Faceoff Factor

After over a week off the Pittsburgh Penguins opened the 2nd round of the playoffs versus the New York Rangers.  The Penguins seemed to come out a little flat from their layoff, while the Rangers didn’t look like a team with fresh and ready legs, they did look better than the Penguins.  However, it still seemed as if the Pens were getting the chances early on, that was until a powerplay goal by Marty Straka took the life out of their attack and gave the Rags a 1-0 lead.  Chris Drury and the annoying pest Sean Avery cashed in early in the 2nd to extend the lead to 3-0, all but leaving the fans heading for the gates with more than 1/2 a game to play.  The energy seemed to be gone from the crowd and at times, the Penguins.  That was until Pittsburgh’s Jarkko Ruutu and Pascal Dupuis scored goals within 14 seconds to make it a 1 goal game.  

From that point on, the Penguins were a different team.  They seemed to find that "game" and "tenacity" they had against Ottawa and let it carry over through the 3rd period when Marian Hossa scored to tie it up, giving the Pens 3 unanswered goals of their own.  Then, Evgeni Malkin showed amazing creativity when he fed Petr Sykora through the goal crease for a tap-in, to give Pittsburgh it’s first lead of the game.

It took the Rangers 5 minutes to answer that goal with one of their own, and with the score tied 4-4 and time winding down on a crazy back and forth game, the Penguins got a late powerplay chance, their 5th of the night.  So far into the evening their units had mustered little, but that changed when Sidney Crosby took a pass from Whitney and rifled it to the net, deflecting off Evgeni Malkin and into the goal.

This was one of the games that when looking back, these teams will be able to constantly find mistakes, bad passes, bad bounces, and missed opportunities, like the crossbar at the end of the game by the Rangers, or the one earlier in the game by Sykora.  But, in the end, it was playoff hockey, with neither team forfeiting, no one giving up, and everyone battling hard until the final buzzer.  The Rangers seemed to have it wrapped up with a 3-0 lead and Lundqvist looking unbeatable, but when the Penguins finally dented the scoreboard, the flood gates opened, and it was an all out race to the finish line.

Next Game:  Sunday @ 2PM in Pittsburgh.