Crosby's low winner puts Penguins on a high

"[Gonchar] told me he thought [Lundqvist] was holding his glove a little high."

Sunday, March 29, 2009
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/


Reuters Pictures
Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby scores the eventual winning goal while New York Rangers Wade Redden defends in the third period of their NHL hockey game in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania March, 28, 2009.


Two-thirds of the way through the regular hockey season's final Mellon Arena matinee, nearly all of the prerequisites for exquisite Penguins-Rangers theatre had been met or surpassed.

There was the Tyler Kennedy-Sean Avery fight in the first period, the Eric Godard-Colton Orr heavyweight bout in the second and there was the significantly less ceremonious pre-game removal of an upper deck banner displaying the same crude sexual remark that got Avery banished from the league until the Rangers rescued him via the backstairs.

Real classy.

There was the brilliant Marc-Andre Fleury, 16-5-3 in his past 24 starts, matching the equally brilliant New York goaltender Henrik Lundqvist save-for-breathtaking-save, making fairly crystalline the primary reasons for the late-season resurgencies of two clubs under new coaches with extended playoff ambitions.

The only element still conspicuously anticipated as the third period began with a 3-3 tie to be broken was a puck in the net off the stick of Sidney Crosby, who had scored in 10 consecutive games but not on any of the six shots -- all of them sterling scoring chances -- against Lundqvist in the first two periods.

"I talked to Gonch [Sergie Gonchar] between periods," Crosby smiled an hour later. "He told me he thought [Lundqvist] was holding his glove a little high."

The veteran defenseman generally doesn't deal in advice just to hear himself talk, especially not to former NHL scoring champions, but he had a longer, perhaps broader view of King Henrik's afternoon from his perch along the blue line.

He decided to pass along the glove observation.

"He's tall to begin with, so maybe it's natural for him to hold it high," Gonchar said a bit sheepishly. "But it just looked a little too high to me."

All of this became relevant on what would be Crosby's seventh shot of the game, seven being more than twice as many as any other Penguins player.

Ruslan Fedotenko, somewhat suddenly playing the kind of offensive hockey for which general manager Ray Shero acquired him in July, won a puck battle along the center ice boards and swept the puck to Crosby breaking into the New York zone. Crosby wheeled wide around Rangers defenseman Derek Morris and outskated a desperate Wade Redden toward the inside of the left wing circle, just as suddenly recalling Gonchar's advice.

He snapped that seventh shot long, to Lundqvist's glove side.

"Hit the bottom of his glove, or maybe the outside," Crosby said. "I couldn't tell."

Gonchar thought he could.

"Looked like it hit the bottom," he grinned.

One thing it surely hit, and that was the back of the net, giving the Penguins the goal that Fleury made stand with superb last-minute saves for a 4-3 victory and two more crucial points against a divisional rival entering the final two weeks of Eastern Conference politics. The Penguins have 90 points with six games left. The Rangers are stuck on 87, having six left as well.

"I guess the thing that's frustrating is that it's two teams with the type of position we're in this time of year," said Rangers coach John Tortorella, still fuming over a five-minute interference major and accompanying game-misconduct administered to Orr for a third-period hit on Mark Eaton. "I just hope we allow the teams to make the difference, to determine the results. I'll leave it at that."

New York managed to kill the penalty because it isn't the best penalty-killing team in the NHL for nothing, but might have expended enough energy in the process that Crosby enjoyed an expanse of ice in the middle to begin his game-winning rush barely two minutes later.

To that point, it appeared as though Sid could shoot at Lundqvist until Tuesday without lighting the lamp, and even after getting his 29th goal of the season and extending his scoring streak to 11 games, the Captain couldn't remember a game in which he had had as many prime scoring opportunities as he did yesterday.

"No, and I was getting the puck in good areas," he said.

Four times in the second period alone, Lundqvist stopped Crosby with nothing between them but the puck, once on each doorstop, twice in the slot not 12 feet away.

"It's a 60-minute game," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said nonchalantly. "And [Sid] got another chance in the third and got a big goal."

The only official assist went to Fedotenko, but a second should have gone to Gonchar.

Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com. More articles by this author
First published on March 29, 2009 at 12:00 am