Good night: Black, fearsome, grim and mighty
The Lead
The Penguins absolutely rolled over the Flyers tonight.
If you’re not going to pick up coverage on Evgeni Malkin for the rest of this series like you did tonight, you can call it a season in three more games.
Geno set up the Pens’ first goal and scored the third as Pittsburgh almost literally danced to a 4-1 at home over the Flyers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series (I saw Sid Crosby practicing the foxtrot in the tunnel, thus “literally”).
Malkin’s biggest contribution, of course, was on an own-zone breakdown from the Flyers that allowed the SECOND-BEST PLAYER ALIVE to find a few acres of open space and skate around Martin Biron like he wasn’t even there to bury a backhander and put the game firmly out of reach at 3-0. I mean, how do you lose a guy like Evgeni freakin’ Malkin? How do you give him any amount of space in what was, at the time, a relatively close game? If this was the Flyers’ gameplan (and I have no reason to suspect it wasn’t, given how the rest of the night shook out), this is going to turn ugly in a jiffy.
Apart from the final five minutes or so of the second period, the Flyers seemed to be playing back on their heels, unsure what to make of the Penguins’ surprisingly aggressive forecheck and physical game. Pittsburgh sure brought its lunchpails to the game tonight and worked the boards like a bunch of blue-collar day laborers instead of the higher-seeded team that was nigh-untouchable after Danny Bylsma took over. And if that’s going to be their attitude for the remainder of the series and, indeed, the playoffs, then the rest of the remaining 15 teams better stand up and take notice.
The Penguins came to play tonight and that should be a rather alarming turn of events for their opponents down the stretch. Their intensity was unmatched by any of the other seven teams that played tonight.
Elsewhere…
New York Rangers 4, Washington 3
One guy that’s living up to his reputation is this Jose Theodore fellow. Four goals against on 21 shots sounds just about right for Jose because, while he is slightly above average during the regular season, he seems to just completely crap the bed the second Game No. 83 rolls around. Seriously, four goals from the Rangers? Lookit these goalscorers: Gomez, Antropov, Naslund, Dubinsky. Two are well past their primes, one never had a prime, and one is Brandon Dubinsky. Jesus Christ, Theodore. You’re worse than the Rangers. Isn’t that sad?
New Jersey 4, Carolina 1
Hmm a team whose hopes rest on the shoulders of one Eric Staal. How’d that work out? Oh, 0-0-0, two shots, minus-1. Yeah that sounds about right. On the other side of the ice, of course, was Zach Parise, a player that has quietly worked his way into a permanent spot on the DNFW list, and Jamie Langenbrunner, both of whom had a goal and an assist. The moral of the story here is that I immediately regret picking the Hurricanes to win this series. They were simply awful tonight.
Vancouver 2, St. Louis 1
Low-scoring series, one supposes, and giving up two goals, both on re-directs (I don’t care what they say about Sami Salo’s quote-unquote goal, Steve Bernier got a piece of it) isn’t the worst way in the world to lose your team’s first playoff game in five years. The one thing I did learn from this game, though, is that this series is going to be an absolute pisser. I am very excited to see how it works out.
(P.S. I hope my rudimentary knowledge of written Russian made that picture/caption legible to all you Ruskies)
