Pittsburgh Penguins

Pens Go 1-1 Over Weekend

Things have been rather hectic for myself over the last few days so this will be relatively short as well.

I’m happy with the weekend’s results for the most part.

The 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings was what I expected in that game. The Kings are not a team the Penguins should lose to. They showed up and competed and got the valuable two points in the standings.

The lone goal given up by the Pens can’t really be blamed on anyone on the ice. It was a 5-on-3 powerplay goal on a bomb by Drew Doughty that was tipped by Michal Handzus.

The blame here will go on the two guys in the penalty box. In this case, Mark Eaton and Jordan Staal took minor penalties 20 seconds apart that eventually set up this goal.

All around I was happy with the performance in this game and even Sunday’s 3-1 loss to the hated Flyers.

The Penguins once again wore the ugly powder blue jerseys and paid for it as a result. Can we please stop this experiment already?

For the most part, the Pens dominated the game and forced Martin Biron to win the game for Philadelphia.

The Pens got a few pucks behind Biron, but just not over the goal-line. On several occasions a Flyers player was there to clear the puck out of danger, or Biron somehow found the puck just in time.

The first Flyers goal is entirely Rob Scuderi’s fault.

With the Flyers on a powerplay in the first period, Mike Knuble fired a shot on Marc-Andre Fleury who made the save, but left a rebound. Scuderi attempted to clear the puck up the middle of the ice on his backhand while staring Fleury in the face and completely whiffed on it.

The attempted clear became a direct pass to Simon Gagne who buried the puck behind Fleury for the early 1-0 lead.

The second goal was another penalty killing mishap in the second period. With the Flyers breaking into the zone and driving to the net, Brooks Orpik made a play on his man as he should have.

Mark Eaton was visibly confused and somehow didn’t notice Scott Hartnell racing to the backpost looking for the easy tap-in goal. Jeff Carter saw Hartnell and attempted a pass to him that ended up hitting Hartnell in the skate and going in. The goal was reviewed and deemed legit.

Eaton takes the full point on this one for not blocking the pass and not picking up the backside player.

The Flyers third goal was an empty netter and I will not assign points for empty net goals, unless a Penguin puts it in their own net.

The effort was there, but the bounces went Philadelphia’s way. Simple as that. No need to dwell on it. The Penguins just need to focus on continuing to play with high energy and effort and things will work out in the end.

Up next are the recently vastly improved Calgary Flames in what should be a good measuring stick for the Penguins. The Flames come to town on Wednesday.

Updated Hal Gill Quotient Standings:

Kris Letang - 6.34 - 15 GP
Marc-Andre Fleury - 5.08 - 17 GP
Sergei Gonchar - 5.08 - 16 GP
Hal Gill - 5.34 - 17 GP
Mark Eaton - 6.33 - 18 GP
Brooks Orpik - 5.09 - 18 GP
Rob Scuderi - 4.50 - 18 GP
Ryan Whitney - 3.5 - 6 GP - TRADED
Jordan Staal - 2.88 - 18 GP
Evgeni Malkin - 2.0 - 18 GP
Matt Cooke - 1.0 - 18 GP
Ruslan Fedotenko - 1.0 18 GP
Tyler Kennedy - 1.0 - 18 GP
Pascal Dupuis - .83 - 18 GP
Max Talbot - 1.0 - 18 GP
Sidney Crosby - 0.5 - 4 GP
Referee Paul Devorski - 0.5 - 1 Game Reffed
Bill Thomas - .33 - 5 GP - WAIVED