Penguins Fall To Bolts In Preseason Action

Matt Bodenschatz | Pittsburgh Penguins

Sep 21, 12:14 AM | Hype this story!
1 2 3 OT SO Tot.
0 3 1 0 2 2
 
Tot. 1 2 3 OT SO
5 1 1 2 0 0
 
Summary
With a near-complete roster, tonight’s preseason opening game against the Tampa Bay Lightning projected to be a sure-fire victory for the Pittsburgh Penguins, but the Bolts had a different plan in mind.

The highly-penalized game featured goal swapping primarily in the second and third periods that ultimately led to overtime and then shootout.

Unfortunately for the Penguins, they didn’t have it at the end, as both Miroslav Satan and Evgeni Malkin were blanked on their attempts, while Jussi Jokinen and Steven Stamkos buried their shots.

And, unfortunately for the Lightning, their season looks to be so disappointing that, as the announcer said, this was a "big, big win for Tampa Bay."  Apparently he wasn’t informed that the preaseason has little meaning.

And, lastly, unfortunately for me, I was unable to attend the game for varying reasons, despite having tickets.  So my above summary was limited to the very little I heard via the Penguins web site live audio stream.

Now to the stats…
 
Three Stars
# Player Team Pos. Stats
1 Bochenski TB RW 2G, 1A
2 Sykora Pit RW 2G
3 Jokinen TB LW 2A
 
Stat Line
  Shots Faceoffs Power Plays
  1 2 3 OT Total Won Lost Converted Total
Pittsburgh 9 12 8 1 30 37 37 2 9
Tampa Bay 10 9 9 2 30 37 37 0 5
 
Scoring Summary
Per. Time Team Goal Assist Assist
1 0:51 Pit Staal Malkin Lovejoy
2 3:50
7:06
8:40
15:18		 TB
TB
TB
Pit		 Niskala
Smith
Bochenski
Sykora (PP)		 Bochenski
Smaby
Smolenak
Satan		 Jokinen
–
Jokinen
Staal
3 10:11
17:07
18:41		 Pit
Pit
TB		 Sykora (PP)
Crosby (SH)
Bochenski		 Pesonen
–
Niskaka		 -
–
–
OT - - - - -
SO -
–
–
– 		Pit
TB
Pit
TB		 Satan – no
Jokinen – yes
Malkin – no
Stamkos – yes		 -
–
–
– 		-
–
–
–
 
Penalty Summary
Per. Time Team Player Penalty
1 3:34
11:54
11:54
18:17		 TB
Pit
TB
Pit		 Craig
Godard
Koci
Beech		 hooking – 2 min
fighting – 5 min
fighting – 5 min
hooking – 2 min
2 1:46
4:05
4:05
4:40
5:05
9:05
13:33
14:45
18:02		 Pit
TB
Pit
Pit
TB
Pit
TB
TB
TB		 Lovejoy
Konopka
Stone
Orpik
Hutchinson
Godard
Ward
Mihalik
Mihalik		 interference – 2 min
fighting – 5 min
fighting – 5 min
interference – 2 min
holding – 2 min
cross check – 2 min
roughing – 2 min
hooking – 2 min
delay of game – 2 min
3 4:59
5:36
6:52
8:42
12:51
12:51		 TB
Pit
TB
TB
Pit
Pit		 Smokenak
Crosby
Artyukhin
Smith
Beech (Taffe)
Beech		 hooking – 2 min
slashing – 2 min
roughing – 2 min
hooking – 2 min
boarding – 5 min
game misconduct – 10 min
OT - - - -

Comments

  1. Alex Kirshner

    Sep 21, 08:39 AM

    Matt,

    How funny was this Mishkin announcer from TB?

    I can’t even remember how many times he heart my eardrums after a routine save. When Stamkos won it in the SO, I muted my computer for a few seconds while he was coming in on net.

    He’s just awful.

    I also came away very optimistic that Jordan Staal will be a great winger this year. He sounded like a beast all game long. Sykora and Miro the Hero sounded pretty good too.

  2. Todd

    Sep 21, 11:44 AM

    Who did Beech board?

  3. Matt Bodenschatz

    Sep 21, 11:55 AM

    Alex, I only caught the tail end of the game, and in that time, I thought I recognized his voice. Now that you mention his last name, it rings a bell. I believe his first name is Dave, and if so, he was a former play-by-play announcer for the Johnstown Chiefs.

    He was pretty bad.

    Todd, I’m not certain. My streaming audio was acting up throughout the game and I missed a great deal of it. No one seems to have mentioned the victim, which leads me to believe he wasn’t hurt, thankfully.

  4. Detective Dan

    Sep 21, 01:29 PM

    I would still love to hear an explanation on how Tampa’s third goal counted. The dude slid into Fleury feet first and some how the puck ends up in the net. Ridiculous.

  5. Matt Bodenschatz

    Sep 22, 07:12 PM

    Already the cynicism and just one (preseason) game has been played.

    From Eric Majeski’s game review.

    “Coming into camp, I believed Sydor still had some game left. Tonight cemented that in my mind. Sure, if you just look at the stats, you see his -2 and think he had a bad night. This game was an example where the stats are misleading. On one goal against, a penalty had expired seconds before. On another, the goal scorer slid into the Fleury, and took him out. The third was a stoppable shot. If you actually watched him play, you saw a positionally sound guy making the right play way more often than not. His passing game is still pretty good, which is huge for a team with a group of forwards like the Pens have and he supports his defense parter very, very well.”

    The Penguins went to the Stanley Cup Finals in part because of solid coaching and management decisions, in part because of depth, and in part because of superstars.

    While the team is one superstar short of last year, the depth and the coaching remains the same.

    Why don’t we wait a bit — and actually see some games — before we start criticizing certain players?

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