Wow, what a game! What a night. These Penguins played a very desperate game just as they needed to. This was a true team effort. On a night where both Crosby and Malkin were held off of the scoresheet and had only two shots between them, the rest of the team picked up the slack and put the game away. Everybody chipped in with gutsy efforts. Guys were giving up the body all night long. The Penguins were credited with 20 blocked shots. None were as evident as Petr Sykora’s block of a Kris Draper shot in the second period. They did the little things all night. Of course it got interesting at the end of the game, but the Penguins came ouy of the dust with a 2-1 victory.
The people of Pittsburgh have been giving Marc-Andre Fleury a very hard time during these Stanley Cup Playoffs. Sure, he had allowed some “soft” goals, but this kid is good. Pittsburgh would not have made it to two Cup Finals in a row without him in the net. Fleury was awesome tonight. I hope this curbs the criticism.
Pittsburgh very much dominated the territorial game tonight. With the exception of a few extended shifts in the Pittsburgh zone, we had Detroit bottled up all night. I remember looking at the scoreboard half way through the second period and seeing the shots on goal stat…….Penguins 21 Red Wings 7. This puck control is great news. I think the Pens can really build off of this. The only problem with their control of the game was that they did not capitalize. For all the time of possession they had in the first period (including two power plays), they did not get one goal. It would be nice to see some more of their hard work manifest itself into goals.
As it turns out, the Pens kept the pressure on for the duration of the game. They had some great play in their own zone. They played very physical. They won battles. They did the things they needed to do to win this very important game.
Notes:
This is it boys, we go for all the money on Friday night in Detroit.
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