Sens Blog: Silver Seven
It may be just a small highlight to take from this otherwise dismal loss, but after nearly 57 minutes of play Sidney Crosby was able to extend his point streak to 24-straight games on the Penguins' lone goal in the third, his 30th of the season.
Sadly, there's not much to praise outside of that.
I guess giving credit to Ottawa's Brian Elliott is a pretty good place to start in this recap. After all, he stopped 44 of Pittsburgh's 45 shots, more than double the work of Marc-Andre Fleury who gave up three goals on 24 shots. It definitely wasn't a battle of goaltenders in this one. It may have been more of a special teams game if you want to chalk it up to just one element, as each team managed four chances on the man advantage with Ottawa blanking the Pens and converting on two of their own.
Good to see Eric Godard out there mixing it up early on with Matt Carkner, even if you have to give the nod to Carkner at the end of that one. Tonight's game marked God's second straight game in which he's cracked the lineup, which seems like a pretty good decision when you look over at the other bench and see names like Chris Neil, Carkner and Jarkko Ruutu. A swollen eye from the loss to Carkner wouldn't stop Godard from trying to mix it up again later on, but unfortunately he was sent off with a game misconduct (if he had to go to the locker room anyone to get his eye some more attention, then what a way to go).
It was an otherwise boring game for a Pens fan, although the constant barrage of shots on Elliott was at least good enough to give the collective hopes that Pittsburgh would eventually crack him. With the exception of Crosby's goal, it just wasn't meant to be.
Back at it Tuesday against the Thrashers at home before hitting the road for one against the Islanders on Wednesday.