rupp had a helper and even Jay McKee got on the scoresheet with an assist.
Some of the thanks has to go to the Senators who missed on many opportunities. They hit a couple of goal posts, Kovalev missed a great opportunity after a bad bounce and they missed the net consistently. By the middle of the third period, the Senators looked like a beaten team. That was very clear during a 5 on 3 power play which they looked like they didn’t want to score.
Notes:
Let’s keep the streak alive in Carolina.
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