7 posts tagged “mark recchi”

The Penguins played two half-games tonight. One looked good, the other was a mess.

Both teams started out looking like good technical boxers: Testing each other with jabs and combinations, but nobody could land a power punch. The Pens relied on solid defensive play, holding the Habs to 5 shots. Pittsburgh mustered only 9 shots, and failed to capitalize on two power plays. Still, they forced some big saves from Carey Price in his first NHL start. Scoreless after one period.

The second period started out tilting the Pens’ way. Ryan Whitney finally broke the seal at 7:08. Andrei Markov was in the box for giving Sidney Crosby a two-handed shove in the back. Sid sent a pass to Mark Recchi, then drove to the net. Price made the save on Recchi as Crosby arrived at the right post. He was right on top of Price when Roman Hamrlik shoved him from behind. Crosby landed on top of Price, the refs let play continue because Hamrlik initiated the contact, and Whitney had an easy shot at the rebound from the left circle. 1-0 Pens, as Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau lobbied in vain for an interference call.

Then the Good Pens snuck away during a TV timeout, and the Bad Pens arrived.

For the rest of the game, the Pens looked clumsy and out-of-sync. At 13:07, with Darryl Sydor in the box for hooking, Markov threaded a circle-to-circle pass to Tomas Plekanec, who whistled a shot by Marc-Andre Fleury’s left ear to tie the game at 1-1. Four minutes later, after the Pens lost a faceoff outside their blue line, Plekanec hit Alexei Kovalev with a lead pass, and Kovy snuck a wrist shot under Fleury’s right elbow to give the Canadiens a 2-1 lead.

As the third period started, it looked like the Penguins were pretty much winging it on the ice. I don’t think anybody knew, once they had moved the puck, what to do next. Instead of following a game plan, they were making it up as they went. Fleury was holding the fort as best he could, but a juicy rebound for Markov made it 3-1 less than three minutes into the period. Less than a minute later, though, a little bit of that improvisation paid off, as Evgeni Malkin threw a no-look backhand pass from behind the net to Maxime Talbot in the left circle. Max one-timed it home to close to 3-2.

Not even a big hit could snap the Pens out of their daze. About halfway through the third, Brooks Orpik grazed Andrei Kostitsyn with a shoulder check in the corner, then Gary Roberts came streaking in to finish the job. The standing-room-only crowd roared to life, but the Penguins players didn’t seem to respond in kind. We were right back where we were before the hit: Fleury making big saves behind the Keystone Kops.

A late goalie-pulled rush was undone by a questionable call by the refs with about 15 seconds left on the clock. Malkin, charging the net, simultaneously lost the puck and got tripped up by a Canadiens defenseman. Malkin fell to the ice and plowed into the net, taking Price with him. The referee must have missed the trip, and ruled that Malkin’s momentum knocked the net off, forcing the faceoff to the neutral zone.

Final Score: Canadiens 3, Penguins 2, number of times Iceburgh tried to start a “Let’s Go Pens!” chant with his new drum: 1. Sorry, bird, but it ain’t workin’.

Three Stars:

1. Andrei Markov (1G, 1A)
2. Carey Price (26 saves)
3. Mark Recchi (2A)

The Party of the Pants, with the Deadspin
If you had told me that you were flying off to NYC to meet 20ish people that you only knew from snarky comments on a sports website to see a Mets game, I'd say you were nuts. Of course, that didn't stop me from doing exactly what I just described.

Great company, great conversation, and (dare I say this about a Mets victory?) a great game.

If you get the chance, I highly recommend it. It is so choice.

Penguins Draft
NHL scouts are like the worst gossips in high school. How else can you explain Alexei Cherepanov falling to the Rangers at 17, and Angelo Esposito landing from a Brady Quinn-like free-fall with the Penguins?

Scouts soured on Esposito when his production dropped off this season in Quebec. Somehow, the gossips turned "the Remparts lost a lot of talent to the pros last year" into "Espo has an attitude problem".

Fleury, Malkin, Crosby, Staal, Esposito. Have Craig Patrick and Ray Shero had angels on their shoulders for these drafts or what?

Penguins Free Agency
In: Mark Recchi, Gary Roberts. Geritol dealers around town will be happy. OK, that was mean. Both will provide plenty of veteran experience in the locker room. I think every hockey fan in Pittsburgh who didn't already have a man-crush on Roberts will have one now. He turned down the chance to talk to Ottawa, the defending Eastern Conference champions, because he believes the Penguins give him the best chance to win the Stanley Cup.

Out: Michel Ouellet. At least for the moment. He'll become unrestricted on July 1. If the Pens had given him a qualifying offer as a restricted free agent, they'd most likely have ended up in arbitration, where the judge would have given Ouellet way too much money to be mediocre. He could still develop into a good player, but his salary is out-racing his talent right now.

Rush
Went to see Rush Monday night, for the third time in four tours. (I couldn't make the R30 show, for reasons I no longer remember.) My cousin, who had never seen Rush before, and her teenage son were with me.

Damn, I say, damn!

If you're a Rush fan already, you knew that, of course. For those who haven't experienced Rush live, call the box office, right now. I can't think of a single band of this era that has the potential to still produce music of this caliber 30 years from now, live or in the studio.

To say they were supporting the new album, Snakes and Arrows, is an understatement. They played nine of the album's thirteen songs! And while they hit the obvious highlights (Limelight, Spirit Of Radio, Dreamline, Tom Sawyer, YYZ, etc.), they selected the rest of the set list by finding old tracks that had some thematic connection to S&A. Thus, we got to hear obscurities like Entre Nous, Between the Wheels, Circumstances, Digital Man, Witch Hunt, and Mission.

The new material sounded great, and was well received by the audience. The Way The Wind Blows and Workin' Them Angels really clicked. Or maybe I'm just projecting, because they're my favorites from S&A.

I highly recommend this show if it hasn't already been through your town. They'd play all night if local noise ordinances let them, so they'll make sure you get your money's worth.

Now that was some old-time hockey!

I had a feeling things were going to be interesting tonight when I noticed the large number of Ontario license plates in my usual parking garage. I said to myself, "Self, them hosers are making a weekend of this." Looked in the window of Christos: Blue and white jerseys everywhere. Olive Or Twist: More Leafs fans. Six Penn Kitchen... not so much. (Guess the symphony crowd had all of the reservations.)

Needless to say, things were loud and rowdy in the Igloo tonight. Favorite sign:
    Losers
    Even
    After
    Forty
    Seasons

Next indication that things were gonna be interesting: five guys dressed in superhero costumes in B27. Superman, The Hulk, The Flash, Spider-man, and Wolverine. I don't mean to dis on Toronto fans, but in five years of being a Penguins season ticket holder, I've never seen anybody in a superhero costume at a game before, so I'm guessing They Are Canadian.

Next hint: Jarkko Ruutu scored a goal! On a penalty shot, no less. Not a cheap one, either. Faked Andrew Raycroft onto Bigelow Boulevard with a forehand move, then tucked it in backhand. Friday morning, Tim Benz was talking to post-game radio host Bob Grove. Bob said that a caller after Thursday night's shootout loss in Boston found an interesting statistic: Ruutu was 2-for-4 on shootout attempts last year with Vancouver. (Michel Therrien sent Sergei Gonchar over the boards again Thursday night. WTF?)

For the first two periods, it was just a lot of up-and-down action, with the Pens converting on far more of their opportunities. Jeff O'Neill scored an early power play goal, then Jordan Staal tipped in a pass from Evgeni Malkin to even it up less than two minutes later.

Then Toronto's penalty problems started again. First came Ruutu's penalty shot goal, about halfway through the first. To finish the first, Mark Recchi redirected a Ryan Whitney shot for a power play goal.

The second period was the Crosby & Recchi Power Play Revue. First, Crosby takes a pass from Gonchar at the top of the right circle, skates a big arc across both points, casts an area-of-effect mesmerize spell on the Leafs' penalty killers, reaches the left half-boards, and feeds a perfect one-timer pass to Recchi, who is criminally undefended in the slot. Three minutes later, that same combo does it again, tic-tac-toe style. Recchi gets a natural hat trick, putting him just two goals away from 500 for his NHL career.

Then, in the third, the wheels fell off Toronto's cart, starting with Jean-Sebastien Aubin replacing Raycroft.

Travis Green got whistled for hooking, and Jeff O'Neill must have said something awful about a referee's mother, because he got 2 and 10 for unsportsmanlike conduct. Crosby scored on the ensuing 5-on-3, turning a rout into a laugher, and the Leafs completely lost their cool. Here's a breakdown of the rest of the third:

• 5:22 -- Bryan McCabe and Chris Thorburn, 5 each for fighting (Very few punches thrown before Thorburn wrestled McCabe to the ice)
• 6:04 -- Maxime Talbot, 2 for hooking
• 6:42 -- Nik Antropov, 2 for hooking
• 6:55 -- Michel Ouellet, 2 for hooking
• 10:52 -- Hal Gill, 2 for roughing (where "roughing" == "bending Ruutu over the boards at the Pens bench and demanding that he smell Colby Armstrong's skates")
• 11:08 -- Power play goal by Ouellet
• 12:15 -- Gill and Thorburn, 5 each for fighting (Thorburn wins another wrestling match)
• 12:51 -- Ouellet, 2 for hooking
• 13:44 -- Power play goal by Brendan Bell (really an own goal, deflected in by Whitney)
• 14:36 -- Goal by Ryan Malone
• 15:08 -- Antropov, 2 for interference; McCabe, 2 for roughing and 10; Brooks Orpik, 4 for roughing and 10 (really for skating in from somewhere around Harmarville to hit McCabe during the scrum after Antropov's call)
• 15:11 (yes, three seconds after the ensuing faceoff) -- Maxime Talbot and Green, 5 for fighting (Green must have caught a glimpse of Mad Max's eyes, and turtled); Wade Belak, 5 and a game for spearing somebody away from the fight. (I didn't see who, and I haven't found a box score that lists a victim)
• 18:57 -- Ruutu, 2 for hooking (as the Pens were trying to not run up the score by, among other things, putting Jarkko Ruutu on a power play unit. I kid, I kid! Ruutu was flying tonight.)

Meanwhile, I think I saw the cops in the stands more often than the Pens Patrol, as frustrated, drunken Leafs fans clashed with gloating, drunken Pens fans throughout the third.

Some of the more humorous things yelled in my earshot:

Crosby, you're a traitor! Go back to Russia!

Toronto fans: KAN-sas CI-ty! KAN-sas CI-ty! Kan-sas... feh.
Pens fan: Wow, I didn't know there were that many Royals fans in Canada!

Anybody want to bet on the guy in the Flash costume being the slowest runner?

So, to sum up, we had a penalty shot, a natural hat trick, three fights, multiple altercations in the crowd, two failed attempts to start a "KAN-sas CI-ty" chant, two successful "SIX-ty SEV-en" chants, no waves, five guys in superhero costumes, and Evgeni Malkin racking up five assists about as quietly as one can have a five-point night in the National Hockey League.

God, I love this game!

Final Score, Penguins 8, Maple Leafs 2, time of the first F-bomb from one of the louder Leafs fans behind me: 16:22 of the third. (Admirable restraint, I must say.)

Three Stars:

1. Mark Recchi (3G, 1A)
2. Evgeni Malkin (5A)
3. Sidney Crosby (1G, 2A)

Postscript: This morning at church, Rev. Ramsey opened the service with an apology and a huge smile: "If my voice sounds a bit low and hoarse, I apologize. I was at the hockey game last night..."

WDVE, what game were you watching?

This morning, the DVE morning show was raving about how good last night's game was, even though the good guys lost in a shootout.

OK, so Sidney Crosby had one amazing goal. And Marc-Andre Fleury had two great sequences of saves. But that was about it for the good hockey action.

The rest of the game was slop.

Mark Recchi got his 1300th point in the NHL, on a pass from Crosby that pinballed from Recchi's skate to Corey Sarich's skate, and into the net.

The only other entertaining part was the amount of booing directed at Andre Roy. He started this season with the Pens, getting ice time in drips and drabs and sitting in the penalty box, when he wasn't a healthy scratch. Eventually, the front office tired of his occupation of a roster spot, and placed him on waivers, where he was picked up by Tampa. Last night was his first game back in Pittsburgh, and he spent most of the night trying to start something with someone, anyone in a black sweater. There were no takers. Roy and Josef Melichar were jawing a bit in the first, and I imagine the exchange went something like this:

Roy: [French-Canadian accent] You wanna go?
Melichar: [Czech accent] No, I wanna trap you in the zone and force you offside.
Linesman: [whistle] Offside!
Melichar: Ha-ha! [skates to bench]

For punctuation, Roy gave a fan the middle finger as he left the ice for a coincidental minor at the end of the first. Welcome back, Andre!

Final Score: Lightning 3, Penguins 2 (Lightning win shootout 1-0), number of times I thought the woman sitting next to Man-Child was going to elbow him in the mouth: 6.

Three Stars:

1. Martin St. Louis (1 shootout goal, 1A)
2. Mark Recchi (1G, 1A, 1300 career points!)
   
3. Sidney Crosby (1 OMFG G, 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)
   

In every hockey game, there are three teams on the ice: The home team, the visiting team, and the officials. Wednesday night, that was three sloppy teams on the ice.

At any given moment in the game, you could say that Team X was stinking the joint up. The only question was who and when.

Mark Recchi had his best game of the season so far. He opened the scoring with a classic sniper's goal, skating up the right wing and snapping a wrist shot top shelf over Brian Finley's glove. He also got the game-tying goal with :30 remaining in regulation, chipping in a backhander during a 6-on-4 power-play.

So why wasn't he one of the Pens' three shooters in the shootout?

Michel Therrien has made some odd choices in the shootout, and this night was one of them, as his three choices were Michel Ouellet, Evgeni Malkin, and Sergei Gonchar. Ouellet's been cold lately, but he's a finisher, so maybe a shootout goal would get him off the schneid. Malkin had a breakaway goal in the game, so he's a natural choice. But why, if given a choice between a hot Mark Recchi and a defenseman, would Therrien choose the defenseman? I just don't get it. Marco Sturm got the only shootout goal Boston needed.

Final Score: Bruins 4, Penguins 3 (SO), Number of people who said "Huh?" when they called Gonchar's name: 16,958.

Three Stars:

1. Patrice Bergeron (2A)
2. Mark Recchi (2G)
3. Evgeni Malkin (1G, 1A)
   

What does it say when the most remarkable things about a tilt with the Rangers are:

• Mark Recchi had 2 goals
• The Pens' division record is now 7-1-0
• It took something like 10 minutes to correct the game clock with less than one minute remaining in the third.

Of course, for much of the first period, the scoreboard alternated between reading "PENGUINS" vs. "RANGERS" and "penguins" vs. "devils". Chalk it up to Crappy Old Mellon Arena. At least the lights stayed on.

As is tradition in Pittsburgh, Jaromir Jagr was booed every time he touched the puck. Other former Penguins get much less hostile greetings: A small cheer for Marty Straka, an indifferent isn't-he-due-for-his-annual-shoulder-injury? reaction to Michal Rozsival, and a loud groan when Darius Kasparaitis was scratched. Yeah, we really miss Kaspar that much.

Final Score: Penguins 3, Rangers 1, number of times a referee skated between the ref's crease and the benches during that damn clock delay: Um, I lost count.

Three Stars:

1. Mark Recchi (2G)
2. Sidney Crosby (2A)
3. Sergei Gonchar (2A)