By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
PITTSBURGH - MAY 06: Goaltender Simeon Varlamov #40 of the Washington Capitals makes a save on a shot by Maxime Talbot #25 of the Pittsburgh Penguins during Game Three of the Eastern Conference Semifinal Round of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Mellon Arena on May 6, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)Max Talbot was nearing the moment when it would again be time to look around and find an opponent willing to beat him senseless, the very gambit that had worked so well in Philadelphia the last time these Penguins, you know, won a hockey game.
Instead, he opted for something a little more conventional, if a little less fistic.
He simply dug the puck out of the thistles in the defensive end, springing it to Ruslan Fedotenko on his way toward center ice.
Of all the routinely spectacular antics of Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby and Capitals goalkeeper Simeon Varlamov, now eligible to drink legally for more than a week, it was Talbot's determined muck-stroke that appeared to turn Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals and possibly the series back the Penguins' way.
In the three cardiac events that comprise this series, we've seen the Ovechkin hat trick, the Crosby hat trick, and last night the Talbot hat trick, which has a somewhat looser definition.
• He started the play that wiped out Washington's only lead.
• He cleared the puck from right in front of the leering Ovechkin in the high slot, via the time-honored method of sliding on his butt directly across it. In overtime no less.
• He nearly head-manned a 120-foot pass to Evgeni Malkin in that same extra period, and though it was unsuccessful, it was the perspirational capstone of the kind of gritty performance without which Stanley Cups are never won.
"You try to play your role, try to create some things; I'm just trying to be Max Talbot," said the veteran center who in 26 shifts had one shot, three hits, two takeaways, a blocked shot, and just the right sort of alchemy that brought Malkin roaring to life. "I don't know if it was because of me that he played that way. I think experience is a big thing. Oh, sure, you're nervous there in the overtime, but I think we really picked it up. That was the Penguins tonight."
Down a goal with nearly half of regulation time already expired and the home white-out crowd treated only to Jumbotron goals of the Penguins' past, Talbot's boys were singing the same pitchy song they'd carried through the series first six periods, the one where they skate effectively enough in the offensive end but too rarely put the puck past Varlamov.
Maxime Talbot celebrates teammate Ruslan Fedetenko's goal against Washington Capitals goalie Simeon Varlamov, right, from Russia, in the second period of Game 3 of an NHL hockey second-round playoff series in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, May 6, 2009. (AP)
At that point, they'd failed to put it past him altogether.
But when Talbot got it to Fedotenko nearing midsheet and then followed him in 2-on-1 against Washington defenseman Milan Jurcina, Fedotenko's crossing pass hit Jurcina in the left leg and caromed right back onto his stick. Fedotenko blistered the rebound into the back of the net to make it 1-1, and the Penguins spent the balance of the second period putting more pressure on Washington than the gun lobby.
The shot that finally ejected the Penguins from a 2-0 hole, however, didn't come until 11:23 of overtime, when Kris Letang, who looked all night as if he couldn't handle the puck after having some kind of upper body injury in Game 2, fired the biscuit off defenseman Shaone Morrisonn and on to a 3-2 overtime victory that changed just about everything about the politics of this series.
The momentum had probably begun to shift less perceptibly late in the first, when Jordan Staal ripped the puck from Ovechkin in the Penguins' end and put the brilliant Muscovite on the deck. It was Ovechkin -- who else? -- who'd chinned the Capitals to a 1-0 lead with a fluke goal in the game's first 90 seconds, that coming on a goofy bounce off the rear boards.
For all the heat the Penguins generated on offense, their power play was delivering pretty much as it had been shipping lo' these many months: failure. When Malkin drew a hooking penalty at 14:10 of the third period, the Penguins were 0 for 5 with a man advantage. They would not go 0 for 6.
Malkin curled around Brooks Laich into the high slot and lasered his first goal of the series with less than five minutes left, but there was a growing imbalance in jurisprudence to that point for which the Penguins would soon pay. The Capitals, awarded only one power play to the Penguins first six, got another when Dupuis was whistled for interference at 17:32 of the third, and, unlike their opponents, the Capitals have no particular difficulty scoring when you'd expect them to.
Nicklas Backstrom stuffed a rebound past Fleury with 1:50 to play, and the looming overtime was virtually upon us. Few NHL playoff matchups tempt overtime like Penguins-Capitals, who already had six playoff overtime games in their memory books. The Penguins had won five of 'em. Now they're six for seven, and there were no passengers.
"When you're playing games in the playoffs," Talbot said, "you try to keep it simple and let the great players do the rest."
In a series slammed with great players, no one should let that camouflage what Max Talbot did for the Penguins last night.
Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com.
First published on May 7, 2009 at 12:00 am
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