Every once and a while there’s a game like tonight. Where two teams just go at it hard and there’s a balance of physicality and emotion and narrative that is rarely seen.
If you ask the players and coaches, they’ll tell you it takes playoff series, or “breaking the other team’s heart” as head coach John Tortorella likes to say, to create a rivalry. By that standard, Jackets-Penguins isn’t a rivalry. But it’s hard to argue that what happened tonight isn’t another step in that direction.
There are about 1,000 different stories tonight: a tremendous performance by David Savard (30:36 TOI, shot attempt leader (7), tied for blocked shot lead (3), tied for ES Corsi +/- leader (+4)); there is the debate that is raging about the legality and consequence of Brandon Dubinsky’s check on Sidney Crosby’s neck; the first 3-on-3 overtime of the franchise; Cam Atkinson’s surging performance under John Tortorella (stay tuned – we’ll have more on that this week); but let’s take a look at the game’s three stars according to NHL.com.
3rd Star: Sergei Bobrovsky. Bob had a quietly solid game tonight. He faced only 26 shots, but had huge stops when they mattered – including an early stop on David Perron.
But he also ended tonight with a save percentage of .962 and has climbed to .500 on the season.
2nd Star. Marc Andre Fleury. Fan chants of the goaltender’s last name rang intermittently through Nationwide Arena tonight, but there can be no doubt that the 30-year-old was on his game. The Jackets were on the winning side of possession all night, and upped the Penguins on shots by a margin of 16 over the visiting team, but time and time again, Fleury denied the Jackets’ barrage. Fleury is what kept Pittsburgh in the game and his performance should be commended.
1st Star. Cam Atkinson. Atkinson played just over 18 minutes tonight, including 2:16 on the power play, but perhaps even more impressive, 3:11 on the penalty kill. He had five shot attempts – all counted as shots on goal – and helped drive the team’s consistency in the second period with a leading four controlled offensive zone entries (second only to Ryan Johansen’s night leading six). Then there was that overtime goal. Much like Tortorella is trusting Atkinson on special teams, he had Dubinsky and Atkinson out during overtime twice – once with Matt Calvert and once with Jack Johnson. It was on the second shift that Dubinsky brilliantly fed Atkinson for the game winner.
https://twitter.com/myregularface/status/670435940700192768
The Jackets now jet off tonight to face a rested St. Louis Blues team that last played on Wednesday. The challenge Tortorella levied against this team was consistency – there are three more periods tomorrow to show tonight was a beginning of that trend.
Quote of the game:
“We played well. I liked the way we handled ourselves when they scored…we didn’t score we had a power play. Wasn’t good. But we didn’t get flustered. We just kept on playing and stayed with it…I think it was a game that we deserved to win.” John Tortorella
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