No Go Against Detroit: Wings Drop Pens 4-1

For the majority of the game, we did a great job of preventing Detroit from getting numbers through the neutral zone against us (with the obvious exception of the first Cleary goal). Just couldn’t quite get enough forecheck going the other way to really control the game, aside from the Malkin line.

Regarding Malkin: he was a joy to watch tonight, as he always is at his best. He was clearly the best player on the ice for either team tonight, with Datsyuk being the only guy who came close. The only thing you don’t really like to see from him is that ugly faceoff percentage; 4 out of 20 is pretty darn bad. Nonetheless, he was dominant in all three zones, and generated the majority of the Pens’ offensive chances tonight.

Horrible game… at least it wasn’t a shutout.

They were outshooting Detroit by that point and I felt the Penguins had pretty soundly outplayed the Wings in the 2nd, even with a quick mistake turned into the tying goal.

I thought the game was very well-played and I consistently marveled at the pressure the Penguins put on. You have to appreciate the rarity that is a team which can pressure in the offensive zone like the Penguins do and still force teams to dump it in from the blue line because they have enough numbers back.

Even missing players, the Penguins were a scary team and I don’t think the score of this one adequately described how the teams played.

…but I have to say that I disagree with your sense of the game. I thought it was, for the most part, a really good game. Detroit played a typically disciplined Red Wings game, the Pens managed to create quite a few chances, and in many ways it was just nice to have a game that wasn’t filled with all kinds of borderline dirty plays. At the end of the day the Wings won and the Pens lost, but the 4-1 score belies what I think was a pretty even game (except for a stretch in the third period where the Pens decided to make a bunch of mistakes, just for kicks). In my opinion the difference was the Wings’ annoyingly consistent ability to get in shooting and passing lanes. And possibly Evgeni Malkin’s ability to lose key faceoffs in the offensive zone (or anywhere else, really). But overall I thought the game was a good one. Not every Pens player had a great game (James Neal?), but in general this was not a game that left me mad at hockey or otherwise frustrated with our team.

Can’t really say I was disappointed other than the end result. Both teams played well, Detroit just capitalized on their chances and we didn’t.