There are few things in this life that are as inevitable as death and taxes. The Penguins will have a couple of games every year where they don’t finish a team off in the first 5 minutes when they could have and Minnesota lying to itself and everyone else about being the “state of hockey.”
The Minnesota Wild are like that kid in college that would come over every Saturday and just sulk in the corner because his high school girlfriend left him for some junior in Dallas that bought her Three Olives Loopy one weekend. You know that they’re there, but you just try to pretend that they aren’t.
But sometimes, even that kid catches a break once in a while.
FIRST PERIOD
From the opening puck drop, this game had all the makings of being one of those “the Penguins did all the right things, but couldn’t bury any of the 498 chances they had.” Crosby had a chance all alone in front of Dubnyk on the opening shift, Malkin rang one off the pipe that Future President-Elect Phil Kessel thought went in on the second shift, and Sheary just missed on a one-timer in the shot on the third shift.
That is, of course, if Sidney Crosby wasn’t on a different planet right now, providing hope that it wouldn’t be one of those games. First, he picked the puck and pulled Minnesota into a too many men penalty about 7 minutes in. Then, the Pens PP got themselves set up and 87 did a thing that only “Holy fuck” can describe – 1-0 Pens
Seriously. Holy fuck.
Pens controlled most of the rest of the period with the one hiccup coming when Daley took an ill-advised delay of game penalty that Hornqvist did whatever he could to try to prevent.
Took the Wild about a minute to get a Coyle tip in front of Fleury to even things up.
SECOND PERIOD
For the first 6 minutes of the period, it seemed like the late first period goal gave the Wild some life. Dubnyk quickly extinguished that by playing the puck outside of the trapezoid to put the Pens back on the man advantage. That was largely uneventful until Fleury made an audacious play near the blueline to keep Koivu from getting a breakaway. It spring-boarded the rush and set up Dubnyk’s punishment – 2-1 Pens
Unreal pass by Phil. Lucky bounce for Hornqvist, but whatever.
Spoiler Alert: It was short-lived. About 90 seconds later, Staal and Co. out-worked the Pens along the boards for a full shift. Staal dug it out found Niederreiter creeping in for a handsy finish while Maatta just kinda watched it all unfold. – 2-2
Pens had another PP midway through, but going 3 for 3 against the best PK in the league is asking for too much probably.
THIRD PERIOD
As much as special teams were the name of the game, and as nice of a job as the Pens and specifically Fleury did to kill off a 5v3 on either side of the 2nd intermission, they just couldn’t compete with Eric Staal being a trash human. Not too many guys in the game better and closing the puck off behind the net, taking it, eluding a couple of guys and skating it out of danger than Kris Letang. It’s beautiful when he does it, but sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes, it doesn’t because players who just aren’t that good anymore get away with blatant trips behind the net and score game winning goals – 3-2 Wild
The game devolved from there. Pens had some chances. Eric Staal got away with closing his hand on the puck twice and slashing the shit out of Kessel before Pominville hit the gimme goal to seal it. 4-2. Game.
RANDOM
- Not a bad outing for Fleury, making 40 saves despite taking the L
- Not going to go down the road of blaming officiating, but it was a poor outing for stripes in the 3rd. Pens had enough chances in the first 20 minutes to put it away and probably should’ve never let it get to where it got.
- Sidney Crosby may not even be from this universe, let alone this planet.
- Side bar: I’ll try to make this quick. As was mentioned in this space last week, there have been some changes around here. One of those has involved me; Geoff from the Internet. You may remember me from TV’s PenguinsSauce.com if you were one of the 7 or 8 people that read our shit or still follow us on Twitter. I’ll be helping out doing some recaps/miscellaneous stuff here and there, as I, too, am also semi-retired. But more as someone that cashed out of their 401k before it was fully vested.
Pens play host to some kid named Austin and the Maple Leafs Saturday night. See you then.
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