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The Confluence

It’s a broken record:  Powerplay fails again, two goal lead blown, Penguins lose to Sabres, 4-3

by Tony on 12/08/08 at 10:50 PM ET
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How long is this going to be allowed to continue ??

You gotta give Buffalo credit:  They sure tried to give the Penguins this game.

The Penguins were given powerplay chance after powerplay chance after powerplay chance to blow this game wide open.  Not only didn’t they put the game away, they blew yet another two goal lead and this time they didn’t even get a point out of it, losing to the Sabres 4-3.

The Penguins once-vaunted powerplay was woeful again tonight, going 1-for-8, including three separate 5-on-3 powerplays, the last of which was for the full two minutes.

Like many Penguins games this season, it started great.  Midway through the first quarter, Evgeni Malkin drove down the right side, slid the puck between his legs, and fed a nice backhanded centering pass to Ruslan Fedotenko for the easy tap-in past Sabres goalie Ryan Miller to make it 1-0 Pens.

The Pens defense had it’s first of several bad turnovers a couple of minutes later, when Brooks Orpik lost control of the puck in the neutral zone.  Derek Roy took control of the puck and started a 2-on-1 break.  Roy kept the puck and fired a wrister past Dany Sabourin to tie the game at one.

The Pens regained the lead with about five minutes remaining in the first period when Petr Sykora fed Malkin along the left boards.  Malkin quickly fired another centering pass to Fedotenko for the one-timer past Miller to give the Pens a 2-1 lead.

While the Pens were on their second 5-on-3 powerplay early in the second period, Sidney Crosby found Kris Letang open in the left slot for a one-timer past Miller for his first goal of the year making it 3-1 Penguins.

That was about the end of the good news for the Penguins, unfortunately.  About five minutes later, Ales Kotalik cut the Pens’ lead to 3-2 and then Daniel Paille got the game tying goal with approximately five minutes remaining in the second period.  It remained that way until 6:13 of the third period when Thomas Vanek scored on a tap-in after a pass from Jason Pominville to give the Sabres a 4-3 lead which they wouldn’t relinquish.

Other notes:
- Ben Lovejoy made his NHL debut tonight, and I thought he played quite solid.  In addition to playing a decent game defensively, he’s got a good hard right-handed shot.  I think he’s got potential to make this team in the future.
- Orpik, Letang and Max Talbot were all -3 tonight.
- Matt Cooke had five hits tonight, most of them of the bone-crushing variety.
- Janne Pesonen continues to languish on the bench, only getting 2:55 of ice time.

The Penguins now go back on the road at New Jersey on Wednesday night.

Filed in: | The Confluence | Permalink
 Tags: Buffalo+Sabres, NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins,

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