Penguins march on after Classic

By Keith Barnes
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, January 3, 2008



The Penguins' Sidney Crosby pauses in a snow shower during the singing of 'Oh Canada' the NHL Winter Classic Tuesday Jan. 1, 2008 at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. The Penguins defeated the Sabres, 2-1, in a shootout.
Christopher Horner/TRIBUNE-REVIEW

One day after winning the first NHL regular-season game ever played outdoors in the United States, the Penguins were trying to put the experience behind them.

"It's over and it was one day. One long day," Penguins forward Colby Armstrong said. "But now we're back at it, back indoors, the regular thing, the regular time and the regular schedule ... and doing the same things we've been doing our whole lives."

And so the Penguins held a lengthy practice session at Mellon Arena and prepared for a visit this evening from the Toronto Maple Leafs. But no matter how hard the players tried to refocus on the first of their 43 remaining indoor games, there was no getting around the impact of their internationally televised, 2-1 shootout victory Tuesday at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo.

"I think you look at the crowd and the amount of people there, the whole setup in the locker rooms with the gear that we had to stay warm, you kind of think of all that stuff in the Super Bowl with all the stuff leading up to it," Armstrong said. "It was a pretty neat event and the hype was pretty much the same as a playoff game."

Though the pregame festivities may have resembled a ramped-up Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals, the game itself did not. Maybe because the distractions -- helicopters flying over during 'Oh, Canada' and 'God Bless America,' the wonderment of playing outside -- that nasty edge that teams hone once the postseason begins was absent.
"It's hard to get that feel," Penguins center Sidney Crosby said. "I know everyone on our team wanted to win and I'm sure they did, too, but it's just different. Once you get past the first two periods and it's a 1-1 game, you're thinking that it's a normal game and you want to win, but it's probably not a playoff atmosphere because there weren't as many hits and it wasn't quite that (intense), I don't think."

Everything aside -- the cold, the snow, the spectacle, the 71,217 in the stands and the millions who watched it on television -- it wasn't as important as a Game 1 victory in the Stanley Cup playoffs. But winning two critical points under such scrutiny in adverse weather conditions could go a long way toward legitimizing the Penguins' chances after three largely pedestrian months of the regular season.

It moved them into second place in the tightly contested Atlantic Division that, if the regular season had ended last night, would have had all five teams enter the playoffs. It was also the Penguins' fourth consecutive win and improved their record to 13-5-0 in their last 18 games, dating back to their Thanksgiving shootout victory in Ottawa.

Though there isn't a lot of precedent for how teams play after winning an outdoor regular-season game -- Montreal is the only one -- but the Canadiens opened the season 8-11-1, including a 3-6-0 record on the road, before winning in Edmonton and turning their season around to finish 41-30-7-4 and eventually push into the playoffs and the Eastern Conference semifinals.

"You hope that a big emotional win, battling all the elements, is something that everyone can look at and see how they elevated their game," Penguins goaltender Ty Conklin said. "We found some adversity and we were successful."

Still, winning in horrendous weather conditions, without forwards Gary Roberts (broken fibula) and Maxime Talbot (high-ankle sprain), defenseman Mark Eaton (knee) and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury (high-ankle sprain) can only strengthen the team's resolve as the stretch run for the postseason begins.

"It was a good win and it was a tough game in those conditions," Armstrong said. "Plays weren't as bang-on as you would like and it was choppy in that way, but it was obviously a big game. It was two points for our team, and you want to build off that as much as you can, and we were playing some really good hockey regardless of that game."

Keith Barnes can be reached at kbarnes@tribweb.com or 724-853-2109.