By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press
Sergei Gonchar, left, explains a drill to teammate Evgeni Malkin during hockey practice at Southpointe yesterday. The Penguins take on the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals tonight at Mellon Arena.
The Penguins completed formal preparations for tonight's overture in the Eastern Conference final against Carolina, skating and shooting hard for more than an hour yesterday at Southpointe, and, just as in Game 7 of the volcanic Washington Capitals series, no Penguins player went to the penalty box.
When you draw the same number of penalties in a Game 7 as you do at a Sunday morning practice -- zero -- you are surely the new Lords of Discipline.
Either that or something is just, uh, weird.
"We were talking about it after the game," defenseman Mark Eaton said. "You sure don't see it too often."
It has been at least 20 years since the Penguins played a playoff game without hearing a single disadvantageous whistle, at least it was until Wednesday, when they came away from that essentially perfect Game 7 performance with the same modest number of penalties they had carried into it: 19 for the series. The Capitals went to the box four times that game, 34 times in the series.
Were Dan Bylsma's team able to sculpt a similar advantage between here and June, the Penguins' chances to reach the Stanley Cup final would spike rather dramatically.
"We definitely want to play five on five," forward Chris Kunitz said after practice. "When you look at it, maybe that's why we got out to a 5-0 lead the other night. It's hard to do, especially in a Game 7 when everything is so emotional and things happen so quickly, but guys are always very conscious of it."
The Hurricanes clearly present any number of consciousness expanding challenges for this third round, most spectacularly the resilience so evident in twice being shoved to the brink of summer. That they beat the best team in the conference at Boston and in a Game 7 overtime was one thing, but coming back from a goal down to beat New Jersey's Martin Brodeur twice in the final 80 seconds to take Game 7 of that first-round series was a little monument no one should dare deface.
When you factor in the way Eric Staal is playing (he has more goals in these playoffs than anyone still skating except Sidney Crosby) and the way Jussi Jokinen is playing (half of his six goals have been game-winners), Carolina looks equally as threatening to the Penguins as Philadelphia and Washington. That's before you even consider the specter of Cam Ward, who backstopped this club to the Stanley Cup not three years ago, who has won all six postseason series in which he's competed, who's won four consecutive Game 7s.
Daunting as it is, hockey challenges just like this are overcome largely by doing little things right, and not taking an inordinate number of penalties, stupid or otherwise, would be a good place to start.
"It's different, the way guys think about it," Kunitz said. "Before the lockout, guys were always tempted to get their stick on guys to hold them up, but there's none of that anymore. You've got to keep your stick down in this game. We say it to each other all the time out there, 'Sticks on the ice! Sticks on the ice!' "
When you watch postseason hockey up close, it's hard to comprehend how players at such speed and in such an emotional state can simultaneously be cautious not to offend. It's like cutting diamonds on a speeding train. Both of these teams have been notably good at it. The Penguins playoff average of 10.5 penalty minutes per game is the best such figure outside of Detroit. The Hurricanes have served only 12.2 penalty minutes per episode on average.
Carolina's team speed easily could tempt Penguin backcheckers toward extralegal tactics, a far more threatening situation than appears anywhere empirically. The Hurricanes' power play, in fact, is the worst of the remaining entrants by a long sheet of ice. Only the Montreal Canadiens, who went 0 for 8 on the power play on their way to getting swept by Boston, and the St. Louis Blues, 1 for 24 while being manhandled by the Vancouver Canucks, had an uglier power play than Carolina, which is 5 for 48 (10.4 percent) and 1 for 23 on the road.
That situation is so overdue for a 180-degree turn that the Penguins need not put themselves in the path of that pendulum.
"You always try to be in a good defensive position," Eaton said. "It's so hard sometimes because there are so many ticky-tack calls, but it's mostly just a matter of good positioning and of reminding yourself about it. It's something I'm sure we'll talk about right before game time. We always do."
Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com. More articles by this author
First published on May 18, 2009 at 12:00 am
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