Game III Live Blog

Here we go into game three in this series, and if you listen closely, you can hear the sounds of the Ottawa fans breaking body parts jumping off the bandwagon. The city has to be one of the most fragile in terms of fan psyche in North America.

6:11
Pittsburgh fans show they can be just as classless as the next bunch of yokels as they boo the Canadian anthem. Can we dispense with the anthem playing before sporting events already?

6:12
Crosby, Armstrong, and Roberts score 51 seconds into the first period on a rush and the Pittsburgh arena loses it.

6:14
The Pittsburgh fans start going after the Ottawa goalie with the ‘Emmmmry, Emmmmry’ chant.

6:16
If the Ottawa fan base was jittery before the start of the game, they must be in a full blown panic at this point. Hey, we are three minutes into the game and the refs haven’t called a penalty yet?

6:19
Hmmm, there doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency from the Ottawa players. Roberts just took a run at Volchenkov and got the worst of it, but even that doesn’t seem to wake the Senators up. You would think the series wasn’t tied at one game each.

6:22
Hey, Malkin is showing up early in this game. None of this can be good for the Senators.

6:23
Ottawa seems to want to go the wide open route the evening, which will lead to yet another wide open shoot out type of game. This plays into Pittsburghs hands as their young players don’t have the ability to stay with Ottawa in a tight defensive style of play. Staal and Crosby have both had nice scoring chances on the rush. If Ottawa isn’t careful, we might remember them as the team that the Penguin dynasty came into it’s own against.

6:25
Something Chris just said to me on the phone is also something that I agree with; for a 6’3” 216 lb winger, Dany Heatly is the biggest small man in the NHL. Martin StLouis plays with more edge than Heatly. Hell, Jason Spezza plays with more grit.

6:35
Heatly kills an promising Ottawa power play with a silly cross checking penalty.

6:38
Pittsburgh is all over the Senators during the Power Play. Where is that Ottawa team from game 1? The one with all that discipline? The team with the elightning fast transition game? Where did they go?

6:45
Ottawa kills a penalty and now they tie the game with a bit of a garbage-jam-the-net kind of goal. At this point I don’t think the Sens would care if the goal came from a Zamboni malfunction.

6:49
First period is over. I don’t know why Ottawa is going with the wide open style. Pittsburgh can play wide open all night long, so can the Sens, but why not play to the Penguins weakness instead of their strength? At this point Pittsburgh is determining the style of play and the Senators are trying to adapt to it.

6:53
Coaches corner. Hoo boy….

6:54
We open Coaches corner with a close up of his Sylvester and Tweety tie. Then he goes on to praise Emery. Wow. Never though I would see the day that happened.
Cherry calls out the Ottawa defense. Hey, I been saying that for two games now.
Cherry goes on to praise Chris Neil who went from a ‘dummy fighter’ to a real hockey player. Unfortunately they also show Neil crosschecking Crosby who was covered while the uncovered Roberts puts the puck in the net.
He goes on to show how Gary Roberts is doing his best to get into the officials heads during every break in action. Of course we end Coaches Corner with one of Ron McLean’s patented terribly unfunny puns. I would repeat it, but you don’t need that kind of crap in your life do you?

7:10
Second period starts and two minutes and thirty seconds in the Senators get their forecheck on and get the go ahead goal from Mike Comrie. Ottawa is pouncing on any neutral zone errors by the Penguins.

7:14
Crosby steals the puck from Corvo and scores, but Roberts is teaching Spezza some respect for the elderly and the whistle had blown so the goal is disallowed.

7:17
Joe Corvo walks in alone on Fleury when Gonchar slips and takes out the othe Pitt defenseman, Eaton. Fleury stones him with a toe save and you have to think that any jitters from his game one gaffes are gone, gone, gone.

7:18
Well Malkin came to play tonight, unfortunately he didn’t come to skate and gets a second penalty tonight for hooking.

7:19
Ottawa defenseman Corvo misses a mile wide on one shot and hit Fleury between the nipples on another. Why is he the Power play quarterback?

7:21
Alfredsson beats Fleury shortside with one that should have been stopped. Lets see how the Pens respond to this latest adversary.

7:26
Patrick Eaves gets nailed coming around the net. He is lying on the ice and hasn’t moved yet. McAmmond and Talbot stage the obligatory stick-up-for-your-teammate fight.

7:30
Through the commercial break I still haven’t seen Eaves move.

7:31
Saw Eaves talk and move his hands as they take him off on a stretcher. The announcers are saying that Colby Armstrong hit Eaves in the Head with his shoulder, but Armstrong did not head hunt, and the hit was clean. That’s Hockey. Real hockey, not that fighting nonsense.
Lets see what this break does for these two teams. Seeing a player lying on the ice motionless has got to be distracting.

7:34
Malkin and Crosby are back on the same line. Lets see if Malkin can stop getting penalties and start causing scoring chances.

7:42
Somewhere between the called back Crosby goal, and the Armstrong hit on Eaves, the Penguins have decided to start playing shinny and their defense has disappeared.

7:46
The Penguin power play has turned into ‘lets see what Sydney can make happen..’

7:47
The pens blow their power play and Ottawa scores shorthanded. Ottawa has put it to the Penguins defense and they Pit rearguards can’t handle it. CBC colour analyst is raking Sergei Gonchar over the coals for turning away from the play on a two on two rush that led to the shorthanded goal. I can hear fans in Boston saying ‘it was just a matter of time..’

7:52
Second period is over and the Pens have taken a step back. The Ottawa team absorbed the Penguin burst in the first period, and came out in the second with a commitment to neutral zone pressure and defensive zone spacing. The Penguins tried to get the Senators to start runnin’ and gunnin’ but all that led to was more turnovers and Ottawa goals.

7:54
Chris Neil just gave Elliot Freidman what will probably turnout to be the most expensive interview of his career. Neil used the word ‘payback’ three times in reference to the Colby Armstrong hit on Patrick Eaves. Even the NHL officiating office won’t miss that fine. I’ve seen WWE interviews that had less threats.

7:55
Look! It’s my favourite minor celebrity crush and the Casino Rama commercial!! ‘Work it, work it on the islands…’

7:57
Oooo! A second edition of Coaches corner! How did we get so lucky?

8:14
Third period, and it seems that neither team wants to prolong this game as the first 6 minutes has flown by seemingly in real time. The Sens blew a three goal lead to Pittsburgh late in the regular season. Not much indication of that happening here.

8:17
That poker star commercial – the one that is offering ‘Canada’s seat in the world poker championships – is on again. Now I think we will be looking back at this poker craze in about ten years and say ‘what the hell were we thinking? It’s a stupid card game fercrissakes!’ In the annals of embarrassing popular culture, perhaps the recent poker craze will only be topped by the even more embarrassing pet rock era. (Oh just google it or ask your mom.)

8:22
Ottawa hacks Crosby’s glove off of his hand and the ref reluctantly calls a penalty. The Pens don’t come close to scoring and have managed to blow their last chance at making this game close.

The Penguins are an interesting team in that they are so loaded with young talent, you just kind of watch and wait for their eventual ascension to the top of the league. But tonight, yesterdays talented young team is showing them what they learned on their journey up the NHL ladder. The Pens aren’t there yet, but I can’t think of a single hockey fan that doesn’t think that they will eventually get to the top of the NHL.

8:33
Malkin and Crosby work a nice give and go and Crosby scores. Five minutes left and maybe we have life in this game yet. Crosby jumped past Volchenkov on his way to the net as if Volly was standing still. The kid is fast AND quick.

8:37
Ottawa’s Chris Schubert runs Scuderi into the endboards like a runaway train. Pitt has a powerplay coming, if the refs don’t cal lthe even up penalty on Pittsburgh. Andddddd the ref evens it up.

8:40
Chris Phillips mauls Crosby yet again and to his defense come… Evegeni Malkin? Malkin leaps at Phillips like a 12 year old grandson whos’ bubbe just walked down the arrivals ramp at the Airport. I was waiting for Malkin to wrap his legs around Phillips and snuggle into his neck.


8:45
The Senators kept the young Penguins at bay with a commitment to neutral zone discipline and an end to some silly defensive zone gaffes. Oh, and run Sydney Crosby at every opportunity because the refs won’t call it.

Let us not forget the play of Ray Emery who came up with quite a few timely saves – including a dive across the crease to stop a Malkin shot late in the third. Ottawa wasn’t firing on all cylinders, although the Penguins didn’t put up a sustained effort this day.
(Don Cherry comes out and claims that Crosby won’t get calls because he embellishes hits and complains to the Refs too much. How it is Crosbys fault that the Refs won’t call fouls on him is beyond me but I don’t have that single game of NHL experience that Cherry has so, let us not belabor that point.) Pittsburgh needs to get some inspired play from Jordan Staal, and Evegeni Malkin on a far more consistent basis. They need to get some disciplined play from their defense and they need Fleury to stop giving the Senators a cheapie goal almost every game. What’s happened to Mark Recchi? Where are the timely goals from a third line plugger that a team needs for playoff success? The Senators are more than happy to concentrate on Crosby and Roberts if the rest of the Penguins won’t do more than stand around and wait for a play to be made by the two forwards who are playing as if they realize that this is an elimination tournament.