The Bruins' Jaromir Jagr tangles with the Penguins' Douglas Murray during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final Wednesday, June 5, 2013, at TD Garden.
About Dejan Kovacevic
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Sports Columnist Dejan Kovacevic can be reached via e-mail
By Dejan Kovacevic
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
http://triblive.com/sports/
Published: Thursday, June 6, 2013, 1:30 a.m.Updated 4 hours ago
BOSTON – The greatest players get it done.
For all the blood and guts, the broken sticks and gutted psyches, the every single sinew strained to exhaustion between the Penguins and Bruins in this classic Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final, this one somehow carried a feel throughout that it would end not with grit but with greatness.
And it did.
Just not on the side that's supposed to be loaded with such stuff.
You know what I'm going to say here, right?
Don't look away, just as you didn't look away for all four hours, three minutes of Boston's 2-1 double-overtime triumph that brought the Bruins a throttling 3-0 series lead.
Don't look away, because it's the question now staring your franchise dead in the face.
It wasn't Sidney Crosby.
He continued to look lost most of the night, making poor decisions and poorer giveaways and still failing to produce a solitary point. Sure, it was there for him in double-overtime, his helmet flung off, hair flying everywhere, puck on his stick in the slot … the moment right there … and it was blocked by the defense.
A block that ensured that the next truly defining Stanley Cup playoff moment of his career, that one critical, unforgettable goal, will be the first.
It wasn't Evgeni Malkin, either.
His evening was marked by dazzle and dinged posts, making him look like – by far – the likeliest player to end it all. He delivered the dekes of a lifetime in the first OT … his own moment right there … and a toe save by Tuukka Rask.
It never came.
At least not until the one player on the Boston side who lay legitimate claim to greatness did what he's done his entire brilliant career.
Jaromir Jagr got it done.
Even at age 41, even after being banged around off his skates several times, even after looking so terribly tired on his first couple shifts, he somehow burst onto the ice for double-overtime with the freshest-looking legs of anyone.
That's a testament to his outrageous conditioning regimen, but those who watched him for a decade in Pittsburgh – not this generation that knows him only for choosing the Flyers, but the one that loved the second-greatest player in franchise history – had to know there was more to it.
This was Jagr's time. The big time.
This was always when he's gotten it done, owner of 78 career playoff goals, including an incredible five in overtime, something Mario Lemieux and Mark Messier – postseason legends both – never achieved once. He's also got 17 regular-season OT goals, the NHL standard-bearer there.
“He's a great player, and you never can forget that,” Patrice Bergeron said minutes after his goal ended it all at 12:13 a.m. “He knows how and when to step up.”
Here's how he did …
Malkin pursued a puck along the right boards near center red, and Jagr came hard from behind. (All the backchecking was something no Pittsburgh fan would recall, of course, but times change.) Jagr used his stick to give Malkin a tug and took possession, whirling to turn play the other way.
Was it a hook?
Sure.
Would any referee at any level of hockey call it in double-overtime?
Not a chance.
So Jagr pushed the puck up to a racing Brad Marchand for a two-on-two, and a great player had started a great play. Marchand couldn't quite get around a smartly backpedaling Deryk Engelland (who wasn't about to win a footrace with Boston's fastest skater), but he passed laterally to Bergeron (who as covered equally tightly by Brooks Orpik), and Bergeron deftly redirected it just inside the far post behind Tomas Vokoun (the best player on either team).
It came without fault, a great play to finish a great game.
And it wasn't either of the Penguins' great players who got it done.
Sound unfair?
Sorry, so be it.
This wasn't about one night. This wasn't even about this series, in which Crosby and Malkin continue to have zero – as in zero – points, or the power play in which they have combined to produced zero – as in zero – goals in a dozen opportunities.
No, this was about these two being the two-pronged foundation of a team that now has won one Cup in the seven years of the so-called Crosby/Malkin era. Crosby is 25, Malkin 26, and not only is that not good enough for the players almost universally recognized as the best in the world, but it's also starting to get dark outside as far as that era is concerned.
Crosby was asked what's wrong with the Penguins' power play, and he replied, “Goaltending, really. I think we're getting some good chances. We hit a couple posts.”
Sorry, but no goaltending should be stopping the people on this power play.
They just didn't get it done.
You know, it's seemed unthinkable forever that the Penguins would ever part with one or the other of Crosby or Malkin. Still does, really.
But, assuming the Bruins take care of business, all kinds of unthinkable is about to be posed.
Read more:http://triblive.com/sports/dejankovacevic/dejancolumns/4138047-74/malkin-crosby-done?printerfriendly=true#ixzz2VQgrY1pk
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