Carolina's Rod Brind'Amour takes down Penguins winger Gary Roberts in the second period last night.
Crosby becomes youngest player in NHL history to register 200 points
Saturday, March 03, 2007
By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Jordan Staal is 18, Sidney Crosby hasn't made it past 19 and Evgeni Malkin's 21st birthday is nearly five months away.
Safe to say the Penguins' nucleus of young talent isn't aging any faster than usual.
But it also is obvious that those three -- and the rest of their young players -- have had no choice but to grow up quickly, courtesy of all the one-goal games they have been through this season.
Their 3-2 loss to Carolina at the RBC Center last night was the Penguins' 10th one-goal decision in the past 11 games, and the No. 32 in 64 games this season.
Teammates congratulate Sidney Crosby after his first-period goal gave him 200 points for his career.
When 50 percent of a team's games are settled by a single goal -- not including any in which the final margin is bloated by an empty-netter -- the half-life of a young player's inexperience gets shorter all the time.
"You definitely learn that every play is a big play," left winger Ryan Malone said. "And those little things go a long way."
The Penguins discovered that the hard way last night, when an errant deflection by Carolina forward Cory Stillman led to Scott Walker's winning goal at 11:33 of the final period.
Stillman got his stick on a Mike Commodore shot from the right point, and steered it well wide of the net. And, quite accidentally, to Walker, who was alone along the goal line to the left of the net and had an uncontested shot at an open net before goalie Jocelyn Thibault could scramble into position to stop him.
"I didn't see the point shot," Thibault said. "It hit something or a couple of things -- I don't know what -- and went straight to [his] right. I turned my head, and the puck was right on Walker's stick for an empty net."
The loss dropped the Penguins to 34-21-9, but they remain fifth in the Eastern Conference. Carolina, meanwhile, played with an urgency it had been lacking recently and looked like it is serious about earning the right to defend its Stanley Cup championship in this spring's playoffs.
"They really needed a win, and we have to give them credit," Penguins center Maxime Talbot said. "They played a good game. They battled hard all game. They did what they had to do to beat us."
The Penguins learned before the game that they will be without defenseman Mark Eaton for two-to-four weeks because of a sprained right knee he received early in their 4-3 shootout victory against the New York Rangers Thursday at Madison Square Garden. Alain Nasreddine took his spot in the lineup.
Playing without Eaton will be a significant change for the Penguins, although they did it for 35 games earlier this season after he dislocated his wrist, and coach Michel Therrien hinted that there might be a few others coming for his power play, which was 0 for 7 last night and is 3 for 25 over the past five games.
"I don't think we had the right attitude out on the ice and when you don't have the right attitude, you lose your focus," he said. "That is what happened tonight to our power play tonight.
"It's been quite a bit that we've been going in that direction, and we're going to have to make some decisions. And we will make some decisions."
Therrien, aware that the Penguins didn't have a five-on-five goal in the previous four games, shuffled the left wingers on his top three lines before the game.
He bumped Staal onto the No. 1 line with Crosby and Mark Recchi, dropped Gary Roberts to the No. 2 unit with Malkin and Michel Ouellet and put Malone with Talbot and Colby Armstrong.
Coincidentally or otherwise, the Penguins got a full-strength goal at 14:23 of the opening period, when Crosby curled out from behind the right post and threw the puck inside the far post. That goal, Crosby's 27th of the season and first in seven games, made him the youngest player (19 years, 207 days) to get 200 points in the NHL. The previous mark of 19 years, 347 days was set by Wayne Gretzky during the 1980-81 season.
Walker tied the game when he collected a carom off the back boards and threw it into the net from near the right dot at 7:28 of the second. The Hurricanes moved in front 67 seconds later when a Frantisek Kaberle shot from the left point struck something -- maybe a player, maybe a stick -- on the way to the net and sailed past Thibault.
Malone countered for the Penguins at 10:24, but Walker rang up the tiebreaker at 11:33 of the third to close out the scoring and move Carolina into eighth place in the East.
"They're Stanley Cup champions," Crosby said. "They know what it takes to win."
The Penguins are still learning that and don't like it when the lesson stings the way it did last night.
"We can't be satisfied with losing one-goal games," Talbot said. "What's the difference between losing a game by one goal or by three? It's still a loss."
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(Dave Molinari can be reached at DWMolinari@Yahoo.com.)
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