COLUMBUS – Athletes slip into catchphrases and clichés on a regular basis. It’s a habit of speaking frequently to the media while also trying to stay out of the doghouse for saying something wrong.
But a phrase that Marc-Andre Fleury has leaned on recently may be more of a psychological mantra designed to keep him sane than it is a cliché.
Following the Penguins’ 4-3 win over Columbus on Monday night, Fleury once again spoke of needing to move “onto the next one” after giving up difficult goals. From the end of the regular season and into this back-and-forth opening series, the Penguins’ goaltender has spoken repeatedly of the need to move on quickly from any pucks that slip, bounce or trickle past him.
That might be a sound approach, because while the Penguins now have a 2-1 edge in the series, Fleury’s job has been far from easy. Game 3 was a microcosm of Fleury’s life against Columbus.
Just 98 seconds into the game, with Columbus riding a wave of emotion in front of raucous home crowd, Boone Jenner grabbed a rebound off of a Jack Skille shot and walked in all alone on Fleury to give the Blue Jackets a 1-0 lead. A mere 1:40 later, a breakdown in defensive zone coverage allowed Jack Johnson to shake free of the defense and again pounce on a puck in front of the net to put Columbus up 2-0.
The Penguins called a timeout to regroup. Fleury was a step ahead of them.
“You just forget about that one and the other one, then just stop the next one,” Fleury said. “It’s just one shot at a time and try to keep them in the game.”
Fleury was able to do that, even shrugging off another goal scored close to the net to open the third period. The Penguins were able to respond, and Fleury escaped with the win.
“I thought Marc-Andre Fleury was completely outstanding tonight. He made a lot of big saves to keep us in it,” Brandon Sutter said. “That game could have been 3-0 a couple of times.”
The challenge for Fleury is that he can expect to face a high number of close scoring chances the rest of the series. Out of Columbus’ 10 goals in the first three games, seven have come with a few feet of the net, either off of rebounds, deflections, or because of breakdowns. The other three came on odd-man rushes.
“I think our game is getting to the net and playing in the hard areas. We’ve done a good job to open up room for ourselves and play hard,” Columbus forward Matt Calvert said. “Ultimately it comes down to battling and the compete level in front of the net, and that’s something we pride ourselves on, winning those one-on-one battles.”
It’s also going to be an on-going point of emphasis for the Penguins. Every defensive pairing and line has been victimized at some point by Columbus’ presence in front of the cage.
They go to the net hard and they put pucks there,” Sutter said. “We have to respect that, but I thought we did a good job of responding.”
The Penguins will have to hope that the rest of the series is more like the final 45 minutes and not the first 15.
“We gave up two goals real quickly in this game and I thought after that point – I can’t give you a good estimation on how many scoring chances there were after that, but there’s not going to be a ton that we gave up,” Dan Bylsma said.
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