If hockey was consistently as exciting as game five was last night then it would be as popular as football. That game had it all – agony, ecstasy, ridiculous drama, incredible saves, good luck, bad luck, injury, exhaustion, heroics. It was brilliant. Pittsburgh got very, very lucky to pull it off. Or rather, they had Marc-Andre Fleury on their side. He saved the game about 100 times, and proved once and for all that he has arrived and is the real deal. Game six is now going to be fascinating. Detroit is still favored, but not by as much, and the Penguins should be flying high after the win and in front of the home crowd. Pittsburgh is currently at +118, and if they stay around there then I like them a lot.
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Tag: Pittsburgh Penguins
I watched the hockey game tonight, and I was left stunned by what I saw. The Red Wings are freakishly good, and Pittsburgh is in serious trouble. The Penguins haven’t scored a goal yet in 120 minutes. Ouch. What is most amazing, and most contributes to the outcome, is that Detroit is just sticking to their game plan. Pittsburgh keeps doing stupid things to try to get Detroit mad, the Red Wings don’t respond, and Pittsburgh commits a penalty out of frustration. That would be great at the best of times, but it is especially effective because neither Sidney Crosby nor Evgeni Malkin kill penalties. The best possible way to neutralize those two is to keep them off the ice. I feel fairly sure that Pittsburgh will win game three at home, but this series so far is just testament to how good Detroit is. It also makes me think that the week off before the series was the worst possible thing that could have happened to the Pens – their young guys had too much time to sit around and freak themselves out by the immensity of what was in front of them. It’s clear that the team lacks a player in a central role who has been here before. Detroit – start planning your parade route.
Mondays aren’t supposed to be busy days on the sports front, but this one certainly was. Here are five things that caught my eye today:
1. It was covered here by someone else earlier tonight, but I have to touch on Jon Lester again. Impressive on a couple of fronts – Boston having two no-hitters in less than a year, Jason Varitek catching both games, Lester’s story. It would be an even better story if it had have been against a major league team instead of the Triple-A adequate Kansas City Royals. Based on what I wrote here last week I’ll be taking a very close look at Lester next time out.
- Crazy, crazy, crazy game between Dallas and San Jose tonight. San Jose needed a win in game six to survive. It was tied at one after regulation, and still tied after three overtime periods. The fourth overtime was a farce. The players were so tired that they could hardly move, and I’m sure both teams just wanted the suffering to end one way or another. Brenden Morrow finally scored the winner for Dallas halfway through the seventh period. The goal came on the powerplay, and it was a bit of a shame to see it end like that. Unfortunately for San Jose, though, the penalty was pretty blatant. Dallas has a few days to recuperate from this one – they don’t play Detroit until Thursday.
- The good news is that Tampa Bay got Scott Kazmir back today for the first time this year. The bad news is that they need him to be really good and he wasn’t. He lasted just four innings and allowed three earned runs in that time. There were some signs of hope from amongst the gloom, though – he struck out five and only walked three.
- CSKA Moscow beat Maccabi Tel Aviv Sunday to win the Euroleague championship. I love checking out the European games to see which players have ended up over there. There were some real gems in this one. Trajan Langdon, the Alaska-born former Duke star, was the MVP of the game and is one of the true stars of the league. One of his teammates is J.R. Holden. He played with Bucknell before heading to Russia, and he took Russian citizenship so that he doesn’t have to use up a foreign spot on the roster. THe losers were led by captain and point guard Derrick Sharp. He played at South Florida, but he is 36 so that was a while ago.
- Pittsburgh has one loss in two rounds, and there is no reason not to expect them to cruise through the battle of Pennsylvania relatively unscathed. They are young and have a lot to prove yet, but at this point they have to be solidly viewed as the favorites from among the four teams remaining. I’d take the youth and speed of Pittsburgh over the age and experience of Detroit.
- It won’t show up in their records because neither guy got a decision, but Johan Santana and Dan Haren had a heck of a duel today. Santana allowed one run in six innings, with 8 K’s and 4 walks. Haren responded with two runs in six innings with just one walk against seven K’s. Chad Qualls blew it for Arizona in the end with an uncharacteristically bad showing – three runs in the ninth.
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