Penguins lose in OT to Vancouver

I started to write this morning how I remembered the first Penguins’ game that I saw live at the Civic Arena, way back on November 7, 1971. I was going to start off reminiscing like this because, I had the opportunity to take my 10 year old son, Michael, to his first Penguins game last night (Thanks to our own Phil Krundle). However, as I started to write about that first experience, I decided to double check my facts. I am glad I did. Wow, my memory is faulty. I seemed to have blocked out the fact that the Penguins lost. The Chicago Blackhawks were the team that ruined a great story for me. In my mind, my favorite players were the stars.

Les Binkley had the shut out and Ron Schock scored a goal.

Looking back at the truth, Les Binkley didn’t even play. Roy Edwards absorbed a 4 – 1 loss. As for scoring, Val Fonteyne notched the only Penguins’ goal, set up by Brian Hextall.

And I have always prided myself on my memory. I don’t know what happened.

Fortunately for my son, even though the Vancouver Canucks rained on his parade, his favorite players, Evgeni Malkin and Jake Guentzel found their way on to the score sheet.

We go to the arena early enough to watch the warm-up. I started to worry as I watched the players go through their drills. Their passes were behind their targets and they hit the post and missed the net more than they found the 4′ x 6′, even when there was no goalie. The player I have been pulling for over the past year or more, Daniel Sprong was fighting the puck. Several times, off on his own in the right corner, he tried some basic stick-handling drills and lost control of the puck more times than I could count. The only player who looked ready to play was Riley Sheahan.

Very little seemed to changed once the game started. It looked as if our Penguins had never practiced together. The Canucks built and 11 – 5 shot advantage in that opening frame because of how out of sync the offense seemed to be. If not for Guentzel blocking a Tim Schaller shot and out racing him to the puck for a 2 on 1, then using Sidney Crosby as a decoy, before depositing the puck over Anders Nilsson’s blocker side, the Penguins may as well have not shown up for the first period at all.

Sprong wasn’t the only one who looked like he was fighting the puck. Casey DeSmith was way off as well. He looked shell shocked from seeing all the rubber from the previous 2 games. He was nervous and often reacting (or over-reacting) before shots were attempted, often taking himself out of plays or putting himself into positions where he had to make spectacular saves.

On the Canucks’ first goal, he found himself off his feet, sitting on his back side after an errant shot from the point. Rather than staying at least on his knees as he followed the puck behind the net, he kicked his legs out from under himself and found himself, helpless, like a fish out of water, foundering on his posterior as Ben Hutton fired the puck over him into the net.

DeSmith did make back-to-back spectacular saves, first robbing Sven Baertschi, after he walked around Brian Dumoulin, and then seconds later on Markus Granlund. However, even before Baertschi got around DeSmith, DeSmith had drifted well wide of his net and was off his angle. He couldn’t kick off his post to go side-to-side. And then as he stopped Baertschi, he found himself on his seat again before making the save on Granlund.

My son and I were seated around some people who actually knew hockey. All through the game, I could here the discussion of how DeSmith was fighting himself. There was a person in front of me who apparently disagreed, shaking their head when the people behind me went into their critiques, but since she didn’t say anything, I can’t be sure.

However, if she did disagree, then she had friends in her disagreement. This morning when I mentioned how it appeared that DeSmith was shell-shocked, the person to whom I was talking launched into a tirade about Matt Murray not looking any better. Even when I assured them that I wasn’t taking sides and I wasn’t faulting him at this point, I was just noting what I saw, the person still ranted against Murray in response.

DeSmith found himself on his back once again, when at the end of the first period, former Penguin, Brandon Sutter found the back of the net following up a failed wrap around attempt by Schaller.

Only the Malkin line seemed to be close to working together. And finally they did. With only about 3 minutes to play, Carl Hagelin got on the board, he converted a two-on-one from a slick feed from Phil Kessel, to tie the score.

Unfortunately, Brock Broesser ripped a shot past DeSmith with only 34 seconds gone in Overtime, for the Canucks 3rd goal on only 26 shots, sending the faithful home less than happy.

However, for my son, he had a great time. When I asked him what the best part of the game was, despite eating his favorite chicken tenders, cotton candy, and an ice cream, despite drinking large cups of soda, despite me buying him a souvenir puck and some penguins hockey cards at the Penguins’ gear shop, he said for him the best part of the game was being there with me and watching Guentzel go coast-to-coast.

For me, the best part of the game was listening to him do the play-by-play for not only Guentzel’s goal, but pretty much anytime either Guentzel or Malkin touched the puck.

At least, for him, his favorite players really did shine, in defeat, not like my favorite players. At least when he remembers his first game, he can correctly remember that his favorite players had it together. He won’t have to make things up.  Hopefully, the rest of the team gets it together soon.

Odds and Sods

Don’t look now but Anthony Angello has 3 goals in his first 3 games this year in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. I don’t want to speak to soon, but I am thinking a big body like that may just help the big club out. If he keeps this up, maybe that will be what the doctor can order to heal the disjointed parent team.