The Penguins Clip the Wings 5 – 2

“Welcome back my friends
to the show that never ends
we’re so clad you could attend
come inside, come inside”

(Karn Evil 9 – Emerson, Lake, and Palmer) 

Well, it may be way to early to quote that song. As the dust settled over the first period last night, I thought we Penguins’ fans may be in for a long night. The Red Wings came out flying, registering 14 shots on goal (SOG) in that opening frame. The Penguins’ defense seemed to be a bit befuddled on the play that led to the opening goal. For what ever reason, Justin Abdelkater and Dylan Larkin appeared to be invisible to the eyes of the black and gold skaters. Abdelkater drifted in front of Matt Murray, all alone, unmolested, to take away the eyes of Murray while Larkin found a soft spot at the bottom of the Penguins’ Right Wing (RW) circle.

 

Gustav Nyquist wrestled the puck off of Brian Dumoulin and Kris Letang. Evgani Malkin was trying to support his along the wall, about halfway up the boards. Patric Hornqvist and Dominik Simon gave a good cushion to Wings forwards, standing about the top of the Circle and high slot, so when Nyquist kicked the puck out to Larkin he had ample time to look the net over while Murray had to fight to see around Abdelkater. Larkin found the one crack over Murray’s shoulder, who was crouching down to try and get a view of the play, and the Wing’s forward opened the scoring.

Fortunately for the Penguins, Murray continued to show signs that he was returning to form. He coolly and calmly held the line right there, making the tough saves look almost routine. Eventually, Filip Hronek unlocked the door for the Penguins by taking a penalty against Hornqvist and Phil Kessel kicked it open with the first of his 2 goals and 3 points. If he didn’t read one of my responses to a reply on my last post about never using the same attack more than 2 times in a row, it was certainly serendipitous. Instead of his patented wrist shot from the circle, Kessel changed it up. He took the cross ice, back hand feed from Sidney Crosby, swooped in from the RW circle, cut across the top of the crease, opening up Jimmy Howard’s 5-hole and slipped the back hand into the net. The change from Kessel’s normal move appeared to surprise Wing Defender Jonathan Ericsson so much that he fell down, giving Kessel the lane to the net.

A little over a minute later Derick Brassard redirected a Kessel pass with his skate to put the Penguins ahead 2 – 1. He didn’t intentionally kick the puck but look as if he was trying to present the widest target he could for Kessel to bank the puck and it worked.

Kessel then went to work again on the power play. Malkin passed him the puck just inside the blue line, center point, Kessel took a couple of strides and ripped the puck passed Howard, glove side.

The Wings got a brief breath of life when Malkin, trying to do everything himself, tried stickhandling himself free, just inside the Red Wings blue line. He lost the puck and Andreas Athanasiou beat Olli Määttä to the loose puck who chipped it up ice away from the Penguin Defenseman who further exacerbated his bad decision to try and step up and keep the play in the Wing’s zone by falling to the ice. Anthansiou raced toward Murray on a break away and brought Detroit back to within a goal. Juuso Riikola tried to race back and cover for his Defense partner and actually did close the gap, but was too late.

A little over a minute later, Malkin atoned for his guffaw by winning a speed draw back to Marcus Pettersson (his first point as a Penguin) on the left point who quickly slid a pass cross ice to his partner Jack Johnson. Johnson hammered a shot toward the net that Hornqvist got his stick on, deflecting it passed Howard and the 2 goal cushion was restored.

Malkin then closed out the scoring, corralling a loose puck deep in his own right corner and skating it out of danger up ice with the Red Wing Goalie pulled for the extra attacker. As he approached the red line he whipped a cross ice pass to Brassard on the Left Wing at the attacking blue line. Brassard converted the pass to an empty net goal and iced the game.

After the game Bob Errey was heard to say it was a near perfect game with only 1 blemish, Evgeni Malkin’s giveaway. Sorry Errey, it was a really good game but Athanasiou’s goal wasn’t the only blemish and even that goal wasn’t Malkin’s fault alone. Athansiou’s goal may have been the only blemish from periods 2 and 3 of the game, but the first period was full of break downs. Frans Nielsen got behind the Penguins’ defense, lost control of the puck, but Murray still had to be sharp as the puck still rolled on goal and the Penguin back stop had to redirect it to the corner. Tyler Burtuzzi got it back to Nielsen in the slot and Murray had to deny him again. That happened before the Wings first goal. In fact Murray had to face 14 shots in that 1st period. The whole first period should be considered a blemish.

Also, as I mentioned Malkin had help in setting up Athanasiou; Määttä did his share to free up the Wings’ forward.

All in all, though, there were a lot of good signs. Our locals really dominated play in the 2nd and 3rd periods. Although the were out shot 14 – 10 in the 1st period, they came back and finished the game out shooting the Wings 40 – 29. It has been a long time since our locals put up that many shots with out conceding an equal amount.

Brassard didn’t score any highlight reel goals but he did net 2. The first was a skate deflection and the second a gift from Malkin, but by season’s end no one will remember. they will count just as much as any other.

Murray continued to look like the Murray of yore, calmly anchoring the club until they found their legs.

Malkin and Kessel found their way back on the score sheet. Most of the damage they did to the visitors was together on the power play, but each picked up a point at regular strength on their stripped down lines. Near the end of the game, the crowd could be heard chanting “We want Phil” for a curtain call to get his hat trick. The Penguin bench obliged and gave the Penguin RW a chance at the hat trick but it was not to be.

Mike Sullivan was caught on camera calmly trying to coach rather than screaming at his troops. He had the dry erase board out, discussing something with Malkin after the Athanasiou goal. (I hope someone did the same thing with Määttä)

The media did seem to go out of its way to point out situations where Sullivan was actually coaching and to show some level of love or at least respect between Sullivan, Malkin, and Kessel. The amount of energy the media expended on this line does give even more credence to the fire storm created by the Pascal Dupuis interview. It would appear that in the aftermath someone upstairs may have had something to say.

To the teams credit everyone responded. A little more sun may be shining this morning.

Adversity builds character. Success does not build character. In this case I am not referring to on ice adversity, but off ice adversity. In the wake of Dupuis Gate, the resulting catharsis seems (from the camera’s eye point of view) to have had a positive affect. Let’s hope this was no illusion and they can keep it up against the top 1/3 of the league.

Go Pens!