Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Lightning 5, Penguins 4 (SO 2-0)

This was the third straight game where the Pens were down early and had to come roaring back in the third period. Tonight they were down 4-1 and scored three to send the game to overtime, where they finally lost in a shootout. They had several nice chances throughout OT to try to put the game away, but could not do it.

Why was Jani Rita the first shooter in the shootout? Was Therrien trying to catch lightning in a bottle or something?

Did anyone see the play that Sidney Crosby made late in the third? The Lightning were threatening and Fleury was caught out of position, so Crosby came flying in behind Fleury and stacked the pads against the goal pipe behind Fleury. Turns out that the shot hit the outside of the net, but maybe it hit the outside of the net because the shooter tried to say a little wider with Crosby sliding across. No matter - it was inspiring to see. It tells me that this team (or at least Sidney Crosby) still has heart.

The Pens play again tomorrow night in Washington. There's been nothing like those Capitals to cheer the Pens out of a slump this season... will tomorrow be the same?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good game last night. The Pens looked ok in the first, horrible in the 2nd, then really caught fire in the 3rd. Great to see Whitney and Melichar score. I really thought the Pens were going to score in the OT but Tampa's goalie made some good saves. Anyone see Ouellet get his tooth knocked out? Lang made a comment about him picking up his mouth piece but it was really his tooth. The best part is no call was made! That's the second time this season that a Pen has had teeth knocked out and no call was made. Now it was at a place where the refs were not looking but still, that's really bad. Again, good to see the Pens stay in a game. I think they are looking good the past few games. If they can just eliminate that 10 min. a game they go into a coma, they might start winning some :) ... I can dream can't I.

Anonymous said...

This was a good game. It was nice to see them score when Fleury was pulled. They typically have problems doining that.
I liked to see people people backing Fleury up like Crosby did. Usually they get him it to trouble, so it's nice to see it happen the other way around. Though, I guess I'd rather not see anyone in trouble.
Crosby looked pretty excited after Whitney scored. He seemed more excited about it than Whitney. I think the whole team is just sick of losing, especially getting so close all the time.
As for putting Jani Rita in for the shootout, if the rest of the season is truely for building for the next season I think it was a good move. And I've only been watching him play for about a month, so who knows maybe he is good at that kind of stuff.
Oh, and one more thing:
Here we go draft pick, Here we go!