You would think in the wake of the Penguins’ 11-2 evisceration of Detroit yesterday afternoon at PPG Paints Arena that I’d be bursting at the seams with superlatives. While there certainly was plenty get excited about…especially the way we rebounded from a truly stinko effort against the Rangers on Friday night…it doesn’t change my overall opinion of the team or erase my concerns.
I guess you could say my esteemed colleague, Other Rick, is rubbing off on me.
For one, the game was played at a snail’s pace. To my eye, neither club displayed much hop…the visitors even less than us. I wrote recently that when you give our guys time and space to make plays, we’ll kill you. And that’s essentially what happened. Our foes offered little in the way of stiff checking or any other form of resistance. Add in the fact that goalies Alex Nedeljkovic and Calvin Pickard didn’t exactly bring their ‘A’ games?
It was pretty much a cake walk.
Still, the first period gave scant indication of the turkey shoot to come. Four minutes in Danton Heinen nudged a pass from Jeff Carter to Kasperi Kapanen curling through the slot. Kappy made a nifty against-the-grain move to draw Nedeljkovic out of his cage and slip the puck into a yawning net for his 11th goal of the campaign.
With just over four minutes remaining in the period the fourth line pitched in. Brian Boyle ran over Moritz Seider in the Pens’ zone, causing the puck to pop loose to Radim Zohorna. Big Z settled the biscuit and took off on a 2-on-1 with Teddy Blueger. The towering Czech placed a perfect pass onto his linemate’s stick and Blueger did the rest, beating Nedeljkovic top shelf to make it 2-0.
The Pens then exploded for four goals in just over six minutes at the outset of the second period to turn the game into a rout. Evgeni Malkin struck on the power play at 1:48, followed in rapid succession by a shorty from Carter at 3:18 and another man-advantage tally by Bryan Rust at 5:57.
With the crowd already abuzz, Malkin capped the scoring blitz at 7:53 with an absolutely brilliant goal. A vintage Geno goal. Taking a drop pass from Rust at the left point, the big Russian wove some stickhandling magic as he evaded Red Wing forwards Sam Gagner and Adam Erne before torching Nedeljkovic with a blistering shot from the slot.
With a 6-0 lead, you could excuse our guys for coasting a bit. Dylan Larkin and Jakub Vrana countered for the Red Wings. For a few uneasy moments, I had a sinking feeling that we might let the visitors back in the game.
My angst lasted for a little over a minute, or as long as it took for Evan Rodrigues to set up Sidney Crosby for a period-ending goal that had the general effect of slamming the door on a potential Red Wings rally.
We proceeded to pour it on in the final 20 minutes as Heinen, Boyle, Malkin and newcomer Rickard Rakell lit the lamp to run the final score to 11-2.
Great to see so many guys get on the scoresheet and perhaps boost their confidence a bit. But as much as I’d like to celebrate, I’ll reserve judgment until I see how we handle the Rangers tomorrow night.
Puckpourri
It was a whacky game statistically. Detroit held a rather commanding 69-55 edge in shot attempts. Shots on goal were even at 35-apiece. The Pens held the advantage in scoring chances (34-31) and high-danger chances (18-13).
All but two black-and-gold skaters (Brian Dumoulin and Marcus Pettersson) collected at least one point. Malkin led the cavalcade of scorers with three goals and an assist to earn top-star honors. It was Geno’s 13th career hat trick.
Third star Rakell tallied a goal and two assists, as did Blueger (No. 2 star), Crosby and Rust. Kris Letang garnered three assists. Carter and Heinen each had a goal and a helper. John Marino and Zohorna recorded two assists apiece.
Rodrigues reached the 40-point plateau with an assist. Dumoulin finished a plus-five. He leads the team on the season with a plus-23. In a fitting case of symmetry, Tristan Jarry made 33 saves to earn his 33rd win.
The 11-goal outburst is most scored by the Pens during the CONSOL Energy Center/PPG Paints Arena era. The Pens reached a dozen goals on two occasions: a 12-1 destruction of Washington on March 15, 1975 and a 12-1 hiding of Toronto on December 26, 1991.
With the victory, the Pens (40-17-10, 90 points) maintain a tenuous hold on second place in the Metro, one point ahead of tomorrow night’s foe, the Rangers, and three behind front-running Carolina.
Hey Rick,
You could a lot worse than listen to me.
Before agreeing with you, I do want to talk about what I saw that I liked.
Kapanen and Malkin scored 2 of the prettiest goals of the season.
Rakell played another great game. He does something no one has done since Hornqvist, he goes to the front of the net and takes the Goalies eyes away on a regular basis. I honestly think he tipped that Malkin shot (like you said down the gym) but he didn’t seem to complain about it.
And despite all of the negatives I can come up with, I will give the boys credit, 11 Gs in one game in the NHL isn’t that easy. I will give them that.
Now for agreeing with you, Rick;
If not for Jarry, Detroit may have given us a run for our money. Opponents were still getting behind our D with regularity. And, Detroit must have been watching the NYR game, did you see their goalie try and pull a Shesterkin and throw a long lead pass behind the Pens “D”? If anything happens to him, we could still not make the playoffs.
Yes, Detroit gave our Penguins tons of time and space.
Detroit was also coming in on the back end of back-to-back series.
Hey Other Rick,
I do think Rakell’s going to help us. He’s got decent size (6’1″ 195) and has registered over 100 hits in a season on a couple different occasions. Plus he can skate and shoot and, as you pointed out, he goes to the net.
If he clicks with Geno? That would be huge.
A quicky tidbit. Zohorna is a plus-11 in 16 games.
Rick
Would love to see Zohorna get more TOI, but if I were a betting man, I would thing Big Z is headed back to WBS as soon as Zucker and McGinn get back. Maybe that would be a good thing (to have that kind of depth), but I would still rather see him squeezed in somewhere. Maybe for E-Rod (since E-Rod really isn’t a bottom 6 guy)
Hey Rick & TOR,
Like TOR, my big take was wow does Rakel open up the room on Malkin’s line. He was drawing Detroit’s D to the front of the net opening up ice all the while providing a great screen. As long as Rakel will do it against the bigger D teams, this will be huge for the team.
I’m pretty positive he didn’t tip the Malkin shot, but he was definitely the biggest factor in that lines ability to do what it did.
I noticed during the Islander playoffs last year Carter really opened up the ice for Kapanen using a center drive. While the other lines didn’t seem to be able to break through.
Teach anyone big and willing to do that on Crosby’s line and Let him and Gentzel do their stuff also.
Hey Phil,
I love the center drive and the way Carter more often than not just takes the puck and goes straight to the net. It forces the other team’s defense to react and, as you noted, opens up space. Wish we had more guys that do that. As a team, we tend to take the puck down the wall. Perhaps an easier entry, but in my book not as effective.
Rick
Hey Rick,
The biggest problem with the Penguins entry is the whole league knows what they will do as well. Some don’t care, figuring, and rightly so, that perimeter hockey is ineffective, particularly during playoffs.
And that is also why the Center drive is so effective for the Pens, nobody really expects it from them. It will take a while for teams to adjust their thinking if we get more players doing that. And when the league finally starts to adapt, that will open up the perimeter entry as well.
Hey Phil,
I would love to see the Pens find a Carter or Rakell type player to put with Crosby. I am not sure the team has someone that can be brought up to speed this season to fill that role. Maybe Zucker, when he gets back, but Sullivan has never really deployed Zucker with Crosby. Zohorna may be another candidate to try but, although I have seen him go to the net, I can’t think of a time when he drove in on an entry. A couple other guys in WBS may have the size but again I am not sure if they have that in their game, to drive the center on entry.
Next season though, from what little I have seen of Jordan Frasca (in his highlights), he may fit that bill. However, like all prospects he is a crap shoot.
Also, it looks as though Hextall is looking for players with that make up, so maybe he will find one somewhere