Penguins Win Game 1, Exclamation Point!

And we are off and running. The Penguins last night didn’t just beat the Philadelphia Flyers, they put an exclamation point on the victory. No doubt the next three wins are going to be a lot harder to achieve and I won’t be surprised if a couple of Ls work their way into the equation, but for today, I am quite content in savoring the victory.

As of Wednesday morning there were still some questions about this Penguins’ squad. Sidney Crosby wasn’t one of them. Therefore, although watching his performance was thrilling it certainly came as no surprise, a natural hat trick. Over the last month of play, we have witnessed several examples of Crosby’s eye to hand coordination, and his double tap goal against the Canadians is still by far my number 1 pick of his goals in his career, he added to his reel of highlight goals with his first goal the night, deflecting a point shot past Brian Elliot. Within seconds of the goal being scored, the camera panned to the Flyers bench showing Petr Mrazek. The look on his face said it all. He was absolutely terrified. It looked like he knew was about to get the call to go into the lions den but didn’t want the honor.

Crosby’s skills have been definitely a nightmare on opposing goalies for over a decade.

Evgeni Malkin also was not one of those questions and he almost topped Crosby for the prettiest goal of the game. Malkin did notch a good hard work goal when he jumped out of the penalty box and onto the puck. The big Russian then drove into the Flyers’ end shielding the puck from Flyers’ defenders with his body before whipping a backhand past Elliott. However, it was the goal he didn’t score that would have rivaled Crosby. Malkin danced around half the Flyers’ squad before not only cutting into the slot with a shot but getting his own rebound and putting that on goal.

However, the Penguins Penalty Killing (PK) was a question mark going into the game last night and for at least the first game, they stood tall. Not only did they kill all 4 power plays that the Flyers got, they didn’t yield a single shot. Again, as I said above, it is doubtful that they can repeat that performance but that has to be a good sign.

In fact, the entire Penguins’ defense was a major question mark going into the game, but they too came up big. They limited the Flyers to just 24 shots. Of course it did help that the forwards came back to help insulate the defense. Jake Guentzel and Carl Hagelin helped out blocking several shots. As a whole, Penguins’ forwards blocked 7 of the Flyers’ attempts.

Many fans also questioned Matt Murray’s glove hand (not me, I am not one of them) Murray flashed the leather on several glove saves. None of the glove saves was bigger than the highway robbery Murray was guilty of on the Scott Laughton shot. Laughton fanned on the initial shot but still had a ton of net to work with when Murray’s glove shut him down. Jacub Voracek was also victimized by Murray’s glove during a bang-bang play off of a faceoff. And I believe it was Shayne Gostisbehere who ripped a center point slap shot that Murray watched all the way into his glove. What is so impressive on this save was that the shot was not the stretch to the glove side reaction save where the goalie just guesses, this shot was ticketed just above Murray’s left shoulder, in his crouched position. Rather than just guessing to the to glove corner, he actually watched the slap shot taken from center point from about 50 feet away, into his glove.

And although I did see Conor Sheary get mugged a couple of times, I have to give kudos to the Penguins’ diminutive Forward for his hit on the Flyer’s Laughton just inside the Flyers’ blue line, sending the much larger 6’-1” 190lb Forward to the ice. I am not going to jump on the Sheary’ bandwagon just yet but I have to give him his due for such a nice crunching hit.

Of course the “Big Rig” delivered the most crushing hit. Jamie Oleksiak caught Oskar Lindblom along the boards and drove him onto the rounded glass. Lindblom was slow to get back up from that hit.

And speaking of hits, apparently Patric Hornqvist started the game under the Flyers’ skin. They spent a great deal of the first and early part of the second period worrying about Hornqvist and going out of their way to hit him. Although Hornqvist didn’t really get on the score sheet, his presence was felt in the game by all of the attention he commanded, opening up the ice for others.

Only one game is in the books and there is a lot of hockey to play. The Flyers do have some high end talent in Claude Giroux, Voracek, and Gostisbehere and the series outcome is far from decided. But winning and winning big in game 1 is a lot better than dropping game 1.

Let’s Go Pens!!
You have to 3elieve