Friday, December 28, 2007

Pens beat Caps, sun rises in the east



Despite playing one of the most dreadful periods (it was the 2nd) that I've seen of professional hockey, the Penguins picked up 2 points on the hapless Washington Capitals.

Thoughts:
``The loss of Mark Eaton showed early and often. Sergei Gonchar looked brutal and downright uncomfortable out there in his own zone.
``Brooks Orpik came back from his 3 game healthy scratch exile with a vengence, credited with 5 hits and 5 blocked shots and played the style that has to be pleasing to the coach.
``Caps fans, by now, are used to the heartbreak of crushing defeats at the hands of Pittsburgh....But if that ridiculous Crosby-to-Malkin one timer hits the net (instead of the post) with less than 5 seconds in regulation even I would almost feel sorry for them.....Almost.
``Much of the team looked disjointed but the Roberts-Christensen-Laraque line was not good. Guess it was lightning in a bottle.
``Speaking of Crusher, what a faceoff win late in the game to set up Sydor's tying goal. That's as clutch as any shootout goal he'll score.
``The Caps got the short end of the stick twice in penalties: Ovechkin's cross-check wasn't even close to being a cross-check and Shaone Morrrrrisssssonnnn's roughing wasn't that rough. (The lesson, as usual kids is don't spell your name like a jackass).
``Anyone seen or heard from Petr Sykora?
``Glad to hear Mr. Nemesis is ok and just has a superficial cut after taking an accidental Kris Letang skate to the leg.

More about Ovechkin, let's look at him and Crosby head to head....If you're keeping track (and I am!) Sid is still "Gretzky'ing" AO. That of course is a term I think I created meaning you've got more assists than the other guy has points.


Sidney Crosby: 5 goals, 12 assists, 17 points
Alex Ovechkin: 5 goals, 4 assists, 9 points

And more importantly:

Penguins: 9-1
Capitals: 1-7-2 (1 shootout and 1 OT loss)

Nice to get two more points, but it'd be hard to drop a home-game to the last place team in the Conference who played the previous night. Either way, drop two more in the points column and time to move on.

Up next, a home-and-home with the Buffalo Sabres. Somehow I get the feeling one of these games will have more hype and excitement behind it than the other...


1 comment:

JP said...

Sigh. Gut-wrenching defeat. And good on you for noticing the *ahem* questionable calls on AO and Mo - the former should have been accompanied by a diving minor to Staal and while the latter may have been a rough on some nights, it certainly wasn't in the context of the first 55 minutes of the game.