Leave it to lucky No. 13.
With the stealth of a black (and gold) cat slipping from the shadows at the bewitching hour, Nick Bonino materialized–seemingly out of nowhere–to score the series-winner last night in Game 6 before an anxious throng at Consol Energy Center, effectively pounding a wooden stake through the Washington Capitals’ playoff hopes.
Led by the ubiquitous, bearded Bonino, GM Jim Rutherford’s acquisitions were huge. Especially in a series where superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin combined for a goal and three assists.
Indeed, the “newcomer” line of Bonino, Carl Hagelin, and Phil Kessel proved to be the difference in last night’s electric 4-3 overtime triumph over the Capitals. The trio tallied all of the Penguins’ goals and seven of the home team’s dozen points.
Betraying few ill effects from the drubbing they received in Game 5, the Pens snatched the lead at 5:41 of the first period. Kris Letang forced a turnover and relayed the puck to Hagelin, who nudged it ahead to Brian Dumoulin. “Dumo,” in turn, fed Kessel streaking down the off wing. The speedy forward reached the top of the circle and fired, beating All-Star Braden Holtby to the short side for the all-important first goal.
The game turned–audibly–at 6:25 of the second period when Brooks Orpik caught Patric Hornqvist in the mouth with an errant stick following a brief skirmish. The former Pens’ stalwart drew blood–and a double-minor.
The black and gold wasted little time. Letang spotted Kessel down low and hit him with a crisp diagonal pass. The Wisconsin native faked a look to Crosby before walking around Holtby and rifling the puck home. Thirty-three seconds later Hagelin cut to the net and deflected Olli Maatta’s rising drive past Holtby.
In a flash the Pens were up 3-0.
Having built a seemingly insurmountable lead, the locals worked extra hard to give it away. With Chris Kunitz in the box for tripping, T.J. Oshie lit the fuse on an epic–and near fatal–Capitals’ comeback. Finding a soft spot in the Pens’ coverage, the hustling winger beat goalie Matt Murray with a twisting one-timer 90 seconds before the horn.
However, faint, the Caps had a pulse.
The throb became a heartbeat at 7:23 of the third period. Justin Williams, who combined with Oshie to score eight of the Caps’ 15 goals during the series, beat Murray high to the glove side to close the gap to 3-2.
Then, in a stunning turn of events, Kunitz, Bonino and Ian Cole each were whistled for delay of game penalties within a two-minute span. With top penalty-killers Bonino and Cole languishing in the sin bin, John Carlson took a perfect set up from Alex Ovechkin and blew the puck past Murray with a tick under seven minutes remaining in regulation.
The Caps’ bench exploded in celebration. In the stands, you could hear the proverbial pin drop. In one fell swoop, the air had been let out of the building.
Somehow our guys regrouped. Tapping into the marvelous resilience that’s been a hallmark under coach Mike Sullivan, the Pens came out flying in overtime. Shaking off a miraculous game-saving effort by Jay Beagle to deny Hornqvist, they piled up an early 5-3 edge in shots.
The end came with sudden swiftness. Six-and-half minutes into OT the newcomers poured into the Washington zone. Hagelin reversed the puck to Kessel along the wall and raced to the slot for a return pass. Holtby stopped “Hags,” but couldn’t deny Bonino, who pounced on the rebound.
The fans erupted. “Bones” thrust his stick skyward in triumph before being engulfed by his joyous teammates.
“It’s the best feeling in the game right there, to win a series and have your teammates around you,” Bonino said following the traditional post-game handshake. “I can’t put it into words right now. I still have chills, a little bit.”
Hi Rick
I never truly appreciated Bonino’s offensive abilities until last game.He is a “Swiss army knife” type of player in that he can do it all in any situation. PLUS HE has 1 year left on his contract at 1.9 million.What a deal for the Pens.Hagelin makes 4.1 million a year and Phil is 8 million a year.So Nick Bonino is a real deal in more ways than one for the Pens.
The big winner is Mario because he has 6 home playoff gate receipts to date and is guaranteed at least 3 more gate receipts. HOPEFULLY MORE. That increases the value of his team dramatically.
So now we go to play a team as fast as us and a much bigger d corps. Should be a great series.
Cheers
Hey Jim,
Great description of Bonino. My word, is he playing well. (Ditto Hagelin and Kessel.) Hard to believe he’s the same guy who struggled to produce early in the season.
Pens-Lightning should be a great series. Very entertaining…lots of speed and skill.
Frankly, I’m a little worried. The Bolts had our number during the regular season.
Most eventual Stanley Cup champions endure a “test” series against a foe who pushes them to the limit. I think, for us, Tampa Bay could be that opponent.
Hey Jim and RIck,
Some thoughts to consider, the real heroes of this play-off year may be JR and Sullivan.
This incarnation of the Pens is radically different, all the way around, from many previous versions of the team. JR changed many faces and they all seem to be contributing. Looking down the line-up only Cole, Crosby, Dumoulin, Hornqvist, Kunitz, Letang, Lovejoy, Maata, Pouliot, Malkin, and Rust wore the Pens jersey last year. Rust didn’t play in a play-off game and Pouliot was an after thought. Roughly half the faces are different.
In my opinion the only mistake JR made this year was in taking so long in removing MJ. other than that he should be thrown in jail for his highway robbery of Daley-Scuderi and Hagelin-Perron. I realize Perron was playing well before being injured but the contribution Hagelin has made to this team is unreal.
As for Sullivan, previous Pens teams have centered the bulk of the teams scoring talent around Crosby with the second tier wingers going to Malkin, even in the play-offs. That strategy proved a failure season after season. All teams had to do was concentrate their defenses on shutting down the first line and one player on the second line. This year Sullivan has turned a 2-headed monster into a full blown Hydra. If teams throw all of their efforts into shutting down Crosby and Malkin (like the Caps did) they will be burned by Bonino-Hagelin-Kessel. And even if a team can shut down 2 of those three lines with the third just having an off-night, the ageless one, Cullen, steps up with his young apprentices and steals the show.
Sullivan has turned a team of a handful of stars with a cast of extras into a true team.
And as we talked last night, I agree with you Rick, the Bolts are a team to be reckoned with. The Caps are a much better team than the Bolts and the Pens beat the Caps, so they should be able to beat the Bolts, but the Bolts did play the Pens much better than most teams this year. So this could be the Pens toughest test this post season.
All I will say, in reference to the out-come of the pending tilt, is that a true team, 18 skaters and a goalie, all pulling together for one another and not just for themselves can do wonders. Let’s just catch our breath and prepare for round 3.
Great thoughts and analysis, Other Rick. Excellent!
Hey Coach,
Great insight as always. The ironic thing about this whole situation is that in late October / mid November all three of us wanted to see JR retired and questioned his decisions….Now we all sing his praises. Go figure. All I can say is the old proverb “Winning is not the only thing,it is EVERYTHING “. If you win,your a hero and if you lose your
a goat. So JR and Mike Sullivan due deserve our praises because what they have done to date is remarkable……however let us not forget that when Sully took over,we had no cap space to make any block buster trade,his players were in a revolt against the former Coach, some were( privately) upset that Mario was trying to sell the Team, and upset fans were not coming to the Games. So,all he could do was call up the AHL crew and play them….The more he played them the more their confidence grew and they became better NHL players as a result. MJ and Dan B. would never have done that !
Plus he called out his star players and made them responsible for their actions ! Treated the players all the same. That is how you build a Team !
In JR’s case, he got Lucky ! No way could he have known that Daley for Scuds would be such a critical trade with this much upside. Chicago would never have traded him. Just lucky. In the Hagelin for Peron trade,Peron actually had the better pedigree at the time of the trade. Hagelin just signed a big contract and he was not producing the goals that his previous team thought he should so the trade was made. Interesting, to me the biggest move of the season came when GENO went down.Now Sully and JR had no choice but to create a second line with Bonino .The rest is history as you accurately describe above. So the creation of the most productive line in the Playoffs for the Pen’s was caused by an injury to Geno.
Is that good management or good Luck ? …. of course now in hindsight I would never change a thing.
I agree with you and Rick about the Bolts…great series coming up and I sure wish we has a Victor Hedman on our team.
Cheers
Hey Jim,
All really good points and I am guilty as charged. Last year I was an outspoken critic of JR and that carried over to the beginning of the this year. However, in my devense, I will submit the following old saying, “What have you done for me lately?” It is almost always asked when someone is failing. However, in JR’s case, what he has done for us lately is position the Pens to be in their best position in years.
Craig Patrick was brilliant when he swingled Hartford out of Francis and Samuelsson (Jennings came in that deal as well) in pretty much his first real play-off push, but Naslund for Stojanov? JR is a bit in reverse, some of his questionable trades came early and his swindles came a little later.
Fortunately for JR most of his moves early on will probably not be as bad as the Naslund-Stojanov trade. The only one that I still would like to see reversed would be Depres-Lovejoy.
And before anyone gets upset about that statement please understand, I do think Lovejoy is playing well and is actually helping the team. I am not saying this as a condemnation of Lovejoy. I am only saying this as it is my belief that Despres, given a chance to work under Sullivan, a coach that would be willing to show confidence in him, would really have matured into something close to if not the player the team envisioned when they drafted him.
Despres is a big and mobile defensemen who, when a Penguin, even as a Rookie was always a plus in his +/-. Perhaps it was the pressure Bylsma and MJ may have felt while coaching, but they totally mismanaged him. He may have developed into the Hedman that you wish we had, JIm.
Also in my defense, I will say I never questioned the Perron trade (both of them). Many did question what we gave up for Perron and granted Perron didn’t work out here in the East, but he was and is an asset to any team in the West. And had we not traded for him last year, we may not have any trade bait to acquire Hagelin this year.
My biggest worry for the up-coming round is what is going to happen to my BP.
Go Pens! Win your last game this year!
Hey Coach,
I envy you and Rick to be able to talk Hockey face to face when ever you wish because both of you have great knowledge of the League,the Pen’s and the game itself. It is evident in the posts you both give. In my neighborhood, you are either a Habs fan, a Leafs fan, a Bruins fan and recently a few Ottawa fans. Not to many Pen’s fans around. However there are a lot of Crosby supporters because he is seen as a local boy made good. Every time he catches a cold,somebody writes about it in the local media from a personal perspective, not filtered thru the Pen’s media outlets. So I am lucky to be able to see that type of media information,maybe not seen in Pittsburgh.
It is in that context I really enjoy the brief discussions we have. I have never “blogged”before and this is the only site I feel comfortable to be on.
Rick,Pens 4 ever,55 on Point,yourself,Phil,and a lot of the other great contributors are very passionate about our team.That is fantastic….but what we do not seem to attract like other Pen’s sites I read, is the severe negativity, coarse language and utter foolishness! Good job Rick !…. except me.
Final point guys, is that indeed this team is special for all the reasons you and Rick have mentioned, but we need to realize until the new owners arrive, we can only enjoy this moment now. Next year, who knows, we could have new owners who after paying 600 million + for the team, may be forced to impose a payroll cap of their own.I dread to think what a 60 million not a 73 million payroll would do to the team I / we all cherish so much.
Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you both.
Cheers.