(3x3)(4x2) Atlanta

Atlanta comes into Pittsburgh tonight in the midst of a franchise record win streak, 6 games, 3 of which they’ve played without Ilya Kovalchuk, one of the best snipers in the game. They’ll be without him for a 4th game…

No Lehtonen tonight either.

This guy has never finished a season below .900 save percentage in his professional career. Jokerit(familiar?)-Present. Solid.

So I attempted to do a game blog before and it was horrendous. This time we’re going to do something a little different.

Intermissions. That’s when I’ll do most of my writing for game.

Is that pathetic? Yeah. Like you were the first few times you rode a bike.

Cut me a break. Jeez.

GAME

First Period

• Fleury and Moose = starters
• Malkin isn’t that sick. (illness)
• Crosby has JUMP tonight.

-About 30 seconds into the game, Gill hits Malkin with a pass to the skates, in traffic. Love it. Atlanta sucks, but they’re still a professional hockey team, with professional players. Come on.

-Crosby makes an incredibly athletic maneuver to slide on his knees, snag the puck, and make a sweet pass, all in one motion. Nobody else is on board the good ship crosby. Guerin misses on the backhand. Not as easy as it looked. Good Call Errey.

-5v3? no. 5v4? for like a second. Holy Gonch. Nice screen Mr. Kunitz. 1-1

-Then Kunitz goes and gets his own. 2-1

SideNoteski:

How good is Bob Errey these days? Can pens fans really want anything more of him? Don’t get me wrong, I was a big fan of Mike Lange, but Bob’s doing more than just getting it done. He’s dominating

.

Second Period

-Kennedy hits Staal in the slot. Staal strikes oil. If this is the staal we can come to expect on a nightly basis? He’s a steal at 4 mil. 3-1

-Dupuis on Hedberg, shorthanded. Good work from the penalty killers. Hedberg is all effort.

-Yet another tripping penalty, Malkin takes his toll. TWICE. As I’m writing this, Malkin burns them a second time. First goal was 4v4. Second one was a PPG. 4-1,5-1.

“We are so blessed with the names on that graphic,” Steigy.

If there wasn’t a Malkin, would you create him?

-It’s 5-2. I must have missed Atlanta’s second goal. My bad. If Atlanta comes back (knocking on wood) I’ll look up when i missed it. otherwise…

-Eaton has a wonderful opportunity…and he’s a defensive defenseman. I love his effort, but his skills…not the right skills.

-one on one all over the place. Entertaining. Staal, Cooke, Staal. nice.

Third Period

-Mark Eaton from Sergei Gonchar. If you picked this before it happened…James Randi wants you. Eaton’s been playing 2-way hockey as of late. good stuff. 6-2

-Malkin on a breakaway…penalty shot. Still 6-2.

-Not much news from this period. I could have added alot, but i chose not to type while eating cheesecake.

Malkin gets the puck, 1 second to go, looking for the HT…passes to Kunitz. That is your MVP ladies and gents. Incredible.

Final: 6-2 Penguins

• It would appear that we’re seeing the Jordan Staal we’ve been waiting for.
• Crosby = 100%
• Kunitz > Hossa
• Evgeni Malkin gives a good interview. His english…not so good. But it keeps him genuine and candid. I’m not a Crosby hater or anything…but his interviews suck.
• Did Gonchar have a bad game this weekend? I remember hearing something about that but for some reason I seem to have forgotten.

Seriously though. Atlanta. We needed these points, not because we’re in bad shape points-wise, but rather because it’s Atlanta, and they’re just simply not a very good team, for now.

It’s echoed in every sport, at nearly every level: A good team beats the teams it should.

Sounds like a no-brainer, but we’d be at the top looking down if we’d picked up a few more points against weaker teams.

But that didn’t happen and frankly, it’s not worth dwelling upon. For the time being, the Penguins find themselves in the 5-slot. Not too shabby. Besides that, as Bob Errey noted during tonight’s game, the penguins appear to be peaking at the right time. That’s sure how it seems.

More tomorrow!

Go Pens.