The Wake Up Call

"We didn’t come in here expecting to win four straight. It’s going to be a tough series. If anything, last game should motivate us even more. We hadn’t played Ottawa for a long time. We have a history with them in the playoffs, and I don’t think that the element of not liking them was really there enough because of the long period that it has been since we played them. That’s definitely there now," Sidney Crosby said after a tiring loss by Ottawa.
 The Pens loss to the Senators 5-4. The fault was on both the offense and the defense. The Pens misjudged the Senators. the offense was not making plays or shooting on the net enough, and the defense was letting to many pucks in. And last night was not Flower's night. He's amazing at the big plays, but he tends to let the soft ones in...he even admitted so at the Stanley Cup Parade.
Fleury stated, "Thank you guys for supporting me, for as you know, sometimes I let the soft ones in."
However,  Crosby said Fleury's play was the least of his team's worries.
"He's got high expectations of himself," Crosby said. "I'm sure he'll bounce back."
The game was amazing in the first 5-7 minutes of the 1rst period...the Pens were flying down the ice, making plays, and Gino scored a power-play goal. But the Pens (as they tend to do) pulled the reigns in on their intensity and the Sens took over.  Although Gino scored twice, Sid got three assists, Gologoski  scored and (finally) Adams scored, the Pens were not able to tie it up. Hopefully, the Pens will have a short memory of the feeling of their loss, but a long memory of the reasons why they lost....

Caps Sweep, Pens Weep...

The Pens were not playing well, from the very beginning. The Penguins closed the gap when Sid Scored his 48th making it 2-1. However, Tomas Fleischmann scored just 21 seconds later for Washington to make it 3-1. I like Flower, but he's inconstant...they pulled him. Brent Johnson took his place. Then, Leopold's shot from the right point trickled in...giving Sid 99 points (he assisted it). Then, the Caps scored again. Jordan scored 43 secs later...but the ref. said it was no good...he had blown the whistle. Then, right off of a Caps power-play, Jordan had won the face-off cleanly, but it bounced off of a linesman, stopped on Ovechkin's stick and was buried in the goal.  The Pens tried to get back into the game, but a no-scoring powerplay sent them under. They pulled Johnson and with .02 secs. left, Ovie scored again... to tie up with Sid. I hated this game the most this season.