Saturday, March 31, 2007

Maple Leafs 5, Penguins 4 (OT)

If there's blame to assign for this one, it's on Steigerwald.

The Pens went down 4-1 midway through the second. Some of the blame for that would have to be at the doorstep of Jocelyn Thibault, who got the start in goal. He didn't make all of the saves he needed to. To be fair, however, I think he was the scapegoat for the Pens being out worked by the far more desperate Leafs.

Marc-Andre Fleury comes in and immediately solidifies things, aided by the Leafs stupidly shutting things down and staying back. The Pens start to chip away, with Max Talbot notching a goal. The score is 4-2 going into the third.

The Pens get one with less than 5 minutes left and then get the game tying goal with only 4 seconds remaining, capping a furious sequence in the Leafs end. The game goes into OT.

Each team has chances in the extra session. I'm not sure how the Pens failed to score at the beginning of the OT, with several chances around the net, and the Leafs have several good chances as well.

With just over one minute left in OT, Steigerwald says something to the effect of "Marc-Andre Fleury is a guy that you don't want to see in the net if you're on the other team - he's that good." In a matter of seconds, Kaberle throws the puck at the net from out near the blue line. It goes all the way through everyone without touching anything. Game over. Leafs win.

The Pens did manage a point, which is good. It keeps at least some heat on the Devils, so that should they lose a game, the Pens might be able to capitalize. I'm not holding out much hope for that, however, as the Pens have games left against some pretty tough competition - Buffalo, Ottawa and the Rangers. At least it'll be a good warm-up for the level of competition in the playoffs.

Next up: Buffalo visits the Igloo on Tuesday night.

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