Penguins Playoff Update: Calamity at Capital One Arena

It most decidedly wasn’t a very good afternoon for our Penguins. Slammed by a venomous cocktail of a vicious Washington assault, atrocious officiating and their own deplorable lack of sweat equity, our guys took it on the chin yesterday to the tune of a disheartening 4-1 Game 2 defeat.

It gets worse. Brian Dumoulin…arguably our best defenseman…likely sustained a concussion courtesy of a brutal shoulder to the head delivered by Capitals thug Tom Wilson.

The next man up, in Mike Sullivan speak? Free-agent bust Matt Hunwick, who hasn’t played in nearly a month. The Matt Hunwick who, according to The Hockey News, “can struggle when he is forechecked heavily.” The Matt Hunwick who helped the Pens to a 22-19-1 record in his 42 regular-season games.

That Matt Hunwick.

Although no one’s saying anything official, Phil Kessel most assuredly doesn’t look like the ‘Phil the Thrill’ we all know and love. It’s painfully apparent by his stiff, mechanical movements and paucity of production No. 81 is playing hurt. Nor has ballyhooed trade-deadline acquisition Derick Brassard (one goal in eight playoff games) exactly picked up the slack.

It’s too late to moan about it now. But slugger Ryan Reaves and hard-rock defender Ian Cole sure would look good against an uber-aggressive Capitals squad. As if to punctuate the lopsided nature of the physical play, NBCSN cued up replays of seven wipe-out hits during a break in the action. Not by coincidence, the Caps were the hitters…our poor Pens the hittees. It’s a wonder more guys weren’t hurt.

The officials sure as hell didn’t help. Plain and simple, it was the worst officiated game I’ve seen in a long, long time…dating back to the Neanderthal days of renowned Mario Lemieux-hater (and baiter) Kerry Fraser and drama-king extraordinaire Paul Stewart.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear referees Gord Dwyer and Chris Rooney were mandated by the NHL higher ups to make sure the Caps win at all costs. How else do you explain the flubbed goalie interference call on the Caps’ second goal and the denial on a shoulda-been tally by Patric Hornqvist that would’ve pulled the Pens to within a goal with 11 minutes to play?

I’m surprised the NHL didn’t purge all video evidence from their web site. Speaking of the league office and botched calls, who does the video review in Toronto these days…Moe, Larry and Curly or the Three Blind Mice? My guess is the latter, given that everyone but the reviewers could clearly see white between the goal line and the puck on the video replays.

Such is life in the old-boy network that passes for the National Hockey League, eh? Nice to know Mario’s garage league is still alive and well.

Just so this doesn’t come off as a long, finger-pointing harangue, our boys sure didn’t help themselves. How they could come out as flat as a bottle of soda pop opened last Christmas for the second-straight playoff game is beyond me. Unless they fully intended to play Santa Claus and stuff the Caps’ stockings with a desperately needed victory.

I’m not sure what’s ailing our Pens, effort-wise. Whatever it is, there’s no excuse for it. You don’t want to show up? There’s seven other teams out there that do, most emphatically the Caps. Think they wouldn’t love to beat us, and rub our noses in the proverbial poop pile while doing it?

You betcha.

We’d better get our heads out of our collective tuchuses…and fast. Or, to borrow from the ‘Ol Gunner, Bob Prince, we can kiss those hopes of a three-peat goodbye.