I’d like to give full credit for the Penguins’ surprising season-opening 6-2 swamping of Tampa Bay to my esteemed colleague, Other Rick. You see, yesterday at Wright’s Gym he wagered a gym member a cup of coffee that our Pens wouldn’t score more than six goals in their first four games sans Sidney Crosby.
While I wasn’t in full agreement, I wasn’t expecting a deluge of goals, either. In fact, I predicted we’d lose to the two-time defending Cup champs, 4-1.
Fortunately, the reverse PenguinPoop curse is alive and well…lol.
Desperately undermanned, our patchwork Pens pulled together and played a near flawless road game. Granted, the Lightning weren’t striking…a meager 15 shots on goal through two mostly somnambulant periods. The epitome of a team nursing a Stanley Cup hangover, not to mention one that bled off an outstanding third line during the offseason. But give our boys…Mike Sullivan and the coaching staff included…full credit. Skating with surprising cohesiveness and attention to detail, we dominated the action for nearly a full 60 minutes.
David slayed Goliath.
The Pens set the tone from the outset, ringing up a 14-7 edge in first-period shots on goal while controlling the territorial play. We snatched the lead on the opening shift of the second period, thanks to a hustling play by Jeff Carter, who intercepted a lazy clearing attempt by the usually redoubtable Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. Carter promptly dished the biscuit to newcomer Danton Heinen, who arrived as Johnny-on-the-spot to wire the puck home.
Four minutes later ex-Lightning forward Brian Boyle rambled down the slot. Taking a picture-perfect pass from Sam Lafferty in stride, the big guy beat Vasilevskiy like Mike Lange’s proverbial rented mule through the five hole. Two-nothing Pens.
We nearly expanded our lead midway through the period, but the harried Lightning netminder blunted a great chance by Jason Zucker off a slick setup from Kasperi Kapanen. With Heinen in the box, the Pens managed to short-circuit the fearsome Lightning power play and hold serve entering the third period.
Could we possibly hang on and pull off an upset?
Yes.
At 11:32 of the final frame, Dominik Simon spun off the boards and flicked a harmless-looking shot from long range that somehow picked its way through traffic and into the net. Proving once again that good things happen when you shoot the puck.
Stunned that the much-maligned winger had actually scored, I was reminded of a Bill Murray line from Ghostbusters…”Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.” But I digress.
Desperate to light any kind of fire under his sleepwalking troops, Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper yanked Vasilevskiy for an extra attacker with six minutes remaining. His move worked…sort of…as Anthony Cirelli scored to spoil Tristan Jarry’s shutout bid and close the gap to 3-1. However, Teddy Blueger promptly countered with an empty-netter to restore our three-goal cushion.
Two minutes later the Lightning struck again on a goal by Alex Killorn. For the first time I began to feel uneasy…that Jarry might unravel a la Game 6 of the Islanders series last spring. But Cooper kept Vasilevskiy tethered to the bench and the Lightning net empty and our guys kept filling it, with Evan Rodrigues and Bryan Rust doing the honors. Putting the finishing touches on a delicious season-opening win.
With an assist from Other Rick!
Puckpourri
The Pens outshot the Lightning, 35-28. The defending Cup champs held a slight edge in the faceoff circle (51 percent) and in hits (31-28).
Jarry stopped 26 of 28 shots, good for a .929 save percentage.
Embracing a total team concept, six different Pens scored goals and a dozen tallied at least a point. Kris Letang paved the way with two points (both assists) while logging a team-high 25:16 of ice time.
The line of Blueger, Simon and Brock McGinn was very effective. The trio combined for two goals, nine shots on goal (four by Simon) and five hits (a game-high four by McGinn).
Not to be outdone, the Heinen-Carter-Rust combo unleashed eight shots on goal, as did the Zucker-Rodrigues-Kapanen unit. Drew O’Connor, Boyle and Lafferty tallied four shots on goal. Again, credit to Sullivan and his staff for deploying balanced line combinations.
Speaking of “Sully,” congrats to the Pens’ skipper. He tied Dan Bylsma for the most regular-season wins in franchise history with 252.
Mark Friedman replaced injured Mike Matheson on defense and registered two shots, two hits and two blocked shots in 14:07 of ice time.
Next up for the black and gold…the Florida Panthers on Thursday night.
lol thanks tOR,
Just to fix a little bit, it was Simon that forechecked a Tampa player into the boards then forced the puck out to McGinn from between two Tampa Bay defenders. But it probably was a very lazy forecheck because Simon was probably extremely lazy on the backcheck. The puck didn’t hit a thing even though the announcer said it did. It was just a wobbly wrister.
I have no problem with Simon on the 4th line especially with Crosby and Malkin out. He should be odd man out once they are back.
Hey Phil,
No problem, I was glad to critique the goal. I did go back to watch the replay to see where you saw Simon throwing a check and lo and behold you were right, Simon did throw an excuse me check/glancing blow on some Bolt defender, the video was to fuzzy to catch the TB players number. However, the defender shrugged the check off rather easily (as you noted, it wasn’t a very effective check). When the Bolt started up ice McGinn raced in and broke up an outlet pass attempt that ended up back at the point on Letang’s stick.
Sorry, I just calls ’em likes I sees ’em.
You’re are right, I don’t like Simon. I want him out of Pittsburgh. I can agree and must agree with a lot of what you wrote below, but on Simon, no. He doesn’t have the offensive skill set to play top 6, he panics and rushes his shot or pass, he gave the way the puck on the break in during the last Red Wing preseason game, trying to force it to a covered Boyle, rather than skate with it himself, or dump it deep. That gaffe resulted in and ENG. Last night, with all the time and space in the world, he whirled around and threw the puck blindly at the net. He just got a lot of puck luck. And he doesn’t have the physical presence to play bottom 6, he becomes at best a pylon for opponents to skate around.
If you try and argue that he tries, I may accept that, but he just always seems a day late and a dollar short when the rubber hits the pavement; just like that attempted check in the corner of the Goal he scored last night. If you want to call him Brian Piccolo to Sidney Crosby’s Gale Sayers in the true life story “Brian’s Song”, or Robert Di De Niro to Crosby’s Michael Moriarty in the movie “Bang the Drum slowly” okay, but I would rather give Ice time to a kid who may develop rather than a 27 year old who is at best at his peak (if that is what you want to call what he has done the last 2 seasons) if not declining. There may be a slight benefit of using this veteran over some of the kids in WBS in the short term but long term it hurts the team.
If the team really believes it is still a serious Cup contender, then these first 4 or 5 games really shouldn’t matter all that much, so NHL TOI for a rookie can only make them better if injuries cause a need come playoff time.
If the team is afraid that these games are that important, then the time is past for retool time and it is time to evaluate kids against NHL level talent while playing with what is left of their NHL level talent, to see which ones are worth keeping around.
Either way, a 27 year old journeyman only wastes precious time on this team.
Quick Update, Pens just sent Angello down and brought POJ up. That injury to Matheson may have been a little more serious than just a game.
Hey Rick,
Thanks for crediting me for the win, after all, as we know, it isn’t what the players do on the ice that determines the outcome of the game, but the superstitions we fans hold. However I do think our readers deserve the full story. Just as everyone on this site knows my feelings on Simon, so do most people I know. I can’t figure out how they know, after all, I do try to keep my feelings and opinions to myself. So most people, just like you, love to bring up Simon to me (Mind you I am not accusing you of putting them up to it.) So Rick and my friend Mark started with his Simon jabs. So I fired back that I though, given the quality of Goalie opponents the team faced in the first 4 games, that there was 4% or 5% that the Pens did not score at all in those games. He wanted to bet me on that. Four or Five Percent isn’t good enough odds for me to bet on so we haggled and I settled on 6 as the top end.
No for the kicker, our friend Mark Called it. He predicted the Pens win 6 – 2. Go Mark!!!
In my defense, if Cooper doesn’t pull his Goalie with a month left in the game, the Pens do not get 3 ENGs and it ends up only a 3 – 1 or 3 – 2 game. Also if Vasilevskiy does pull a Samsonov, leading to Heinen’s goal, that game may be totally different – Puck luck! Take it and don’t brag else she goes away.
And now for Phil (I sort of promised my play-by-play of Simon’s goals and in case I don’t get another chance.
Brock McGinn forechecked hard against the Bolts defenders and was able to get the puck back to Kris Letang at the right point. Letang drifted a little towards center point opening up some ice along the Right Wing (RW) board. He then slipped a pass back to the RW boards to Dominik Simon, who was stationed in his favorite position, safe, away from the traffic, outside, on the perimeter. While he was wide open along the boards, rather than skate in, where the traffic was, Simon lazily tossed the puck toward the net, even though there was no one around him and he could have had lunch, teeing the puck up for a laser beam shot. Fortunately for the Black-and-Gold, Teddy Blueger drove the net with Taylor Raddysh draped all over him. With their combined bodies they blocked the Bolt Goalie from seeing anything. Standing tall, Vasilevskiy was trying to see over the bodies in front of him when Simon’s lame duck shot floated in toward the net. After appearing to change directions (possibly hitting Raddysh’s shin guards) downward the puck found itself at Vasilevskiy’s feet. Hitting the Goalies leg pads, the puck snuck under the big Russian and into the net.