The Confluence
No Crosby, no problem: Penguins down Ducks, 3-1: Orpik latest injury
by Tony on 01/16/09 at 11:05 PM ET
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I told my 15 year old son before the game that for some reason I had a good feeling coming into this game. He wanted to bet me $20 that the Pens would lose, I wish I would have taken him up on it.
The injury-depleted Penguins, playing without Sidney Crosby and about 35 others, played a pretty solid defensive game against a quality team and got an impressive game from Marc-Andre Fleury in defeating the Ducks, 3-1.
Matt Cooke had two of the three Penguins goals, while Fleury had 21 saves in yet another much-needed win.
However, the win didn’t come without more bad news on the injury front. Brooks Orpik left the game early in the second period with an unspecified injury. Orpik was last seen hunched over near the Penguins’ net, before he headed to the locker room.
The first period was extremely uneventful, it looked the Devils of a few years ago was out there instead of the Devils. And so it appeared that the first period would end in a scoreless tie, that is until Matt Cooke took over. Hal Gill started the play with a shot wide. Evgeni Malkin stopped the puck behind the Ducks’ net and deflected it for Cooke, who was there for a wraparound shot that Jean-Sebastien Giguere couldn’t stop to give the Pens a 1-0 lead with only 21 seconds remaining in the period.
The second period started the same way the first period ended. The Penguins brought the puck into the Ducks’ zone. Malkin passed the puck to Ryan Whitney, who fired a slapper from the point the Giguere stopped, but was waaaaaaaaaay out of position. Cooke grabbed the rebound and fired a backhanded shot into the yawning net to make it 2-0 Pens.
It stayed that way until the Ducks got a gift powerplay on a very questionable Gill roughing penalty. The Ducks took full advantage of it when Bobby Ryan took a pass from Scott Niedermayer along the boards, skated in quite freely through the Pens’ zone and made a nice centering pass to Ryan Getzlaf, who poked it past Fleury to cut the Pens’ lead to 2-1.
After that goal, the Ducks defintely turned up the pressure, but to the Penguins’ credit, they didn’t break. They got three additional penalties after that timeframe, but didn’t give up any more goals, not to mention several key saves from Fleury.
The score stayed 2-1 until there were about five minutes remaining in the game. Jordan Staal won a faceoff in the Ducks’ zone and fed it back to Hal Gill, who calmly fired a slapper that eluded Giguere to give the Pens their two goal lead back, this time for good.
Other notes:
- Pens’ powerplay went 0 for 3.
- Cooke and Philippe Boucher both had 6 hits. Orpik had 5 before he left the game.
- The Pens recent callups, Janne Pesonen and Bill Thomas, each played well. Pesonen had a couple excellent scoring chances and Thomas had a semi-good look at a short-handed breakaway, not to mention going 4 for 5 on faceoffs.
- Paul Bissonnette and Eric Godard only played 2 and 4 minutes, respectively.
The Penguins will now host the Rangers on Sunday afternoon at 12:30 on NBC.
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Tags: Anaheim+Ducks, NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins,
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