How did that theme song go from that old TV show?
Oh yes;
“Keep rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them dogies rollin’, rawhide”
Yep, that’s our boys of winter, they keep on rollin’. They climbed up to Colorado last night and took 2 points off the Avalanche. It took our locals until Over-Time (OT) to do it, but they sent the home town team home a bit disappointed, with only 1 point for their night’s labor. Furthermore, despite those mile high boys going into the game leading the league in 5 on 5 Goals per 60 minutes (GF/60 of 3.14), it took them a Power Play Goal (PPG), a freak bounce, and a 6 on 5 Goal (G) for them to force that OT against our locals.
Nathan McKinnon opened up the scoring for the bad guys at the 14:38 mark of the 1st Period. After some chippy play and several potential penalties, Evgeni Malkin was sent to the sin-bin at 14:09 for slashing Gabriel Landeskog. The Avalanche got our Penguins skating around a bit in their own end after the Face-Off (FO). J.T. Compher outwork our Defense behind the goal line on Matt Murray stick side and bumped the puck over to Landeskog on Murray’s glove side. Landeskog dropped the puck back to Samuel Girard at the point. Girard found MacKinnon back on across ice on Murray’s stick side and the Penguin Goalie, who was up at the top of his crease on his glove side couldn’t get back across ice in time to stop the Rocky Mountain sniper.
Unlike some of the more recent games, our favorite flightless fowl couldn’t get the answering G right away. It took the Black and Goal (more royalties for you Jorenz) until 13:29 of the 2nd Period to get the equalizer. Erik Johnson tripped Bryan Rust and was given some time to think about his errors in the Penalty Box. The Avs Penalty Kill (PK) unit did manage to kill the penalty, but Teddy Blueger and company would not be denied. Like Colorado’s opening tally, our Pens had the Avs skating around, chasing the puck when a Marcus Pettersson point shot found its way back to John Marino on the opposite point. Marino looked the play over and fired a shot pass into the slot. Dominik Kahun (there’s that name again – he keeps popping up now that he is getting ice time), deflected the pass to Blueger and Blueger climbed the ladder over Pavel Francouz’s glove. The game was now tied.
The bad guys reclaimed the lead on an innocuous enough looking play. Landeskog flipped the puck into the Penguins zone, with only 1:40 left in the 2nd, toward the net. Murray was at the top of his crease, but the puck came fluttering down, maybe a foot or two in front of him. Murray had dropped down to his knees, looking to absorb the puck in his pads, but the puck is not a ball, it is a disc. It had a mind of its own. It took a sharp turn to the right and bounced back across the now helpless Penguin Goaltender and no doubt causing our own Rick Buker’s to put his hand on the left side of his chest and exclaim, “This is the big one, I’m comin’ Elisabeth, this is the big one.” In fear of a Penguin/Murray melt down.
Fortunately for all of us that was not the case (I’d hate to lose you, Rick).
It only took until 1:14 of the 3rd frame for Rust to pull aquatic avians back even. Kahun, once again started the play. He rushed the puck up ice and tried to back hand the puck across ice, but the big Russian, Malkin, the Center, that GM Jim Rutherford was quoted the other day as saying is only “playing pretty good” grabbed the loose puck and barreled into the attacking zone. He ripped a wrist shot from between the circles that Francouz couldn’t handle and a big fat rebound drifted high back up the slot. Rust scooped it up circled around, kept rollin’ and fired the biscuit 5-hole.
Then Malkin, himself, the player that Rutherford seems to think is just ok, kept rollin’ too. At 15:43 of that last period of regulation, the player who is 1st in the league in points per 60 minutes at 5 on 5, since November, when he came back from injury, but who is not only snubbed by the league but his own GM (and you wonder why I question Rutherford?) put the Penguins up to their first lead.
Kahun got the puck to Rust to breakout of the defensive zone. Rust flew through the neutral zone (did anyone else hear Romulan neutral zone when I wrote that?) before returning the puck to Kahun on the Right Wing (RW). Kahun, dropped the puck back to Malkin at the top of the RW circle while Rust barreled to the net. Malkin took maybe 2 strides and fired a wrist shot past the Rust-screened Francouz on the far side.
It looked like the deal was sealed. Despite giving up Buker’s Elisabeth G, Murray was playing very sharp. He had rejected 28 of 30 shots going into the last minute of play, and half of those shots were of the High Danger HD variety. The team also managed to kill off a late Rust penalty for delay of game when he accidentally flipped the puck out of play in his defensive zone. Unfortunately, Colorado is not exactly without their own fire power and Matt Calvert sent the game into OT with a marker at 19:29. The Avs fought hard to keep the play alive at the blue-line, worked the puck down low and then sent it back center point and Calvert redirected a shot into the net to steal 1 point for the home team.
OT was rather uneventful for the longest time as both teams circled and weaved, and changed lines quickly and often. They both were waiting for the other team to make a mistake. Finally, at 3:19, on only the 2nd shot of the extra frame, Jared McCann ended the suspense. Marino took the puck from Murray and fed Blueger for the breakout. Blueger skated it all the way up the wide open ice of 3 on 3 hockey. Cruising the RW, from the circle, the Penguins’ young Center found McCann between the circles and McCann, who owns a pretty nasty wrist shot of his own, potted the game winner, 5-hole.
And the Blank-n-Goal (Jorenz) kept on Rollin’
Go Pens!!!!!
Odds and Sods
Has anyone noticed, this Penguins team is 4th in the league; the league, not conference and they are 7th in the league in 5 on 5 Gs. They are thriving, not surviving. Stop it already with this stupid talk of they NEED to trade for some wingers. If the team was hanging around, sniffing for a wild card spot, I would agree, they are winning despite their injuries, but they are 4th in the league in the standing and 7th in scoring. Yes if you could get a Chris Kreider for Dominik Simon and/or Nick Bjugstad, more power to you Rutherford, but don’t screw this up.
All those players your Coach felt weren’t good enough to play at the beginning of the season are proving him wrong. Playing the safe bet of veterans Alex Galchenyuk and Dominik Simon in the top 6 is being exposed as stupid as Kahun and Rust are piling up numbers those 2 wish they were at least getting half. And weren’t you looking to deal Rust at the beginning of the season (until he got hurt?)
This team isn’t winning despite its injuries, this team is winning because of its injuries. It is coming together because of the adversity and its Coach is being forced to play the right players, not the falling into the same-old-same old that got him unceremoniously swept out of the playoffs last year. (Now if we could only get Simon out of the line-up. Wishful thinking I guess.)
The Other Rick
You have a tendency of speculating what JR’s intentions are when it comes
to trades / Free Agents. The media not Rutherford said he was trying to
trade Malkin, Rust etc….etc….. – if that came out of JR’s mouth I didn’t see
it and stand corrected.
Look Malkin is playing well but he also did the old Malkin imitation when he
took a bad penalty due to fatigue putting Colorado on the power play in which
they scored to go up 1-0 – Just laziness on his part.
The Other Rick I respect your opinion – i respect everyone’s opinion but you
become so bitter towards management you never give them their due. That’s
not kosher at all IMO. Right now Sullivan is Coach of the Year and Rutherford
possibly GM of the year. If it was up to you Kessel would still be in a Penguin
uniform and our Chemistry wouldn’t be worth a S_ _ T.
Although Galchenyuk has under achieved I would still make that trade every
time. If you want to look at numbers here we go.
Kessel 47 games 9g 18a 27pts TOI 17:38 ( -19 )
Gally 35 games 4g 10a 14pts TOI 12:30 ( – 2 )
You can’t just look at numbers – this has been addition by subtraction
without question. Throw the numbers away Galchenyuk has struggled
but he has a good work ethic and he’s coachable. Two areas where
Kessel came up short. You want to blame Sullivan for this. Kessel is
the same player for the Coyotes as he was for the Pen’s – total lack of
effort put forth on the defensive end.
You really need to quit playing the blame game when it’s with the
attempt to validate your argument – that’s the very same reason
why stats lie. When the Pen’s had issues it was Sullivan and JR’s
fault now that there playing unbelievable hockey and short handed
its because Sullivan has been forced to play some guys……Do you
know how ridiculous that statement is. Come on.
i also criticized JR in the off season but I’m also giving him credit
for the trades and signings he made. In a very short time he made
the Pen’s relevant again and a chance to make another run for the
cup. How can you deny that.
ps. You notice there hasn’t been one “issue” floating around about
Sully feuding with any one player………hmmmm interesting.
GO PENS
Mike,
When Sullivan 1st got here I was like everyone else, I bought into the allure. Winning has a way of making one not see the warts, of glossing over limitations. I understood so some degree when Sullivan was snubbed and didn’t get a Jack Adams nomination his 1st season when the team turned around and won the Cup. He hadn’t been here the whole season.
I was angry when he didn’t get a Jack Adams nomination the 2nd season when he was snubbed a 2nd time during the teams repeat Championship. It is hard enough to win one Cup but to win back-to-back Cups, I fumed. When the team was in position to 3-peat, I was irate when Sullivan was snubbed a 3rd time. Even though the team bowed out rather quickly after Sullivan denuded the team of its grit at the trade deadline, forcing Cole out, the Jack Adams is not based on playoff failures. Sully had the team within striking distance of a 3rd Cup.
However, during that off season, I took that hard look at trying to figure out why Sully didn’t even get a nomination and came to the realization that we Penguins fans allowed the love of our team to cloud our vision to some truths, Sully is not that good.
Tonight we will potentially get a chance to see if my comments about the team being 4th in the standings and 7th in scoring because of not despite of the injuries. We will get to see if Sully goes back to the same-old same-old and elevates pylon Simon to Crosby’s line.
Then when/if Bjugstad and Dumoulin comes back and no one else really gets injured we will see. We will see how much TOI Lafferty gets or if he is even in Pgh and not WBS and if Riikola sees the ice again or if maybe they are dealt away for a rental to appease the notion that high priced grass from over the hill is greener.
I do and have acknowledged that the Marino trade has turned out to be brilliant. I was all over the Maatta for Kahun trade. I loved it. But then when the team was fairly healthy at the beginning of the season, Sully had him wallowing on the bottom 6. If you go back and read some what I wrote, I was intrigued with the idea of having him on Malkin’s line with Guentzel on Crosby’s.
And my only real concern over the Tanev signing was the fear that JR would trade Rust to sign him. Fortunately, Rust was injured and he was able to sneak through the financial crunch that JR, himself had created.
There are so many people that run around making prediction after prediction and when 1 or 2 of them turn out right they say see, i told you so. JR makes move after move, whether it is warranted or not so of course some of his moves will turn out good.
Let’s look at other deals of his – signing Hunwick? Sundqvist and flipping our first round pick for St Louis 2nd round pick for Reaves and then trading Reaves for a 4th round pick and Tobias Lindberg, Trading Cole, Gustavsson, and a 3rd round pick for Brassard, Dunn, and a 3rd round pick, Trading for Oleksiak and then trading him back, Haglin for Pearson, then attempting to trade to get Haglin back only to find out we couldn’t since we retained some salary (and you wonder why I don’t think DeSmith really lost his passport?), trading Pearson for Gudbranson and then sending Gudbranson to Anaheim for Martinsen and a 7th round pick. Signing Antti Niemi, Derek Grant and then trading him for Blandisi, signing McKegg and then trading him for Jooris
Do I really need to go on?
JR is a poke and hope GM and I have more than a reasonable fear that he will monkey around with the trams make-up at the trade deadline and screw it up
again.
BTW although I did reconcile myself to getting Reaves, have you looked at the player I wanted the team to pick in that draft with the 1st pick that they traded, Nicolas Hague? He has played 34 games this season with Vegas and is averaging 8 hits and 3 blocks per 60 minutes of 5 o 5. The player JR selected with the 2nd round pick is out of hockey. Sundqvist 5 hits and 2.5 blks, with 0.6 goals per 60 and 1.2 assists and the Pens have nothing, Reaves is gone, Lauzon is gone and the player the team got for Reaves is gone, Lindberg.
Bitter, no, not bitter, frustrated, frustrated at self inflicted wounds.
The Other Rick
To summarize – JR has made mistakes like every other GM in
Pro Sports – Sully has done the same just like many Coaches in
Pro Sports.
The difference here is they realize a mistake has been made and go
to work to rectify it. 99.9% of our population has no idea what goes on in
a Pro teams front office. There are so many variables that go into Free
Agency / Trades.
About Sullivan your right he’s not a good coach but a great one – every
one in Hockey acknowledges that. The only reason Sullivan doesn’t get
any votes for the Jack Adams award is because he has two of the best
players in the league on his team (Crosby & Malkin) – That’s why this
year he’ll be in the mix (both have been injured).
Also, when the team is healthy both Lafferty and Riikola should be sent
to WBS or to the press box. Neither is ready for the playoff grind. I’m a
fan of both but they’re not ready.
Simon – I’m not a fan and for me you can put a mannequin on Crosby’s
wing and he’ll make the guy look good.
I do know this everyone is calling for a trade which I firmly disagree
with – One wrong move and it could screw up the unbelievable chemistry
this team possesses.
One more point – You do know GM’s don’t make moves, trades or sign
players without the recommendation of their Pro or Amateur Scouts?
JR is not doing this without confirmation from those individual.