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Penguins fall out of playoff slot, buried by Panthers, 6-1
by Tony on 01/03/09 at 04:33 PM ET
Comments (2)
Well, this had better be rock bottom, for the Penguins’ sake.
The Penguins losing streak hit four games and frustration has started to boil over today in a 6-1 pasting by the Florida Panthers in yet another afternoon matinee.
The “highlight”, if you want to call it that, was the second “fight”, if you want to call it that, for Sidney Crosby. Crosby got in a second period tussle with Brent McLean at 17:01, immediately after Max Talbot and Gregory Campbell duked it out at 16:59. While McLean was assessed the typical 5 minutes for fighting, Crosby was assessed 5 for fighting, 2 for instigating, 2 for unsportsmanlike conduct, and a 10 minute misconduct. It appeared that Crosby pulled the jersey over McLean’s head, I imagine that’s what caused the extra penalties, not sure.
Both Marc-Andre Fleury and Dany Sabourin were equally lousy today, with Fleury actually getting pulled after one period then re-entering at the start of the third period. Together, they stopped only 18 of 24 shots on goal, so whatever energy the Penguins tried to create was all for naught with that display of goaltending.
Que the broken record. The powerplay, no surprise nowadays, had yet another goose egg today, going 0 for 3. They are now scoreless in their last 24 man advantages. HCMT and ACMY (Assistant Coach Mike Yeo, just made it up) made some adjustments, putting Ryan Whitney on the right point and placing Evgeni Malkin on the right goalline. Didn’t make too much of a difference, though, as they didn’t have hardly any good scoring chances on the powerplay.
The Penguins actually controlled most of the play for the first half of the game, although it didn’t show on the scoreboard. The Pens applied good pressure on the Panthers, but it was the Panthers who got on board first on a wrister by Ville Peltonen. Fleury had actually started moving to the opposite side of the net trying to predict a cross-ice pass, but Peltonen instead fired the puck on net and Fleury couldn’t stop it to make it 1-0 Panthers.
They doubled their lead with about five minutes remaining in the period when Nathan Horton fired a wrister on a 2-on-1 break that Fleury got a piece of, but still went in the net to make it 2-0.
The Penguins cut the lead in half early in the second period when Ruslan Fedotenko corralled an errant Panther pass and quickly fired it from a bad angle to surprise Panthers goalie Craig Anderson and into the net to make it 2-1 Panthers.
However, the Panthers got that goal right back on the powerplay when Bryan McCabe took a nice centering pass from Cory Stillman and fired it past Sabourin to make it 3-1.
The Panthers made it 4-1 a few minutes later on a wrister by Richard Zednik, and that’s when things got a little testy. Talbot and Campbell soon thereafter had their tussle, which was a good bout, and then Crosby and McLean had their bout. Crosby was out of the game until there were only two minutes left in the game.
Just to make things worse, Horton scored on a breakaway to make it 5-1 before the second period ended.
The third period was mostly uneventful, especially on the Penguins’ side. The only tally was a Michael Frolik goal early in the third.
Other notes:
- This was exceptional ugly for the Pens. This might be the game that causes a move to be made, whether that’s on the roster or coaching staff.
- If you have Crosby on your fantasy team, bet ya love those 21 penalty minutes.
- Matt Cooke and Brooks Orpik did their best in playing the body, with Cooke registering 6 hits and Orpik having 3.
It doesn’t get easier for the Pens. They now travel to New York to face the Rangers on Monday night.
Filed in: | The Confluence | Permalink
Tags: Florida+Panthers, NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins,
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Crosby’s minutes were 5 for the fight, 2 and 10 for instigating the fight and an extra 2 for taking an instigator penalty while wearing a visor.
Posted by false_cause on 01/03/09 at 05:12 PM ET