The Oilers slip by our Penguins

The good news – Matt Murray stole a point for our Pittsburgh Penguins. The bad news Mike Smith stole 2 points for the Edmonton Oilers. Our locals didn’t win but they didn’t lose either. They were able to keep the teams hounding them for that Wild Card spot at bay, even creating some distance on a couple of them.

Interestingly enough, in a game filled with offensive fire power, it was the Goalies that ruled the rink last night. Edmonton boasts 2 of the top 3 Goal (G) scorers in the league but was only able to score 1 G in regulation time and neither of those slick Oiler star players were on the ice at the time. Moreover, despite peppering Smith with 52 shots, the Penguins top dogs were held pointless. In fact, not only were the 4 top offensive players (2 from each team) absent from the ice when the 2 regulation Gs were scored, but Edmonton’s top 2 were on the ice for the G against and Sidney Crosby was on the ice with the Penguins top line of Dominik Simon and Jake Guentzel for the lone Edmonton regulation G as well.

Playing against NHL caliber goaltending certainly makes it a lot tougher, more realistic. Smith went into last night’s game with a Save Percentage of 0.919, a far cry better than Laurent Brossoit’s 0.842 or even Brian Elliott’s 0.904. Furthermore, Edmonton’s defense wasn’t just standing there giving Penguins’ forwards time and space to make moves. Even though our flightless fowl squeezed off 52 shots, they didn’t have that much time to look the net over but had to make quick decisions.

The 1st period ended scoreless with our Penguins holding a lopsided 18 – 8 shot advantage. It took until 7:21 of the 2nd frame to break the scoreless deadlock. Markus Granlund beat Crosby on a Face Off (FO) in his own Defensive Zone (DZ). Edmonton Defenseman Matt Benning beat Simon to the puck and gained enough separation to have enough space to find Colby Cave skating up ice. Benning hit Cave with a pass. Cave got up enough speed to get a half of a step to the corner on Marcus Pettersson and then he dipped his shoulder and powered passed the Penguin Defenseman. Shielding off Pettersson with his body, he cut across Murray’s crease and with tons of patience, waiting until he was back out the other side and Murray was sprawled on the ice trying to follow him across the crease, he lifted the puck into the net and the Visitors had their only regulation G and the lead.

That lead stood up until 13:14 of the 3rd period when the Penguins special teams leveled the score. With John Marino in the penalty box for hooking Connor McDavid, Brian Rust picked off an Oiler pass and sped up ice with Zach-Aston Reese on what looked like a 2-on-1. A trailing Edmonton defender caught up with the play and attacked the puck, while the other defender split wide to cut off a pass to Aston-Reese who was opening up for a possible 1-time shot. But the play went from 2-on-1, to 2-on-2, to 3-on-2. Brian Dumoulin jumped up into the play with the Edmonton defense spread wide and cut in between them for Rust to find and Dumoulin tickled the twine for the Short Handed G (SHG)

If any of you read the comments sections of this blog, you will have noted that our own Phil Krundle called out Aston-Reese as a top Penalty Kill (PK) man yesterday. Even though Aston-Reese didn’t get on the score sheet for that SHG, Penguin Winger really helped set it up, being Johnny on the spot, jumping up into that play.

Unfortunately, in Over Time (OT) the game quickly broke down into a run and gun game, odd man break after odd man break, with the Penguins gunners missing the net several times, recording only 1 shot with all of their chances. Edmonton, on the other hand challenged Murray 6 times, finally beating him on the final shot, final odd man break, by Oilers top gun Leon Draisaitl.

As much as I have criticized the Penguins’ defense in the past, it may be time to start looking at the forwards. The Penguins’ defensive corps limited Edmonton to 22 shots in regulation time. It wasn’t until OT that the Oilers approached their season average of 28.4 shots, tallying 6 in that extra frame.

Our boys in Black and Gold have 47 Gs in 14 games or 3.36 Gs per game. However, they only were able to net 1 last night in 52 shots. At first that may appear pretty odd and make you think that Mike Smith was stunning last night. Although when you consider that 28 of those 47 Gs came in 4 games, against backup or struggling Goalies (Elvis Merslikins, Brossoit, Devan Dubnyk, and Elliott), maybe it doesn’t seem so strange. In the 10 other games the Penguins have only scored 19 Gs, or 1.9 Gs per game. Maybe the team needs to be looking at a roster shake up in their forwards rather than their Defense.

Very recently, another blogger on a lesser site tried very much to make a case for our aquatic avians to go after Taylor Hall at the trade deadline. Hall is at the end of his contract and he and the New Jersey Devils haven’t really started to try and sign an extension. Furthermore, there are rumblings to the effect that Hall may be wanting out of that town. He has criticized his organization several times now. Said blogger suggests that means Ray Shero would probably trade him at the dead line for tons of assets, particularly if New Jersey is out of the playoff hunt as they now appear to be.

Hooks Orpik isn’t complaining about the Penguins forwards as I am, but he was just musing. However, I am not joining him in his suggestion. I am no fan of rent-a-players as Hall would more than likely be. It has been a long time since high profile rent-a-plyers really paid off. Add to that Hall’s media campaign; I for one don’t want a return to the Penguin/Kardashian antics of the last 2 seasons – Coaches and GM whining about players in the media with the respondent player return volley.

Furthermore, with another expansion draft coming up, it would be extremely problematic to trade away future assets for a rent-a-player.

I am saying, though, that the team shake up their forwards. A lone goal in 52 shots against a 37 year old Goalie doesn’t speak too highly of our shooters. Yes, they posted 7 goals, 4 times this year, against poor goaltending, as they should, but when confronted by NHL goalies, they are struggling.

Next Up the Boston Bruins and Tukka Rask, 7pm in Boston