The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

Chris Osgood could learn something from Rob Scuderi: don’t let the rebounds get too far in front of you.

While the former gave up the game’s first goal because he let Jordan Staal’s shot on a 2-on-1 get pretty well near the faceoff dot (plenty of room for Staal to corral the rebound and put it past him to draw first blood), Scuderi went into a butterfly nice enough to make Patrick Roy smile and stopped not one, not two, but three extra-attacker shots from Johan Franzen before Marc-Andre Fleury finally covered the puck. Detroit fans better hope Ozzie was taking notes from the bench. Stick save, kick save (and a beauty!), toe save.

And here’s how you know Rob Scuderi had a good game beyond that: he was credited with a hit and four blocked shots tonight. And, despite making those three actual saves on Franzen, was credited with just one inside of a minute to go. Translation: he stopped at least six shots from getting to the net. And in a 2-1, back-against-the-wall Game 6 victory after his team got curbstomped on Saturday, that’s pretty goddamn good.

But even beyond Scuderi’s third-period contribution (he and D partner Hal Gill, who blocked two shots of his own, were seemingly omnipresent for the final 15 minutes or so), the Pens also got a massive, massive game from Brooks Orpik, Scuderi’s old runnin’ buddy at Boston College, where they played three years together and won a national title in 2001.

Orpik, who apparently is never one to be outdone by an old college buddy, only turned in six blocked shots and four hits. It wasn’t exactly the Free Candy game (seven hits, four blocked shots, and yeah, I looked it up) all over again, but it was close enough.

And together, the former Eagles positively silenced the two guys that had given them hell during Game 5 in Detroit: Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. The prior game, you’ll recall, saw the two European superstars combine for a goal and three assists, a plus-3 rating, and eight shots. It was a resoundingly loud performance from a pair that seemed intent on closing the series out as soon as possible. But in this game, where three of the four defensemen charged with silencing the Red Wings’ best players were Americans (damn you, Gonchar!), the Swede and the Ruskie were nearly whisper quiet, combining for no points, a minus-2 and six shots.

But that was the difference between Game 5 and tonight: the Penguins got back to what good Canadian — well, North American — boys do: take the game to the boards and just beat the hell out of their opponents. Don Cherry (or his American equivalent (George W Bush?)) would be so, so proud. The Penguins ruled the dashers with an iron fist and in fact board control led directly to the game-winning goal by Tyler Kennedy.

It was interesting, too, that while the Sid Crosbys and Evgeni Malkins tried to play the game through open ice, much like Zetterberg and Datsyuk, they, too, were rendered largely ineffective in their own right. Dan Bylsma, undoubtedly playing with the benefit of being up a goal for close to 39 minutes, saw this and was able to adjust. He leaned heavily upon the role players in the third period and, to his credit, the plan worked.

In all, the Pens blocked 20 shots and doled out 35 hits. There’s going to be a lot of black-and-blues at the morning skate tomorrow, but they’re fine with it, I’m sure. Because at least there is a tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 12:40 am and is filed under Good night. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.