The Penguins keep on Rollin’ out West

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.)