Friday, December 29, 2006

Penguins 4, Leafs 1

Now that was a hockey game. It had a bit of everything - end to end action, timely scoring, terrific goal tending and a great fight. Most importantly, it was a convincing win for the Penguins.

The Pens opened the scoring late in the first with a power play goal by Christensen, who somehow slipped the puck under the arm of Aubin on the short side. It literally went right under his armpit. Maybe Aubin giggled a little bit after being tickled by the puck. I know Christensen was laughing.

Ruutu got in a fight with Ondrus. Um... wait - let me clarify. First they skated around for what seemed to be 30 seconds waving their fists at each other. The linesmen would have broken it up, but they had fallen asleep watching. After that, Ruutu proceeded to use Ondrus as a punching bag, landing several right hands solidly. In typical Pittsburgh announcer fashion, Steigy and Errey said something about Ondrus doing a nice job and landing some punches later on in the fight, but I'm not sure what they were looking at. Ruutu kicked his butt.

My favorite quote of the night, however, came during that fight. Ruutu and Ondrus were jawing at each other. Steigy said that Ruutu likes to talk and they were wondering what language Jarkko might be speaking in. Steigy said "Finglish". Maybe that was funnier on the telecast. Maybe I was just giddy the Pens had a lead...

After that, in the second, there was some great end to end action, with both goalies making some amazing saves. Fleury allowed a nice rebound, and the old cranky man, Mats Sundin was there to clean up the garbage.

There was a bad penalty taken at the end of the second period by Bryan McCabe at the 20:00 mark, so the Pens opened the third on the power play, and after Sundin took another penalty 16 seconds into the third, the Pens converted on the power play with Gonchar scoring on a shot from the middle of the ice, out near the blue line.

The Pens added two more goals, one on a great slap-pass from Gonchar to Malkin, who directed the puck into an open net, and the other on a wonderful individual effort by Staal, who went to the far side of Aubin on his wrap-around attempt.

Nils Eckman went off with an elbow injury that looked pretty bad. He went down in the corner and when he got up, he went straight off the ice at the door to the locker room - while the game was going on. Hopefully he's okay, but it doesn't look good.

The Pens get a little break again, with no games until next Tuesday. This was a great win. Let's hope the Pens can keep it going.

Next up: vs Carolina at the Igloo on Tuesday.

3 comments:

Geeves said...

great game. some thoughts though...

~it's probably a moot point with ekmans injury, but was has christensen ever been a scratch? he's quick, has great hands, a wicked shot...i don't understand

~i wonder if perhaps colby dropping to the #4 line was actually a great idea (it seems like he fits an energy line - though so does ouellet)

~I think FNSP forgot how to do hockey games. they are constantly zooming in, and not unly is it always late, it's always unnecessary. it's just like watching versus, but with bad announcers.

Unknown said...

It was a nice win and the Pens played hard all 3 periods. Gonchar and Fleury had great games... Sid's was not bad either.

Ruutu beat the tar out of that guy. I don't know what Steigy and Errey were talking about. But then again, I really don't like listening to them call games. I almost prefer to hear away announcers. BRING BACK MIKE LANGE :)

Great night for the 3rd and 4th lines. They seemed to cycle really well in their own zone. Anyone catch Staal's goal late? It was really nice.

Good momentum builder for the new year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Joe Pelletier said...

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About 6 months ago I started profiling former NHL players at my collection of sites - The Legends of Hockey Network. Just this past week I have dedicated an entire site to former Pittsburgh Penguins players. It is a far cry from where I hope it one day will be, but I
thought the sites may be of interest to you and to your readers. Perhaps you'd like to link to it, or let your readers know.

http://www.legendsofhockey.blogspot.com

All the best in 2007 to you and all of your readers...

Joe Pelletier
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http://www.1972summitseries.com
http://www.legendsofhockey.blogspot.com