5 posts tagged “islanders”

US$100,000 per year. There's a lesson in that.

That's the difference between the Oilers standing pat at the trade deadline and Ryan Smyth making a tearful farewell in the hallway of Edmonton's airport.

Two parties letting obstinacy and pride prevent them from making one last small concession. Smyth could have shrugged and said, "Close enough." But he didn't. Oilers GM Kevin Lowe could have conceded and said, "The difference isn't even 1/4 of the league minimum salary. Don't spend it all in one place, Smytty." But he didn't.

Calgarians must be bitter about this.

I say there's a lesson here because we've heard almost nothing about Plan B for a few weeks now. Yesterday, the Penguins declined an opportunity to exercise a one-year extension on their lease at Mellon Arena. They'd lose much of their negotiating leverage if they did, so that makes sense from a business perspective. For most of February, however, the word from County Executive Dan Onorato, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, and/or Governor of Philadelphia Ed Rendell (but almost never from Penguins management) has been, "blah blah agree on principles, blah blah little details, blah blah closer every day."

The stakes are obviously much higher in Pittsburgh. For Smyth, it's just the difference between a third jersey designed by Todd McFarlane, and a third jersey designed by an eighth grader during study hall. Here, were talking about 41 tax-revenue-generating home games a year; national and international events that wouldn't dare tolerate the Igloo's poor acoustics, outdated infrastructure, and inhospitable corridors; and the stigma of being a City That Lost A Major Sports Franchise. (Hello, Cleveland!)

I've said all along that the arena issue has become a referendum on the City of Pittsburgh's desire to rise again. I'd hate to see that all come apart because of something small that only the stubborn would trip over.

These 7:00pm starts mess with everybody. Normally, the opening faceoff for Penguins home games is at 7:30, but tonight started at 7:00. Which means the crowd was slow to arrive (aided and abetted by a road-closing accident at 7th and Grant), and both teams were slow to get up to speed. Much of the first period was rough, but things picked up as the night went on.

This was the sixth of our eight games with the Isles this year, so we're deep into "familiarity breeds contempt" territory here. That was evident early, when Brendan Witt flipped Sidney Crosby with a hip check, and got many knuckle sandwiches from Ryan Malone for his effort. Lots of post-whistle scrums. Lots of extra shoves at the end of checks. I rather enjoyed watching Dominic Moore love-tap Sean Hill in the back four or five times on the way to their respective benches. Hill was giving Moore the "What was that, a mosquito?" treatment, but it was still a nice indicator of how pesky everybody was feeling.

The Penguins goals were almost all rebounds. The Islanders goals were all defensive lapses.

• Erik Christensen pots a rebound early in the first. 1-0 Pens.
  
• Early in the second. Richard Park, playing out high on a 5-on-3 penalty kill, clears the puck to the boards in the neutral zone, and breaks up ice, seeing that the Pens point man was leaning the wrong way. A favorable bounce off the penalty box door, and Park is alone behind the defense on the right wing. The wrist shot was perfectly placed, high to the far post, to tie the game at 1-1.
• Later in the second, the Pens get a face-off to Mike Dunham's right with a man advantage. Five seconds after the puck dropped, Michel Ouellet collected a rebound, and poked it under Dunham. 2-1 Pens.
• Late in the second, the Pens lost track of Aaron Asham who was all alone in the slot for a chip-in. Tied at 2-2.
• Crosby gets an easy rebound on the power play, with Dunham down and out of his crease. 3-2 Pens.
• Christensen gains the blue line, flings an innocent looking wrister on net, and burns Dunham to a crisp. 4-2 Pens.
• Crosby gets another rebound on a 2-on-1 break. 5-2 Pens.

And then things got ugly. With less than a minute to go, and the Pens cycling in the Islanders' zone, Jason Blake raised his stick as if to hook Sid, then gave Crosby a blade-first spear to the ribs instead. Sid dropped to the ice, popped back up, grabbed Blake by the collar, gave him a shove, and was promptly escorted to the penalty box by the linesman. The score sheet says "unsportsmanlike conduct", but Sid really got two minutes for defending himself from a blatantly obvious spear that the referees didn't call! Crosby gave the refs a little verbal abuse after the horn, but played it cool in the locker room. Coach Michel Therrien was a little less gracious, calling for the league to punish Blake.

Final Score: Penguins 5, Islanders 2, consecutive sellouts: 7.

Three Stars:

1. Erik Christensen (2G, 1A)
2. Sidney Crosby (2G, 1A, 1 subplot for the next trip to Uniondale)
3. Michel Ouellet (1G, 1A)
   

See what happens when you put the right lines together?

4th line: Jarko Ruutu - Chris Thorburn - Maxime Talbot: All three are great penalty killers and absolute maniacs on the ice. You expect that from a 4th line, but we're getting points and scoring chances from them now, too. Max had a shorthanded goal last night, just 27 seconds after another Penguins goal. Ronald Petrovicky is an interchangeable part with any of these three.

3rd line: Dominic Moore - Jordan Staal - Michele Ouellet: Staal had the goal just before Talbot, directly off a face-off win by Moore in the circle to the right of a frustrated Rick DiPietro. Right now, this line is doing its best work as a puck-possession line. Moore and Staal are also excellent penalty killers.

2nd line: Nils Ekman - Evgeni Malkin - Colby Armstrong: And here's where the Pens are in a quandry. This line was better Wednesday night with Erik Christiansen at left wing. With Ekman back from the flu, Christiansen was a healthy scratch. No goals tonight, but all three had assists on special-teams goals. Over the long haul, we'll need more production from these guys than we're getting but, as you'll see, we have people picking up the slack.

1st line: Ryan Malone - Sidney Crosby - Mark Recchi: Damn, are these guys scary good together. Let's break down the scoring by this line last night:

• The Pens get a 3-on-2 break. Recchi carries up the middle, then passes to Crosby, who gains the blue line along the right wing boards. Sid glides to the top of the circle, then throws a perfect cross-ice pass to Malone in the far circle. Malone lines up his shot, and burns DiPietro with a high wrister.
• The Pens are cycling in the Islanders' zone. Whitney to Recchi, who drops one back to Crosby and heads for the net. Crosby eludes his defender and fires a wrist shot through traffic to beat DiPietro.
• The Pens get a 3-on-2 break. Recchi carries up the middle, then passes to Crosby, who gains the blue line along the right wing boards. Sid glides to the top of the circle, then throws a perfect cross-ice pass to Malone in the far circle. Malone lines up his shot, and burns Mike Dunham with a high wrister. (Yes, I just cut-and-pasted that first goal. The play developed pretty much the same way. Dunham started the 3rd for DiPietro.)
  
• Crosby puts on a puck-handling show worthy of the Harlem Globetrotters in the right corner, gets space from his defender, and sweeps behind the net. Malone camps just off the left post and buries the one-timer from Sid.
  

  Holy Zhitnik, what a move!

Sid gets another 4 points, giving him 10 in 2 games. Ryan Malone gets his first NHL hat trick. Mark Recchi gets his 800th career assist on Malone's second goal. Jocelyn Thibault holds off a late New York charge for his first win of the season.

17,028 screaming fans get treated to one of the most entertaining shows in sports today.

Final Score: Penguins 7, Islanders 4, defensemen faked out of their skates: 5.

Three Stars:

1. Ryan Malone (3G, first NHL hat trick)
2. Mark Recchi (1G, 3A, 800th NHL assist)
3. Sidney Crosby (1G, 3A)
   

I can't decide what storyline to run with tonight...

Familiarity Breeds Contempt: The unbalanced schedule has the Pens playing division games so often, it's just silly. This is the second time we've played the Islanders this week, so all those little scrums from Tuesday night became a string of offsetting roughing calls and one fight tonight. And look, we play the Rangers next week. Again. I'm all for rivalries, but this is ridiculous.

Less Pretty, More Gritty: When, oh when, will somebody finally break the Pens' habit of attempting fancy passes? Drive to the friggin' net!

Who Gave C-28 Stupid Pills?: Not a good performance from the Penguins fans tonight. Just in my section, I had to deal with:

• Frat boys intentionally singing the Star-Spangled Banner off-key.
• A guy screaming "Lets Go Pens" so loud, I though he was going to give himself a hernia. Dude, they don't have to hear you outside the arena.
• Somebody who thought the action in front of him was a voice-activated XBox, not a live game. "C'mon, get it over the line... cycle... rock the puck [whatever that means]... keep it moving... what are you doing?... c'mon!" And that was all in one breath. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating, but only about the pace of his incessant chatter.
• Darmok (who speaks only in bad nicknames) felt compelled to start every complaint about a play that didn't go the Pens' way with "Aw, c'mon, ya gotta..." This phrase, of course, is passive-aggressive shorthand for "You suck, because you didn't..." It's the cheapest cop-out in fandom.
• And finally, Man-Child. I call him that because he behaves like a 12-year old boy in a 30-something body. I used to call him The Foghorn, because he can yell "Lets Go Pens" louder than that other guy, but Man-Child knows how to project his voice. Last year, that was it. A bit obnoxious, but sincere in his support for the team. This year, he's added high-decibel sarcasm and a hair-trigger "Down in front!" to his repertoire, which gets him the occasional stern response. That's when the 12-year old comes out, in the form of insults too juvenile for a school bus, and an insistence on getting the last word. For the fourth time this season, ushers have had to take him aside and give him a reminder of what "family-friendly atmosphere" means. One of these nights, he's going to piss off the wrong guy, and it'll come to blows.

Just an unsatisfying night all around.

Final score, Islanders 5, Penguins 3, Ekman's speed tonight: Warp Factor 9.

Three Stars:

1. Viktor Kozlov (2G, 1A)
2. Sidney Crosby (2A)
3. Mike Sillinger (2G)

Ah, that's better. Sidney Crosby comes back from a sore groin, and immediately sets up Colby Armstrong for his first two goals of the season. Chris Thorburn got the game-winning goal by driving the net, picking up a pass from Jordan Staal behind the cage, catching Rick "15 Years?!" DiPietro off the post, and banking a pass off the back of DiPietro's leg and into the net. (And you thought Crosby or Malkin would get a goal that way first.)

More importantly, the Penguins bounced back from Saturday night's heart-breaker. I think the way they responded tonight indicates how much more mature and confident this year's squad is. Last year, that overtime loss to the Rangers probably would have triggered a long losing streak.

For Marc-Andre Fleury, it was a good birthday/bobblehead night. The Islanders steadily increased their pressure as the game went on, and Fleury was equal to the task, with a little help from his friends. In the third period, a Penguins defenseman Nils Ekman (finally saw the replay) cleared a puck that trickled through Fleury before it crossed the goal line.

Final score, Penguins 3, Islanders 2, successful attempts to start the wave: zero!

Three Stars:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury (33 of 35)
2. Colby Armstrong (2G)
3. Sidney Crosby (2A)