Penguins, Marc-Andre Fleury Blank Islanders 3-0
by FrankD on Oct 25, 2011 10:10 PM EDT
in Game Recaps
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PrintDan Bylsma coached his 200th game tonight and Marc-Andre Fleury picked up his 20th career shutout. If you only read one sentence in this recap, let that be it. Of course if you only read one sentence, you likely didn't read the sentence after that...
Anyway...
The Pens picked up their fourth straight win in shutout fashion Tuesday night on the road in Long Island. With the recent news of Zbynek Michalek's injury, you had to wonder how the defense would respond. I think a clean sheet on 33 shots faced is a pretty good indication of how they'll look to adapt why Big Z is out of the lineup.
Pascal Dupuis kicked off the scoring late in the first period on a great breakout pass from Brooks Orpik that led to a breakaway goal that slipped right past Evgeni Nabokov. Great play by Orpik, who notched his first point of the season, and an even better finish from the speedy Dupuis.
Former Pen turned Islander turned Pen again Richard Park continues to be a spark for Pittsburgh as he took only 21 seconds into the second period to register his second of the year. Great example of how a strong back check, a little toe-drag action and a shot high on the glove side can lead to good things.
Weird moment of the night came when the Islanders decided to pull Nabokov with about three minutes remaining in the game. Nothing was a foregone conclusion at that point, but it looked like New York was mustering up a decent buzz around Fleury at the time when they elected to go with the extra attacker. The Pens did a good job of holding off the attack before Staal was able to bury the empty-net goal. Not a bad way to justify having his nose hacked up from earlier in the period when Marty Reasoner got a little stick happy and received a double minor.
Pens return for the second half of the home-and-home series against the Isles Thursday night. Puck drops at 7pm.
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Woot!
YAY!! MAF with the shutoot!! sings and dances
Congrats also to Park for his goal & Dupers too~
Also, DB for the 200th game!
The March of the Penguins is on. Don't be too scared.
Man, we’re beating teams that always gave us fits.: MTL, NYI…
This is great!
"Have you ever seen such finesse?"
"When you lose say little, when you win say less"
"You're a wiser man with Yzerman, but you're better off with Federov"
A silly hockey superstition of not even thinking the dreaded S(hutout) word before its complete seems to have followed me from my favorite hockey sports bar to my home TV set this past week. I thought and said it the other day, as in~“I just want to watch the end to see if Flower gets the shutout” before channel surfing back to football/baseball. Montreal scored the next play, 1:47 of the third. I kicked the jinx last time by joking calling out a shutout on the first shifts of games. Sarcasm > silly fan mental jinxes.
My rec league hockey buddy got me started on the superstitution and would feed it over the beers (and years). It was jokingly served by a 2 min STFU and a new round of drinks. Good times.
I am happy with the result, and it is nice to see Fleury put away his first shutout of the season nice and early on. I also thought the team played well in terms of backing one another up and being positionally pretty good.
However, I thought it was interesting that a lot of the post-game comments were of the “we need to play better” ilk (with one guy almost accidentally saying something like “we should play better against a team like this,” which I really wish had slipped out because that would have been awesome and hilarious all at once …). I did miss part of the first period, but I will say that the game seemed largely dispassionate. This is no doubt in part a result of over-compensation from last year’s brawl, but the heart just didn’t seem to be quite in it. Hopefully the fire will be stoked for Thursday, and we’ll see a bit more of our team’s passion shine through.
Jagr? I don't even know 'er.
Remember the time the Pens traded Army, Christensen, and Esposito for Dupers and the Thrashers gave them Hossa as a throw in…good times, good times.
Put on your dancin' shoes.
by PensFan024 on Oct 26, 2011 9:21 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Still got the best of that deal by a long shot.
Dupuis for under $1.5M/season is a better deal than Armstrong for $3M/season any way you slice it. Dupuis has the scoring ability of Armstrong, but he’s a better penalty killer. Maybe not as physical, but certainly a better skater. Steal.
DUE TO THE LENGTH OF NHL HOCKEY
SKATE ELECTRIC WILL NOT BE SEEN
by docciavelli on Oct 26, 2011 10:46 AM EDT up reply actions
Wow. Should we consider Duper for the SO. He showed great hands. But beyond that he played a great game. A great team effort. Park continues to contribute in many ways. I’ll say it again. The best signing this season. MAF earned his shutout. He should have had another one against the Habs, but for a defensive letdown in the last 2 mins. of the game. Lovejoy did well, he was called on a penalty which I thought, that it was a bad call, he touched the puck first. Malkin looked good, a little rusty I thought.
The Hockey Dr.
Haha I was surprised at how nicely Dupuis put that puck in the net on that goal: not quite what we’re used to from him! Maybe if they start doing the shootout like in the pre-season, where a guy chases you … then he can be our guy :)
Jagr? I don't even know 'er.
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