-This was a tough one. Really, really tough.
-Brent Johnson did not have his best game. He gave up two pretty soft goals that gave the Pens no chance of coming back. I did, however, notice that he got up kind of slowly after making a save half way through the third period. No excuses, just sayin’.
-I love the confidence Malkin is playing with. He had a great first period where he was absolutely flying and that goal? Wow. The rest of the game—yeah, he was good and I love the confidence but I didn’t really like what I saw. He turned the puck over numerous times after crossing the Ranger’s blue line because he tried getting too fancy and sometimes even attempted to do a nice move around one, two, or three guys. Again, I love the confidence, but there’s a fine line from making a skilled play and getting away from the game plan (Penguins hockey). Geno really flirted with that line tonight. Either he figures out a happy medium between the two and starts to dominate again or we’ll probably start seeing the Geno of last season.
-Crosby played a pretty good game, I thought. He’s just doing all the dirty work right now, but I think him not shooting is a problem. With Geno on line 1, there’s a different makeup. On the usual line one, Sid, Dupes, and Kuni all lead a rush out of their own zone with one of the wingers carrying the puck out and the other winger speeding ahead. This, more often than not, leads to some open space for Sid to take the puck as he crosses the blue line and shoot or make a pass or start a cycle. With Geno on the first line and Kuni out, Sid is leading the charge out of the zone and making that pass to Malkin speeding ahead. Like I said above, Geno is trying to do too much and didn’t keep it simple at certain points tonight. Sid would pass it to him but he’d turn it over while Sid was crashing the net, which is where most of Sid’s shots come from. This isn’t Geno’s fault, though. Sid, as the best player in the world, should be able to adjust. Then again, like I said, Geno didn’t exactly play Pens hockey for a lot of the night.
-Even still, Sid and Geno looked pretty good together at times. The guy who really is hurt by this change is Dupuis. Did anyone notice him out there? Yeah, I didn’t until the first line finally got a cycle going.
-We’re seeing how valuable Kunitz is to the top line right now.
-I really liked what I saw from the other three lines tonight. The played Penguins hockey—they grinded it out. They gave us the momentum to score that first goal.
-The defense absolutely collapsed tonight. I just don’t know what else to say.
-I was impressed with Letang and Michalek. Michalek looked like he was ready to score a goal tonight. And Letang…it’d be a very big waste of talent if DB didn’t give the green light to the Pens D to join the rush and pinch. Let’s just leave it at that.
-Lovejoy does not look like and NHL defenseman. I would love to know why the coaching staff keeps giving him a spot in the lineup; he’s gotten chance after chance to prove himself and he’s failed miserably every time. To top it all off, he and Goose do not work together. They just don’t.
-If the refs don’t waive off that “goaltender interference” that wasn’t goaltender interference, it’s a 2-0 game for the Pens and has a completely different complexion. Enough is enough. Too many good goals have been waived off because this call isn’t reviewable. I know that, at the end of the day, the refs just want to get the call right. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have reviews already. You think that ref wasn’t thinking about what a huge call he screwed up after the game? I’m sure he would’ve loved to have seen a replay and been corrected.
-Congrats to Sid on extending his point streak to 20 games. The stache is staying at least until next Monday night.
-Tough one to take tonight. I missed 24/7, but I did catch the last 16 minutes of it and just that made the Pens loss a little better. We’ve got a long wait until the next game. Hopefully, the Pens will be ready to go.
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