Recap: Penguins defeat Canucks 3-1



I’d start writing a foreword to these Recaps, like stats and news they throw at you before puck drop, but I usually come crashing into my room right as puck drop happens…maybe next time.

First Period:

Fleury makes the first stop off a quick wrister, glad to see he’s stopping those initial few shots.

Good shot on Luongo bounces high in the air, but he gloves it.

Bieksa bumps Adams into Luongo, which knocks both Adams and Luongo over, and proceeds to fight Adams. Bieska punches Adams on the chin, and Adams falls over. Kind dull.

Some good zone possession time leads to a chance for the Pens, Rupp feeds Sid right in front of the next, but Luongo makes a great stop.

Then Daniel Sedin takes a shot from the point, but it’s blocked, Erhoff slaps it, blocked again, and the Pens counter attack.

Conner steals the puck from a d-man, and puts a solid shot on goal that Luongo stops.

Letang dives to touch up an icing, and goes careening into the boards followed by Ryan Glass, but he’s ok.

Asham steals it from a d-man, but can’t get it to Malkin for the slot shot.

Samuelson sends a slapper to the goal off the rush, but Flower knocks it out of play.

Letestu takes a bad angle shot and the Pens almost set up the umbrella for some slappers, but they lose it, and Fleury stops Kesler’s point shot.

The Sedins start making some good passing in the zone, and start making me nervous. These two are both phenomenal players, and definitely rival Sid and Geno’s dynamic duo prestige. I think we’ve got the edge with our boys though.

Malkin gets a nice breakout pass, and starts some good offensive zone possession, which leads to a few chances before Luongo gloves a shot and stops it for a faceoff.

Crosby gets called for a hold, he grabbed the guy’s stick for a second, but it caused the guy to crash into the boards. Powerplay Vancouver. They are an astounding 33% on the PP on the road.

Daniel gets a point blank shot, but Fleury’s there to stop it. After a clear, Michalek block another shot for a quick clear. A little more action on the PP, but it dies.

As the Vancouver PP ends, Crosby gets out of the box, and Talbot chips it past the defense who hasn’t realized that Sid’s back on the ice. Sid gets the breakout pass. BREAKAWAY. SHOT. GOAL. Sid bombed it between Luongo’s pad and blocker. 1-0 Pens.

Malkin and Crosby are together on the ice and they set up some really solid chances that either miss, get blocked, or Luongo stops.

Time ticks down, period ends.

First Period Recap:

Very physical period. 10 hits from Vancouver and 11 from Pittsburgh. Vancouver took a decisive lead on faceoffs. But what really makes the difference is Pittsburgh’s successful PK, since it lead to Crosby’s breakaway goal, the only goal so far. Incidentally, during the TV break, they play one of those player showcases where you see the player striking a dynamic pose and hear the announcers yelling that they score. But this one was on Paul Martin, who only has one goal (an empty netter against NJD) so I didn’t understand where the ‘he shoots, he scores!’ audio came from…

Second Period:

Sid tries to walk through the Vancouver defense, and it almost works, but the puck gets sent out. Sid gets slew-footed by Hansen, but it was incidental and unnoticed.

Mike Rupp takes a penalty and here comes the Vancouver PP again. Daniel Sedin centers a pass, but Michalek slides on the ice and blocks the pass. A blocked shot results in a clear. Samuelson shoots it past Fleury from a bad angle but it goes through the crease harmlessly.

The penalty ends, and Mike Rupp almost gets a breakaway, but instead Hamhuis throws on the brakes and takes the check in his back. It gets called as a boarding, kinda bullshit.

Flower makes a phenomenal stop on Henrik Sedin, and Daniel shoots right off the rebound, but misses! Cooke and Talbot get a 2 on 1 chance the other way, but Luongo stops it, the Canucks counter-attack but they miss the net, it bounces up the ice, and Cooke and Talbot get another 2 on 1 shorthanded attempt, Talbot shoots, blocked, bounces, Talbot takes it behind the net. Wraparound. GOAL!!! 2-0 Pens!

The Pens then kill the penalty. Geno almost gives Sid a breakaway in the slot, but Sid can’t take the pass.

The puck comes around the boards, and Martin jabs at it to keep in the offensive zone, it flies high in the air, the Vancouver D-man can’t control it and Asham shoots it, Luongo blocks it. Rebound. Jousting. Asham bats it in! GOAL! 3-0 Pens!

Kesler brings the puck in, sends it to Daniel Sedin, who passes to Henrik. Shoots. Blocked. Henrik gets the rebound, crease action, Henrik tips it to Hamhuis. Shot. GOAL! Vancouver scores to make it 3-1 halfway through the second.

Crosby walks into the slot alone, he misses the net, but Dupuis gets hooked and we’re looking at the Pens first Powerplay!

Malkin gets a good shot, a lot of crease action. Couple point shots, Letang gets a shot from up close, Luongo blocks it. It’s cleared. The Pens bring it back in, Luongo goes to play the puck but falls over the side of the net! One of the Pens shoots it at the open net, but Dan Hamhuis makes an amazing sliding block! The penalty dies, but it’s one of the best Powerplays I’ve seen the Pens have this year.

Talbot makes a good steal, but the Pens are changing, he dumps it in.

Fleury makes an amazing point blank save on Kesler’s shot after Orpik turns it over in his own zone. The Canucks win the faceoff, and Fleury stones Kesler for the second time on a point blank save.

Dupuis trips someone, and here comes another Vancouver PP. They are 0/3 with only 4 shots.

Cooke steals and has a shorthanded breakaway! But Luongo stops it and they go the other way, and Fleury makes a few great saves without leaving any rebounds. Flower’s really on his game tonight. Penalty killed, but a lot of good saves.

Sid gets a partial breakaway, and drops it to Geno, but the shot’s blocked. Sid and Geno set up some more good chances, but nothing gets on net.

Flower makes another good save, and the period ends.

Second Period Recap:

Talbot’s shorthanded goal is the first shorthanded goal the Canucks have let up this year. Shots are 19-18 Pens, but faceoffs are 25-16 Vancouver. Vancouver’s PP has basically gone 0/4 and allowed 2 goals against, since the first goal was a breakaway from the box. Too bad Flower won’t get the shutout, he’s been playing pretty damn well, he’s stopped 17 of 18 shots.

Third Period:

Cooke-Malkin-Asham starts off a fierce offensive in the third. This line is clicking pretty well, and generating some good chances, and scored that third goal.

Letestu has two really good shots on two rushes. Don’t know why he’s not on the score sheet more.

Shot gets deflected just wide of the Canucks goal.

Remember when I was talking about Cooke-Malkin-Asham? Yeah, they just started some sick offense zone chances. Luongo made the saves though.

Conner walks in the Canucks zone and pretends he’s Sidney Crosby by power skating behind the net, sets up a good chance that the Canucks defense breaks up. Kunitz throws the puck towards the net and Crosby deflects it on goal, but Luongo stops it.

Couple good chances for the boys from Canada, but Flower is on his game tonight.

Fleury makes a mask save, looks fuzzy for a minute, but shakes it off.

Geno walks in to the Canucks zone off a good steal, give and go with Cooke, and takes a shot alone in the slot! But Luongo stops it.

Crosby sends the puck out of play…Vancouver PP again. Martin tried to convince the ref he did it, I guess to keep Crosby on the ice? Nice try.

Flower isn’t letting up as many rebounds as usual, and I haven’t seen any disastrous poke-check attempts.

Henrik Sedin gets called for holding Cooke’s stick. We’ll be skating 4 on 4, and this game is almost over. Funny that both captains are in the box right now.

How do you tell Daniel and Henrik Sedin apart? Well the one passing is Henrik and the one scoring is Daniel. Or Henrik is an inch taller than Daniel. Both work.

Sid’s out of the box and we’re on a shortened PP.

The net’s empty, and Talbot gets a breakaway, but Bieksa makes a diving poke check to knock the puck away.

Vancouver calls timeout.

Sid gets all the way to the red line with the puck, but misses the shot! Vancouver blocks two shots at the empty net at point blank range, and the game is over.

3-1 Pens. Final.

Third Period Recap:

So no scoring to speak of in this period. Amazing job by the Canucks to defend the empty net.

Game Recap:

Good job on the PK, Vancouver’s PP is second in the league, and they went 0/5 tonight. Not to mention letting up 2 goals. Pittsburgh is now the team that lets up the least shots per game in the league. Game winning goal comes from a nice shorthanded effort from Talbot and Cooke. Way to go guys, we’re second in the conference now.

Let’s go Pens.

Game Summary: Penguins lose to Rangers in OT 2-3

PERIOD ONE:

Asham gets a pass right in front of the net, but can’t handle it and a good scoring chance goes by.

Flower stones a good Del Zotto backhand. Glad to see Flower’s on his game early.

Seeing a lot of good defense, not many shots. And before I can use the word boring Malkin flips a shot towards Lundqvist and seconds later trades roughing penalties with Del Zotto. Looks like it’s 4 on 4 time.

Crosby gets a breakaway chance but Lundqvist beats him to the breakout pass and kills that opportunity.

Comrie drops the gloves and trades a few punches before his dance partner manages to fall over for some reason. Not the most exciting fight, can we get Engelland out here? However, the Pens are leading the league in fighting majors, and I love it.

Cooke-Malkin-Asham line is looking good, always thought that Cooke and Asham would work well together, and Geno really could use some good chemistry on that line.

Letestu has a good shot off the faceoff. Have I mentioned that I really like that kid? I do. He’s got some good potential.

Some idiot on the Rangers uses Gogo for javelin practice, and Gogo heads down the runway to the dressing room. Dude lost his stick in the bench.

Sid gets a partial breakaway, but Lundqvist gets a piece of it and sends it wide.

Asham has a little fun with Sean Avery, and we’re skating 4 on 4.

Fleury stops a nice little combo, and the Pens set up some nice offensive zone time.

Gogo isn’t injured and is back on the ice, he gets a nice feed from Martin that Lundqvist knocks out of play.

One minute left in the period. Martin and Michalek play catch in the D-zone until the 4 on 4 runs out, and nothing really happens until the period ends.

Period One Recap: 15/20 faceoff wins for the Pens, and that results in some serious possession time. Shots are 12 to 5 favoring the Pens, but we’re scoreless after one. Hoping to see the same team come out for Period Two. We’ve had excellent containment of Marian Gaborik (who those of you who don’t know he’s basically their best forward coming off a hat trick last game).

PERIOD TWO:

Fleury uses the pokecheck! And it causes him to lose his stick. Flower, please.

Comrie misses the goal. Surprise!

Malkin and Crosby get a two on one, but Lundqvist stops Crosby’s shot. Good save.

First powerplay goes to Pittsburgh. Cross your fingers, fans.

Malkin tries to take the puck through the Rangers D, and it ends up in Lundqvist’s glove.

Gogo hits the crossbar!

Someone breaks a stick, but Sid hits someone’s legs and it gets cleared.

Gogo gets a feed from Geno, but Lundqvist is just a wall. PP killed.

Flower stops a few shots in tight, including a Gaborik wrap-around.

The Rangers Offense seems to have rolled out of bed today to find themselves in the middle of a second period hockey game.

Shot by Martin, rebound ends up nowhere, glad to see him stepping up though.

Christensen sees some dog crapped on the ice. Then he realizes that it’s actually the puck and flings it towards the net. Engelland thinks this is soccer for some reason and tries to kick it, and it goes in. 1-0 Rangers.

Conner sets up on the boards and gives Comrie a good shot at the goal, but Lundqvist blocks it.

Gaborik gets a great shot off and Flower makes a good falling save. If you remember the last save Fleury made with about 3 seconds to go in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, same save.

Lundqvist stops three good shots. Pens can’t get on the board. Creeping up on 20 shots on no goals here.

Rangers call timeout because Lundqvist is tired from stopping everything.

Pens keep getting some good offense, but its all angles, we need to get into the slot or take some point shots.

Flower has some good positioning and makes a blind save off a nice shot.

Staal (no not Jordan, Mark Staal is a Ranger) gets his stick up in Dupuis face and tries to clear an eyelash off his cheek. Dupuis was saving that eyelash for a wish after the game, and headbutts the stick. Or Staal highsticks Dupuis, I wasn’t paying too much attention. Power Play Pens! 4 minutes of 5 on 4.

Nice little combo that Lundqvist stops, and a shorthanded chance develops, Malkin gets a stick lift and turns a good chance into crap.

And all of a sudden it looks like the Rangers are on the PP (even though it’s our PP), because we’re in the D-Zone for a good chunk of time.

Powerplay is looking like crap, more shots for the Rangers than for us. Offsides call. Someone tries to walk through 3 Rangers alone, and it gets cleared instead. Period over. At least we get a little over a minute of Power Play time to start the second.

Period Two Recap: Still got the edge on shots, now 24 to 14. Powerplay makes me sad, and Lundqvist has continued to be a wall. Rangers up now 1-0

PERIOD THREE:

Powerplay dies looking like trash. Seems like the Rangers had more chances than we did.

Letestu gets a breakaway and tries the same move he used against Bryzgalov in the shootout against Phoenix, but it doesn’t work.

My friend calls me and starts bugging me about something and I miss a few minutes. Nothing big happens, apparently.

Lundqvist won’t give up many rebounds, and on the few he has, Comrie or someone blows the chance.

Fleury stops a few shots. Any other team and we’d be up right now, but we can’t get any shots in the slot and point shots keep getting blocked. Lundqvist has his angles down.

Gaborik hooks the crap out of Dupuis, and the Pens go on the Powerplay. If we don’t score here, we might be in serious trouble.

Powerplay is still not doing very well, especially with the whole ‘let’s sit around with the puck at the point and not shoot’ mentality. Power Play gets killed, but Pens maintain possession, and Lundqvist saves.

Cooke and Marc Staal trade penalties, here comes a 4 on 4. I feel like the Pens get an advantage when it 4 on 4, but we’ve got to watch out for Gaborik. That guy is fast and more open ice sounds like exactly what he’d like to have. The 4 on 4 ends without too much action.

Malkin gets hooked and the Pens are on the Power Play.

Kunitz scores in some alternate universe where Henrik Lundqvist isn’t ridiculous, but in our existence Lundqvist makes a ridiculous toe-save.

One of the Rangers takes what looks like a high stick and starts bleeding, and I’m thinking we’re about to end the game on the PK, but turns out he got hit with the puck. He’s alright, but goes down the runway to get some stitches.

We’ve got just under 4 minutes of game time left and just over 1 minute of PP time left. We might be looking at a 1-0 or 2-0 loss if we don’t score here.

Three Penguins are unable to keep one Ranger from harassing them into staying in the D-Zone, and before I’m done bitching to my roommate about our PP, it ends, but Crosby shoots, Malkin pokes at it, and Kunitz finds the puck on the doorstep. He blasts it in before the Ranger gets back from the penalty box to the Ranger’s zone.

I’m cheering, and before I’m done Matt Cooke scores. Amazing shot, right between the glove and chest of Lundqvist. And to make things even better Lundqvist gets so angry that he breaks his stick and throws it. That’s going to mean the Pens end the game on the Power Play up 2-1. All we have to do to win is what we normally do, have a Power Play where nothing interesting or skillful occurs on the ice.

But oh no, that’s not easy enough for the Penguins. For some reason no one realizes that the Rangers aren’t going to be penalty killing their way to a loss, instead they are obviously trying to score shorthanded, and the defense plays like they’re safe from offensive chances. The offense doesn’t seem to realize that they need to contribute to the ‘Don’t get scored on shorthanded’ effort. The Rangers walk in on a 2-on-2 situation and a good pass lets Mark Staal score short side.

(Edit: I didn’t learn this until later, but Bylsma really screwed up here. When the Pens got their PP with under 2 mins left, instead of putting ANY defensive players on the ice Bylsma put out his top line (Kunitz-Crosby-Malkin) which was a slight oversight, but he also put out Letang and Goligosky, our two offensive-defensemen. This was a SERIOUS error. The objective should have been “Stop Shorthanded Chances” and two DEFENSIVE-defensemen should have been on the ice, instead of having the usual powerplay scorers trying to score an extra goal, or whatever he was trying to do.)

The Power Play is deflated, and works its usual magic of turning a one-year removed from being Defending Stanley Cup Champs into 5 guys on the ice who can pass, and none who can shoot, much less score. Here comes overtime.

Third Period Recap: The Pens were 3 minutes from defeat, and OT looked like a sure thing once Kunitz scored. When Cooke scored, and Lundqvist threw a fit to end the game on the PK for the Rangers we totally should have had this thing in the bag, but for some reason we counted the game as over and pretended like the Rangers were going to Penalty Kill their way into the night, (and Bylsma messed up bad and put scorers instead of defenders on the ice). Now we’re in overtime, great. If you’d have told me when the Rangers were up 1-0 with 3 minutes left we’d be going into overtime, I’d be thrilled, but now I’m pissed instead. Funny how that works.

OVERTIME:

I’m going to skip the boring garbage the Pens called offense here and skip to the end. Michalek falls over NOTHING at the red line and the Rangers get a 2 on 1. Paul Martin is back to defend, but instead of taking out one of the defenders or something helpful he goes down too early and slides out of the play. A 2 on 0 now exists in front of the net. Quick pass, Flower can’t stop it, goal. Game over.

OT Recap: Well that sucks.

VERDICT:

The Pens PP was better for the Rangers than the Pens, as it goes 0/6 tonight and allows a terrible shorthanded goal to send them into OT, which they lose off of a blatant defensive error. If the Powerplay offense had been interested in playing it safe, or playing at all, that 2-on-2 shorthanded chance at the end of period three never develops. And again, the Pens check out of the game before the 60 minutes is up and lose.

Of the Pens three problems this season: (Offense Problems, PP Problems, and Goaltending Problems) only Fleury get a pass here. The first goal wasn’t really a stoppable shot, and the OT goal was a 2 on 0 chance because our defense crapped its pants, and although I thought the short handed goal was a little his fault, the PP cannot end up 0/6 with no goals for and one goal against. Looking for a scapegoat? Tonight it’s the Penguins Powerplay.

Pittsburgh’s Goalie Situation

Anyone who calls themselves a Pittsburgh fan should immediately know what the title of this article is referring to, and a lot of people who aren’t but follow hockey closely should as well. However, for the sake of those who are unaware of this dilemma I’ll take it from the top.

Last season and post-season left a lot of people disappointed in Marc-Andre Fleury, the Pens franchise goaltender, including myself. Many people believe that stats don’t paint the whole picture, but his final SV% and GAA were significantly below what a goaltender who hoisted the Stanley Cup the year before were expected to be. Flower ended the regular season at .905 SV% (35th) and 2.65 GAA (24th). I’d mention my opinion about the post-season goaltending I saw but I think I’ve repressed so much of it I can only remember Brian Elliot and Pascal Leclaire trading off ‘Get Lit Up by the Pens’ shifts. I know I must have seen Fleury play as well as whoever was in goal for the Canadiens, but those memories are currently pushed into a dark corner of my brain labeled “Halaked – Do Not Open”.

Over the summer, many people were content to let last season go in favor of focusing on the year ahead, and Fleury was given a clean slate to start anew. The pre-season yielded an astounding 5-1 record for the Pens, and although I can’t find any hard records I believe Fleury’s SV% was somewhere in the mid .94Xs. He looked great and it boded well for Flower that he was performing well, and would hopefully continue to in the regular season.

Unfortunately for Pittsburgh fans, nothing could be further from the truth. After starting 8 games, his record is a dismal 1-6-0, and if you noticed that doesn’t add up to the 8 games he started, it’s because yesterday in Phoenix he was pulled after letting in two embarrassing goals off of 5 shots. Last night’s game was an accurate narrative of the goaltending in Pittsburgh. Fleury lets in 2 less than quality goals off of 5 ‘shots’ if you could call the second goal a shot, and gets replaced by Brent Johnson, who stops 22 of 23 shots and 3 of 3 shootout attempts to grab the W from the jaws of defeat. As a sidenote, the only goal scored against Johnson in this game was a terrible turnover by Alex Goligoski that resulted in a shot which accidentally deflected off of Pittsburgh Defenceman Paul Martin’s stick and drastically changed angles at the last moment to slip into the net, in other words not a situation where you could blame the goalie.

Backup goaltender Brent Johnson has been putting Fleury to shame all season, posting a .943 SV% and 1.63 GAA and a 6-1-1 record, his only losses coming in a 1-0 OTL against the St. Louis Halaks- I mean Blues, and an admittedly bad game where the Pens lost 2-5 to the Dallas Stars. Fleury on the other hand has a .853 SV% and 3.55 GAA with the previously mentioned 1-6-0 record, his only win coming in a 4-3 overtime victory over Nashville where his SV% was .875. To put those numbers all into perspective, of the 50 goalies in the NHL Johnson is 5th in both SV% and GAA and Fleury is 49th in SV% (only beating the Devil’s backup, Johan Hedberg) and 46th in GAA. And for those of you who place less of an importance on statistics than myself…Fleury has let in at least one soft goal in every game, and that’s ended up costing the Pens in the standings. It is early in the season, but like many fans I take a certain comfort in seeing the Pens safely in the top 8 in the conference, and we are ninth and not even a comfortable ninth.

I want to make a few things clear here. First, I do not want to trade Fleury. The people yelling “Trade Fleury!” are the same ones that want to trade Staal and Malkin, and I have significantly less respect for most of these fans. Not because I disagree with them, but because they only say such things when these players go into a slump. If you’ve solidly been saying trade Staal or Malkin or Fleury many months (and no, you haven’t), fine, I disagree, but I’ll respect you as a fan. However (most of) these people calling for Fleury to be traded need to shut it. He’s had 7 or 8 bad games (depending on how you look at it) and the only thing I have to say to you is that if it takes 16 wins to earn the cup, it should take at least that many TERRIBLE losses to deserve to be traded, so knock it off. It’s a slump. It happens.

Second, I don’t blame Fleury for our poor standings. If he’d been playing better we’d be doing better, but he’s not the one who chooses which goalie starts, that’s Byslma’s call. I thought it was pretty obvious that Fleury was having trouble and Johnson was on fire, and yet I’ve found myself groaning three or four different times to see Fleury in the crease at puck drop. Bylsma needs to get it through his head that Fleury isn’t going to suddenly turn it on, and even if he did, Johnson is still playing like a man possessed. When you have one goalie playing like Rick DiPietro and another playing like Tim Thomas YOU DON’T BENCH A .943 SV% FOR A .853 SV%. Maybe Johnson stopping 22 of 23 shots and 3 of 3 shootout chances after walking into a 2-0 deficit only seven minutes into the game but coming back to win will finally snap Disco Dan out of it.

Finally, I realize that the Pens have been having other problems than Flower’s play. The PP has failed us in its most crucial situations, and we went from ending last year at 5th in Goals per Game (3.04) to 17th this year (2.8). If the PP and offense had been better Fleury would probably be say…3-4 (we’d have won against Philly the third time we met, and Anaheim) but Johnson would be 7-1-0 (instead of losing 0-1 in overtime against the Blues and Halak).

There are three final arguments I’d like to make as a case for Brent Johnson:

1. Brent has previously been a starting goalie (for the St. Louis Blues). He played 58 games in 01-02 and 38 games in 02-03.

2. He’s also performed well in the playoffs. In the 2002 Stanley Cup Playoffs Brent Johnson managed to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks before being trounced by the Red Wings (who won the cup that year). In the series against the Hawks he allowed 5 goals in 5 games, posting 3 consecutive shutouts in games 2, 3, and 4, before knocking out the Hawks in game 5. His overall numbers were 5 Wins, 5 Losses, 3 Shutouts, with a 1.83 GAA and .929 SV%.

3. It’s not totally unheard of for a goalie to reach the peak of his career in his later years. Look at Tim Thomas, he wasn’t even a starting goalie until 2006 when he was 32! Johnson’s 33 years old, and has been considered a solid backup since he stopped being the starter for the Blues in 03-04, there’s no reason we should consider him ‘too old to be a starter’ seeing as how Brodeur looked great last regular season at the age of 37 (even if he’s sucking this year).

Here’s the bottom line: Johnson needs to become the Pens starter, at least for now. Johnson might lose his hot streak, and Fleury might find his game and start playing well, but the Pens can no longer sacrifice their place in the standings to get Fleury in the game. And why would they? If Brent is playing well enough to be in the same vicinity as Tim Thomas, why wouldn’t you put him in net? Some people have made the argument that we need Fleury to come back, and to that I say: Why? I see no reason why we should be starting Fleury. If you feel that we should, please leave me a comment. My personal prediction is that Johnson will start slowing down in about 10 games, and Fleury will start playing better and retake his starting position, but don’t hold me to that. If we’re still looking at a shaky Fleury and solid Johnson at the end of game 82, I want Johnson in net come the post-season.

But we in Pittsburgh don’t have to worry about that, we just need to decide who starts in the next few games. We Pens fans should feel blessed that when our starting goalie is struggling we have such a solid backup that we are still a competative team, instead of looking like the last-in-the-league/can’t-stop-the-puck/have-to-put-up-with-Snooki, New Jersey Devils. If we make it to the playoffs and have a dependable starting goalie at that point, I don’t care if we strap two-by-fours to Mario Lemieux and send him into the crease until then.

Update: I found a couple quotes you all might appreciate in an article on the Post-Gazette’s website. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10313/1101857-61.stm#ixzz14ocXsgVH

Here are two passages:

“Goal-tending coach Gilles Meloche estimated that “80 percent” of Fleury’s current troubles can be traced to confidence issues, and Fleury acknowledged that his faith in his abilities has eroded as his slump has dragged on.”

“It’s on me,” Fleury said. “It’s a team game, but I don’t like the way it’s going now, and I have to be the one to get me out of this.”

I think a lot of people thought that his slump was mostly about his confidence, and personally I’m glad to see that it’s not anything more serious than that, and that he’s aware of it and taking responsibility for it. You’ve got to love Flower, and I think we all hope he gets back on his game soon.

Let’s go Pens.