10 posts tagged “marc-andre fleury”

I'll keep this one short, because a few themes persisted throughout the game:

• Ryan Malone was flying all night.
• Brooks Orpik was meaner than he's been the past few nights.
• Marc-Andre Fleury was sharp.
• The posts behind Marc-Andre Fleury were sharp.
• The Pens were making too many passes.
• The Rangers did a better job of controlling the puck.
• Scott Gomez and Chris Drury still don't fit in.
• Constantly mixing lines leads to too-many-men penalties. The Pens got another one tonight.
  

The critical time of the game was the first two minutes of the second period. With 1:58 of power play time to start, the Pens scored the only goal they'd need. Sidney Crosby, from the right point, to Ryan Whitney, sneaking up the left wing, to Evgeni Malkin to the right of the goal, for a quick flip behind Henrik Lundqvist. 1-0 Pens. 0:25 later, Jordan Staal gets a penalty shot, thanks to a thrown stick. Unfortunately, Staal went straight in and threw an easy wrister on the net that Lundqvist had all the way.

This was one of those nights where throwing the kitchen sink at a goaltender just builds his confidence. The Rangers out-shot the Penguins 36-22, and Fleury just got stronger as the game went on. Meanwhile, the combination of Malone, Staal, Jarkko Ruutu, and Adam Hall kept Jaromir Jagr frustrated all night. By the third period, Jagr was hanging his head at the end of every shift.

Final Score: Penguins 1, Rangers 0, Jagr boos per period: 12.

Three Stars:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury (36-save shutout)
2. Evgeni Malkin (GWG)
3. Brooks Orpik (Hits galore)
   

It's been a while since we've had a stone-handed, lead-stick, every-pass-is-a-bad-one night. We were due.

It was a goaltenders duel: Marc-Andre Fleury vs. Martin Brodeur. Fleury gave up a power-play goal to Jamie Langenbrunner in the first minute of the 2nd period.

Not much else to say, really.

Final Score: Devils 1, Pens 0, number of times I yelled "Control the puck!": 7.

Three Stars:

1. Martin Brodeur (31 save shutout, 12th shutout of the season)
   
2. Jamie Langenbrunner (1G)
   
3. Marc-Andre Fleury (24 of 25)
   

If you saw this game on the schedule back in October, you probably thought it would be one of those marginally interesting inter-conference games that are like speed bumps in the quickening playoff race. A good Central division team that couldn't get over the Detroit hump against a young Penguins squad that would be, hopefully, within reach of the 8th seed in the East.

Fast forward to game day. The Nashville Predators, with a 37-14-3 record, are atop the NHL. The Pittsburgh Penguins are quickly climbing the Eastern conference standings, holding the 6th seed on the strength of an 8-0-2 run. Instead of a snoozer, we got an opportunity to see just how good the Penguins really are.

The Penguins had the territorial and shot-on-goal advantage (10-5) in the first period, but couldn't solve Chris Mason. Things started to look bad when, late in the period, Scott Nichol, unmarked on top of the crease, deflected a Sheldon Brookbank slapshot over Marc-Andre Fleury's shoulder to give the Preds a 1-0 lead.

Nashville used that momentum to their advantage to start the second, but Darcy Hordichuk got a little too energetic. For some reason, he decided to go headhunting, and chose Alain Nasreddine as his target. Nas dipped and dived away from Hordichuk's first attempt at boarding, but couldn't dodge the second try. As he circled behind his own net, Nas got wallpapered. To Hordichuk's credit, he immediately turned around to see which Penguin would race to Nasreddine's defense. Never bet against Maxime Talbot in a race. He literally beat Rob Scuderi to the punch. (Note to Sheldon Souray: This is how you defend a teammate! You don't jump on an opponent from behind as he's skating away.)

Talbot and Hordichuk got five each for fighting, and the Pens got their wake-up call. Less than three minutes later, Jordan Staal carried into the zone, skated to the top of the left circle, and sniped the far corner over Mason's shoulder to tie the game at 1-1. Less than three minutes after that, on a power play, a Sidney Crosby slapshot was blocked at the point, but came right to Mark Recchi at the left half-boards. Rex found Evgeni Malkin sneaking in the back door, and made a perfect one-timer pass. Malkin buried it from the right slot, it's 2-1 Pens, and the Preds are reeling. The rest of the second was a defensive struggle, with both teams collapsing around their goaltenders.

The third started in a stalemate, with a lot of back-and-forth in the neutral zone, but not many scoring chan-- GOAL! Mark Recchi carried one of those takeaways up the right wing boards and toasted Mason with an innocent-looking wrist shot. Remember when it was Penguin goalies giving up those back-breaking soft goals?

From there, it wasn't the Marc-Andre Fleury Show. It didn't have to be. Instead of falling back into an over-cautious passive defense, the Pens stayed aggressive and kept Nashville from getting any offensive flow going. Jarkko Ruutu continued his goal-scoring binge with an empty-netter, Elvis' limo pulls away, and the Pens move into 5th place in the East.

Final Score: Penguins 4, Predators 1, wind chill in the Student Rush line: -4F. (Which is why Mellon Arena was 600 short of a sellout.)

Three Stars:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury (25 of 26)
2. Sidney Crosby (2A)
3. Jordan Staal (1G)
   

How can a game with Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, and Semin have no storyline whatsoever?

Easy. Those four players were trying way too hard to make highlight reel plays. Everybody else, from both teams, was playing a don't-let-the-other-team's-superstars-beat-us defensive game.

Scoreless first.

In the second, Ronald Petrovicky won a contested puck on the right wing boards, gained the blue line, and left Olaf Kolzig wondering why he doesn't just stay in D.C. when the Caps play the Pens.

Again, the third was the Marc-Andre Fleury show. Jordan Staal adds the empty netter.

Final Score: Penguins 2, Capitals 0, Darmok's new nickname for Ovechkin: Overchicken. I am not making this up.

Three Stars:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury (30-save shutout)
2. Ronald Petrovicky (1G)
3. Ryan Malone (a monster on the penalty kill today)

The Penguins ended January as they began it: systematically dismantling a Southeast division opponent.

The first period was mostly even, as the teams seemed to be feeling each other out. Late in the period, Michel Ouellet finished a 2-on-1 pass from Evgeni Malkin to make it 1-0.

In the second, Florida fell apart. Early on, Jarkko Ruutu went digging in the corner and flicked a backhand pass to Dominic Moore, who was able to skate into the slot uncovered and slip a backhand between Ed Belfour's legs. 2-0 Pens. In the middle of the period, the Panthers took a string of minor penalties, leading to plenty of 5-on-3 time for the Pens. Of course, they waited until it was 5-on-4 again to score. Sidney Crosby almost got decapitated for the second time in two minutes (the first resulted in one of those penalties), but was able to find Ouellet, who set up Ryan Whitney for one of his patented backdoor pinch one-timers. 3-0 Pens.

The third period was Marc-Andre Fleury's time to shine. Florida came out storming and didn't let up, while the Penguins were content to fall back on their defense. Fleury was able to withstand multiple barrages of shots. One power play shot almost got away from him. A point shot trickled under his arm and sat in the crease. Whitney lifted the stick of a Panthers forward, Jordan Staal swooped in with his long reach to clear the puck to the boards, and Alain Nasreddine plowed another Panther into the net, knocking it off its moorings and drawing a whistle, all in the span of a second.

The confidence level of this team is through the rusted shut Mellon Arena roof right now. Michel Therrien has finally found four lines that he can stick with:

1. Ryan Malone - Sidney Crosby - Mark Recchi
2. Jordan Staal - Evgeni Malkin - Michel Ouellet
   
3. Erik Christensen - Dominic Moore - Colby Armstrong
   
4. Jarkko Ruutu - Maxime Talbot - Ronald Petrovicky/Chris Thorburn

Where Nils Ekman will fit into this when he comes back from an elbow injury, who knows?

Meanwhile, on defense, an injury and a comeback from injury have shuffled the pairings for the better. With Josef Melichar on the shelf with an MCL injury, the pairings look like:

• Mark Eaton - Sergei Gonchar
• Brooks Orpik - Ryan Whitney
• Rob Scuderi - Alain Nasreddine

Eaton was by far the Pens' best blueliner before he was injured. He and Gonchar make a natural pair. With Eaton's stay-at-home style, Gonchar has more freedom to create offensively at even strength. It was this pair that was assigned to stop Olli Jokinen last night, and they came through with flying colors. Jokinen was limited to one shot on goal, and was a non-factor all night.

Final score: Penguins 3, Panthers 0, Florida's winning streak in Pittsburgh before this game: 7.

Three Stars:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury (32-save shutout)
2. Michel Ouellet (1G, 1A)
3. Ryan Whitney (1G)
   

This was an easy one to break down. The Pens out-hustled Carolina whistle to whistle. Out-shot them, too, 37-31. And aggressive penalty killing led to a number of short-handed breaks (but no short-handed goals). Simple, right?

Carolina managed to get through the game with no more significant injury than a shiner to Rod Brind'Amour. After the Cole and Letowski incidents, I think everybody's happy that both teams got through unscathed.

Final Score: Penguins 3, Hurricanes 0, number of people around me who expressed relief at Man-Child's absence: 4.

Three Stars:

1. Sidney Crosby (2G, 1A, reached 61 points a month ahead of last season's pace.)
2. Marc-Andre Fleury (31-save shutout)
3. Maxime Talbot (No points, but skated like his ass was on fire all night.)
   

Tonight's magic word is energy.

As usual, Leafs fans who can't get a sniff of tickets at Air Canada Centre invaded Mellon Arena. It wasn't quite as bad as last year, when it looked like a dimensional rift somehow exchanged entire sections of the Igloo and the ACC. Tonight was on par with the usual Philly crowds, except we're not getting the usual Philly crowds this year on account of they suck.

I think the players picked up on the dueling chants of "Lets Go Pens!" and "Go Leafs Go!", because the tempo started fast and never let up. Lots of back-and-forth rushes, everybody was finishing their checks with authority, and a great fight between Ben Ondrus and Jarkko Ruutu.

What did the Leafs in was penalties. The Pens went 3-for-10 on the power play, with goals by Erik Christensen, Sergei Gonchar, and Evgeni Malkin. Mats Sundin got the Leafs only goal, collecting a rebound on an odd-man break. Jordan Staal closed the scoring with some aggressive forechecking, stealing the puck from Bryan McCabe behind the net, curling to the front, and stuffing it behind ex-Penguin Jean-Sebastien Aubin.

Unfortunately, I had to wait until I got home to see most of the replays. At some point Wednesday night, one of the jumbotrons visible from my seat died, leaving 3/4 of the screen dark. Tonight, that screen was still mostly dead, and the other screen visible from my seat slowly died before our eyes. From the start, a small patch in one corner was dark. Then, in the 2nd period, a Toronto defenseman's attempt at clearing the zone with a high flip arced so high in the air, the puck hit the jumbotron! For the rest of the game, we watched that screen degrade from an odd-colored patch around the point of impact, to something that looked like a broken LCD TV from wiihaveaproblem.com, to going 3/4 dark, just like the other screen. I'm starting to worry about these Toronto games. The Leafs were our opponent during the infamous double power failure game last season, and now this. What's going to break next? My money's on a Zamboni dumping its crankcase all over the center-ice faceoff circle.

Final Score: Penguins 4, Maple Leafs 1, "For Sale" signs stolen from ill-informed Leafs fans and torn up by a guy in my section: 2. (Don't worry, the Leafs fans were good sports!)

Three Stars:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury (30 for 31)
2. Sergei Gonchar (1G, 1A)
3. Sidney Crosby (3A)
   

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)