Good night: That’s the way to light a fire under their asses
The Lead
New coach, same crappy Penguins.
Pittsburgh had a nice afternoon date with the dead-last Islanders and you’d've thought they’d come out skating hard and fast and using their copious skill to dominate the often-shaky New York defense. Gotta figure they’d prefer to have done better than a 3-2 overtime loss to the worst team in the NHL.
But, well, uh.. I dunno what happened. They only scored two goals in regulation on 37 shots but still allowed 30. Sid Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, despite having 50-plus minutes of combined ice time, totaled just two points.
All of which is to say that all of Dan Bylsma’s talk of the Penguins using their speed was sadly not taken to heart by his new charges, and it would appear that, even after one game, the team has not been suddenly shocked into playing what you’d call “well.”
Losing to the Islanders is tough to swallow at any point in the season, but when the team seemed so listless and more mediocre than it should have been, for any number of reasons (injuries, coaching, etc.), it’s tough to imagine why they wouldn’t be all fired up to kick the absolute hell out of the poor, unsuspecting Islanders.
But instead they didn’t score early, or even the first goal of the game, and they made Joey MacDonald look like Dominik Hasek. Great start to the new era. And what’s that? Therrien still thinks these clowns are going to make the playoffs?
No wonder they don’t let him coach in the NHL any more.
Elsewhere…
Dallas 3, Columbus 2 (SO)
RJ Umberger had two goals and Loui Eriksson had a goal and an assist, but the craziest part is that Marty Turco outdueled Steve Mason, making 41 saves on 43 shots and picking up a shootout win for the hot-of-late Stars. Who saw that coming?
St. Louis 2, New York Rangers 1
The best thing I can say about this hideous game is that BJ Crombeen scored late in the third period to prevent it from going to overtime. Thanks for that, Beej. Funny stat: The Rangers never put double-digit shots on net in any period, and finished the game with 20. Tom Renney’s gotta be next, right?
Ottawa 2, Nashville 0
The Sens keep winning. It’s funny because they’re 14 points back of the last playoff spot but are effectively playing themselves out of the Tavares/Hedman lottery as well. Stupid Sens can’t even tank a season correctly.
Edmonton 3, Phoenix 1
Horribly underwhelming game, not that I should expect scintillating action from the Oilers. I cannot have expected much from the Coyotes either, but I was hoping for better out of them. Can’t even beat the Oil, guys? Come on. You made Dwayne Roloson look like Joey MacDonald… 28 saves on 29 shots. Honestly.
Atlanta 7, Los Angeles 6 (SO)
Anze Kopitar’s second goal of the game came with five seconds left in the game to force overtime and earn the Kings a loser point, which is maybe more than they deserved. They’d been playing some great hockey lately but then gave up a touchdown to the friggin’ Thrashers. No stopping Ilya Kovalchuk some nights, I guess. He had two goals and a helper.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:37 am
The Sens will continue winning and overtake the Rangers on the last day of the season for the 8th spot. You read it here first. The Rangers will blow the home and home with Philly, and the Sens will beat the Devils in the second to last game since the Devils will have the Atlantic locked up and mail it in, and then Toronto will put the finishing touches on the Tank for Tavares by playing that girl goalie from NHL 09 in real life, and have no offensive threat after Antripov and Blake are traded at the deadline. Ottawa gets 2 points on Saturday night, the Rangers can save thier season by getting a W on Sunday against a Philly team that has nothing to play for, cemented in thier playoff spot. Of course they’ll get blown out.