Penguins at Red Wings - Third Period - Game 1 - 5-30-09
THIRD PERIOD
19:31: Seems like Bylsma has returned the line combinations back to normal. Guerin, Kunitz and Crosby are together again.
18:40: Kronwall tries to line up Malkin at the Penguins blue line, leaves his feet to deliver the hit and totally misses. He lands butt-first into the boards and is shaken up a bit. He recovers to his feet and is limping a bit.
17:44: Helm gets behind, moves in on net and simply looses control of the puck. Fleury steers it away.
17:14: Detroit's third liners come through. Ville Leino gets the puck behind the net, fights off Mark Eaton and dishes a pass to Justin Abdelkader to the left of the net. Abdelkader snaps a wrister off that seems to hit the near post. It pops up in the air. Staal is there battling with Abdelkader but doesn't know where the puck is. Abdelkader knocks the puck down and strikes a wrister that flutters over Fleury on the stick side. More hard work producing dirty goals. Leino gets the only goal. Red Wings 3-1.
16:30: Letang gets a pass in the slot and drives a big slapper on net. Osgood is in perfect position and eats it up with Staal hounding him for a rebound.
15:54: Osgood comes up with another save. This one was a little luck though. Chris Kunitz throws a wrister at net from the left wing. Crosby is there and swats the puck off the post. The puck flutters up in the air and comes to a rest on Osgood's back. Zetterberg and Lidstrom jump on him and cover the puck. Kunitz jumps in and a scrum develops.
13:21: Dan Cleary pumps a slapper on net from the right wing. Fleury fights it off.
13:09: "LET'S GO PENS! LET'S GO PENS!"
12:48: "LET'S-GO RED-WINGS! (clap, clap, clap) LET'S-GO RED-WINGS! (clap, clap, clap)"
10:26: Cooke gets a pass int he slot and directs his shot wide.
10:02: Crosby swats a puck wide of the net from the crease again.
9:01: Samuelsson drives a slapper from the Penguins' blue line. Fleury makes the save and distributes to a teammate.
8:21: Leino whips a wrister from the left wing. Fleury pushes it away.
7:38: Cleary gets to a loose puck in his slot and chips it down ice for icing. Detroit has been getting to most of the loose pucks this period. Mike Babcock calls time out to organize a night everyone can come over to watch "Sugar and Spice:"
-We think.
6:01: The Penguins ice the puck. Faceoff in their zone.
5:45: Leino controls the puck behind the Penguins net, comes around and throws a wraparound attempt on net. No dice. The Penguins have very little going on offensively.
4:49: The Penguins can't even get past their own blue line with the puck. Cleary knocks the puck away from Malkin who then knocks down Cleary to regain it.
4:06: Detroit is just controlling play. They almost punche in a chance with Fleury scrambling around like chicken with his head cut off in the crease.
1:58: Fleury is pulled for an extra attacker.
1:44: Hossa emerges from a pack in Detroit's defensive zone and moves up ice with the puck. he shoots at the empty cage but a Penguins defender gets a piece of it.
1:20: Detroit just controlled the puck in the Penguins' zone for 20 seconds. Their puck possession is just amazing.
0:18: A Detroit player chips a puck up ice and takes an icing. It was worth it. He sent it down ice at such a slow pace it killed several seconds.
0:00: End of game. Detroit puts the puck down ice once more. Sergei Gonchar collects it and brings it up ice to end the game. Red Wings 3, Penguins 1.
POSTGAME
-That was a pretty even game for about 42 minutes. Then Abdelkader's goal put Detroit up by a goal and allowed them to choke the life out of this game. The Penguins threws a bunch at them early and even controlled the game at points, but when you get down by a handful of goals on this team, it's almost a death sentence.
-Each team made mistakes. Neither was perfect. But Detroit found a way to capitalize on the Penguins foul ups (bad pun sorry) while the Penguins only were only really able to cash once chance in. Detroit didn't play a perfect game and the Penguins let them off the hook. Conversely, the Red Wings didn't let the Penguins off the hook.
-How key was Osgood's save on Malkin? If the Penguins' score there, this game has a completely different flow. Instead, each team kind of felt each other out in the second period and Detroit cashed in another dirty goal late in the second.
-Osgood rose to the occasion tonight. He made several tough saves and looked like a guy who knows what it takes to win the Stanley Cup.
-The Penguins need more out of Sidney Crosby. He produced some chances, but he was nothing like the player who dominated the first three rounds of these playoffs.
-Amazing how when Sidney Crosby is limited, Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz are too huh?
-The Penguins' defense can't allow the Red Wings' offense as much liberty as it had near the front of hte cage. Detroit's final two goals were off slightly lucky bounces, but they earned chances to score those goals by simply working hard in front of the net.
-Overall all, the Penguins defense was rather ordinary. Brooks Orpik had a few nice hits, Letang and other had a few nice individual nice defensive plays but they had tons of trouble just bringing the puck up ice.
-All in all, the Penguins played much better in this Game 1 than they did in last year's Game 1. If they get a little better luck with some of those bounces, we might be looking at 1-1 game heading into overtime.
-Darren Helm might've been the best player on the ice tonight. He didn't record a point, but he dominated in the faceoff circle, was phyisical and played amazing defense. We know Detroit has amazing depth, but how do they keep this guy in the AHL during the regular season.
-Speaking of faceoff dominance, even without Kris Draper and Pavel Datsyuk, the Red Wings ripped the Penguins in the faceoff circle. They won 39 and lost 17 (71 percent).
-Helm was 11 for 15 (73 percent).
-Zetterberg was 15 for 20 (75 percent).
-Malkin was 4-for-9 (44 percent).
-The Penguins actually outshot Detroit, 32-30.
-Bill Guerin led the game with five.
-Dan Cleary, Valterri Filppul and Marian Hossa each had three.
-The only Detroit skater without a shot was Niklas Kronwall.
-Niklas Lidstrom led the game with 24:07 of ice time.
-Gonchar led the Penguins with 23:21.
-Kris Letang led the game with five blocked shots.
-Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski and Kronwall each had two.
-Justin Abdelkader's goal was his first career playoff goal.
-Osgood won his 72nd career playoff game. That moved him past Jacques Plante for eighth place all time in on the career playoff wins list.
-Malkin took over the playoff scoring race from Crosby. He now has 29 points while Crosby has 28.
-Fedotenko's goal moved him into the top 40 on the franchise's career scoring list.
-Franzen tied Malkin and Carolina's Jussi Jokinen for the playoff lead in game-winning goals with three.
-Since 2007, Franzen leads the league with nine game-winning goals in the playoffs. Malkin is second with three.
-A little bit of breaking news here Former Penguins and Red Wings goaltender Hank Bassen died. He was in net for the Penguins first game in 1967, a 2-1 loss to Montreal. He was 76.
-We didn't really get a chance to see it, but apparently Crosby had a bit of a run in with Kirk Maltby late. Crosby even admitted to slashing him: