BY WAYNE SCANLAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/hockey
May 22, 2013
OTTAWA — For days the Ottawa Senators have talked about getting the lead.
They finally got one. Holding onto it was another story.
A thorough 7-3 victory by the Penguins sends the series back to Pittsburgh where the home team, up three games to one, will have a chance to clinch, and where the Senators’ pesky ways will be put to their sternest test.
Players like to say that each playoff series takes on a life of its own, with ebbs and flows, huge swings in momentum that can end as abruptly as they begin. The Senators hoped a miraculous comeback to win Game 3 would create some doubt in the Pittsburgh room before Game 4. Apparently not. The Penguins rebounded with a champion’s resolve.
The Senators’ new strategy appeared to be to let the Penguins go on the power play. In the first two games, Pittsburgh used to the extra man to bury the Sens at the Consol Energy Center. At times in Ottawa, the power play was the Penguins’ curse. In the end, the ‘power’ emerged.
It was while playing shorthanded (until Craig Anderson raced to the bench for an extra skater) that captain Daniel Alfredsson scored the magical goal Game 3 that kept Ottawa from being down 3-0 in the series.
And it was shorthanded that the Senators finally secured their first regulation lead of the series, two and a half minutes into Game 4 when Milan Michalek split the defence and chipped a shot over the glove hand of Tomas Vokoun.
It was a work of art, and a burst not often seen from Michalek and his aching knee, but when he saw the wide gulf between Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, Michalek reached deep within and summoned something out of a healthier past to explode between the two Penguins and get in alone on Vokoun. Malkin, the celebrated Russian forward, had been playing the point, and seeing him victimized had to cause a new headache for Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma, suddenly worried about the defensive deficiencies of his once potent power play. (The headache wouldn’t last).
One shot for the Senators. One goal. It was going to be a good night, wasn’t it? Appeared so, even after a tying goal by James Neal a few minutes after Michalek’s shorty.
Vokoun, while he’s a game battler, leaves precious minerals lying around his goal crease and the Senators mined one before the first period was out to restore their one goal lead.
Kyle Turris picked up the nugget of gold after a Jakob Silfverberg backhand shot was left lying there. And there could have been more.
In the dying seconds of the first, Colin Greening tried to extend his goal scoring streak to four, but his shot sailed wide.
That didn’t stop a packed house from celebrating a 2-1 lead as teams skated off the ice from the first 20 minutes. If only the intermission could have lasted a little longer . . .
Just 1:08 into the second, Chris Kunitz was left alone to sail in on a breakaway and he buried it between Anderson’s pads to remind everyone that the East’s top seed was not going to go away quietly because they’d hit a rough patch.
The Kunitz goal came as such a shock, the Senators were numb to a subsequent chance that Jarome Iginla converted with a rebound goal a mere 40 seconds after Kunitz.
Just like that the Penguins had their first lead since famously blowing a one-goal advantage with 29 seconds remaining in Sunday’s game at Scotiabank Place. And they built on that lead.
Not surprisingly, after Ottawa’s latest shorthanded strike, the Penguins used two defencemen on a power play in the third period, and this time the Penguins struck – Neal again. And then the supreme insult, a Pittsburgh shorthanded goal by Pascal Dupuis, set up by Matt Cooke, considered a villain in this region, but who has been a highly effective player in this series.
The rout was on. After goal six, by Sidney Crosby, Anderson was hooked for a second time this series. Odd, how it always seems to be after 87 scores.
“Be good enough to win, it doesn’t matter how you do it at this time of year,” Anderson said prior to Game 4.
The Penguins were more than good enough this night.
By the third, the Senators had to open up play, always dangerous against the Pens.
Anderson himself was under siege as he might have expected – the Penguins came hard, and came shooting. While he wasn’t called on to make 49 of 50 shots as he did in a double-overtime victory in Game 3, Anderson knew this night was about survival. And he didn’t survive it.
Bylsma had said of the Senators goaltender: “He’s one of their best players if not their best player. We have to do a better job on opportunities to break him.”
They did, but bet on Anderson returning in Game 5, hoping for better support.
Alfredsson’s third period goal, his 100th career NHL playoff point, gave the fans something to cheer about as they left the building, hoping it wasn’t for the last time this season.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/hockey
May 22, 2013
Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrates his goal with Tyler Kennedy and Matt Niskanen (2) as Jean-Gabriel Pageau of the Ottawa Senators skates by dejected during third period action in the fourth game of the Eastern Conference semifinal at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa, May 22, 2013.
Photograph by: JEAN LEVAC , OTTAWA CITIZEN
OTTAWA — For days the Ottawa Senators have talked about getting the lead.
They finally got one. Holding onto it was another story.
A thorough 7-3 victory by the Penguins sends the series back to Pittsburgh where the home team, up three games to one, will have a chance to clinch, and where the Senators’ pesky ways will be put to their sternest test.
Players like to say that each playoff series takes on a life of its own, with ebbs and flows, huge swings in momentum that can end as abruptly as they begin. The Senators hoped a miraculous comeback to win Game 3 would create some doubt in the Pittsburgh room before Game 4. Apparently not. The Penguins rebounded with a champion’s resolve.
The Senators’ new strategy appeared to be to let the Penguins go on the power play. In the first two games, Pittsburgh used to the extra man to bury the Sens at the Consol Energy Center. At times in Ottawa, the power play was the Penguins’ curse. In the end, the ‘power’ emerged.
It was while playing shorthanded (until Craig Anderson raced to the bench for an extra skater) that captain Daniel Alfredsson scored the magical goal Game 3 that kept Ottawa from being down 3-0 in the series.
And it was shorthanded that the Senators finally secured their first regulation lead of the series, two and a half minutes into Game 4 when Milan Michalek split the defence and chipped a shot over the glove hand of Tomas Vokoun.
It was a work of art, and a burst not often seen from Michalek and his aching knee, but when he saw the wide gulf between Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, Michalek reached deep within and summoned something out of a healthier past to explode between the two Penguins and get in alone on Vokoun. Malkin, the celebrated Russian forward, had been playing the point, and seeing him victimized had to cause a new headache for Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma, suddenly worried about the defensive deficiencies of his once potent power play. (The headache wouldn’t last).
One shot for the Senators. One goal. It was going to be a good night, wasn’t it? Appeared so, even after a tying goal by James Neal a few minutes after Michalek’s shorty.
Vokoun, while he’s a game battler, leaves precious minerals lying around his goal crease and the Senators mined one before the first period was out to restore their one goal lead.
Kyle Turris picked up the nugget of gold after a Jakob Silfverberg backhand shot was left lying there. And there could have been more.
In the dying seconds of the first, Colin Greening tried to extend his goal scoring streak to four, but his shot sailed wide.
That didn’t stop a packed house from celebrating a 2-1 lead as teams skated off the ice from the first 20 minutes. If only the intermission could have lasted a little longer . . .
Just 1:08 into the second, Chris Kunitz was left alone to sail in on a breakaway and he buried it between Anderson’s pads to remind everyone that the East’s top seed was not going to go away quietly because they’d hit a rough patch.
The Kunitz goal came as such a shock, the Senators were numb to a subsequent chance that Jarome Iginla converted with a rebound goal a mere 40 seconds after Kunitz.
Just like that the Penguins had their first lead since famously blowing a one-goal advantage with 29 seconds remaining in Sunday’s game at Scotiabank Place. And they built on that lead.
Not surprisingly, after Ottawa’s latest shorthanded strike, the Penguins used two defencemen on a power play in the third period, and this time the Penguins struck – Neal again. And then the supreme insult, a Pittsburgh shorthanded goal by Pascal Dupuis, set up by Matt Cooke, considered a villain in this region, but who has been a highly effective player in this series.
The rout was on. After goal six, by Sidney Crosby, Anderson was hooked for a second time this series. Odd, how it always seems to be after 87 scores.
“Be good enough to win, it doesn’t matter how you do it at this time of year,” Anderson said prior to Game 4.
The Penguins were more than good enough this night.
By the third, the Senators had to open up play, always dangerous against the Pens.
Anderson himself was under siege as he might have expected – the Penguins came hard, and came shooting. While he wasn’t called on to make 49 of 50 shots as he did in a double-overtime victory in Game 3, Anderson knew this night was about survival. And he didn’t survive it.
Bylsma had said of the Senators goaltender: “He’s one of their best players if not their best player. We have to do a better job on opportunities to break him.”
They did, but bet on Anderson returning in Game 5, hoping for better support.
Alfredsson’s third period goal, his 100th career NHL playoff point, gave the fans something to cheer about as they left the building, hoping it wasn’t for the last time this season.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Scanlan+Pens+show+champ+resolve/8421960/story.html#ixzz2U58dp6fx
No comments:
Post a Comment