So there I was, sitting in the depths of an Atlanta golf related Discord channel when my thumb, aided by the healthy dose of healing ointment applied to stave off the ever-worsening cracking, slipped across the screen and hit a link with a “P.H.” written on it. That sentence just aged me by a decade. Curious, I scrolled through the tiny conversations of three young men and a senior citizen who were discussing all of their terrible ideas to create a new Penguins blog in wake of what seemed at the time The Pensblog (R.I.P.) dying. There was a joke about making Lee Stempniak a weather man? There was an idea about having the website seized for a Black Friday joke. There was a store involved, some child in a heavily tariffed nation is still stitching “Murray Saves” t-shirts hoping for that big order to come through. It was about a 2 minute read to get through the chat, but it felt like I stepped back to then 27-year-old me. A lot of things have changed since then, but some things remain the same, so let’s talk about hockey shall we??
The Penguins slid into Edmonton on a high they weren’t expected to feel this season legally. Having started this West Coast Swing with a 6-3 win over Seattle on Monday, they followed that up with a 4-1 dousing of the Flames on Wednesday. Coming into what seems like there 77th back-to-back of the season, any type of forced OT point would’ve been considered a win.
Surprisingly, Kris Knoblauch does not knomauch and decided to start infamous Tristan Jarry in net against his former team.
Puck dropped, we were underway, and before the popcorn was done the Pens were in the lead.
Anthony Mantha (15) Assisted by Brazeau (9) & Clifton (2) @ 2:20
The Dubas Redemption Project Brazeau continues his strong play this year. After winning the neutral zone they quickly transition, Brazeau holds the puck just long enough to allow Mantha to streak in, tip to tip pass, Jarry as usual doesn’t see the oncoming threat from his peripherals and it is 1-0.
That was exciting, the line was still fresh so Muse let them out, and 22 seconds later they did it again.
Anthony Mantha (16) Assisted by Brazeau (10) & Kulak (5) @ 2:42
Nice little lead pass by Brazeau, springs the large but quick Mantha, Jar-Jar was still recovering from the goal 20 seconds ago likely thinking “mesa thinks theysa not my friends anymore” and the puck was once agin behind him.
Fortunately for the Edmonton fans, they did not have to wait long to see if this was a fluke start or if things would get better. Immediately after Mantha’s second of the night, the Penguins got to work in the offensive zone, forced a turnover along the boards. Crosby to St. Ivany, point-to-point to Ryan Shea, he looks up and sees Crosby alone in the middle, shot pass-deflection-3-0 Pens.
Sidney Crosby (27) Assisted by Shea (16) & Ivany (6) @ 2:57
Great play by Shea. Jay broke this one down on his big telestrator thing and did a good job with it. Rakell wisely evades the middle right before Shea makes his play. Sid just doing hat Sid does. Jarry was obviously shook after this one, I thought for sure they would pull him here but apparently Edmonton doesn’t like him either.
3-0 Pens, with 3 goals in 37 seconds. Surprisingly Edmonton/Jarry, and perhaps even more surprisingly the Penguins, managed to not give up another goal the remaining 17 minutes and we would end 3-0 after a stellar bit of luck:
Good news for Edmonton, they made it through he first 3 minutes of the second period. Bad news, around the 5 minute mark they were going short-handed. The Pens had a chance to put the dagger in but instead it was an odd-man rush the other way, Janmark hit Walman, the defenders slid away to give Silovs a good look at it and look he did. Shorthanded tally to make it 3-1 as we all sat back and prepared for the slow regression.
But that regression did not happen.
After some back and forth with very few close chances, the Penguins were getting ready to go on a power play themselves. For a moment it looked like there were two Jarry’s as the Penguins brought on the extra attacker. Malkin got the puck from Rust below the net, surveyed the options, and laid a pass that would’ve saved Tomlin’s job, right on the stick of Rakell who wasted no time.
Rickard Rakell (9) Assisted by Malkin (27) & Rust (21) @ 12:29
This pass by Malkin is insane. Great release by Rakell, but wow what a pass.
One full rotation through the lineup later the Oilers entered their zone. An attempted pass to McDavid was picked off by Evgeni Malkin who took a giant leap forward. Pre-game Polymarkets had Malkin outracing McDavid odds at 1%, but that is what he did, as he went in one-on-one with Jarry. Malkin looked at Jarry and Jarry looked back at Malkin:
Sweet move, backhand, good night.
Evgeni Malkin (12) Assisted by Magnitogorsk Energy @ 14:27
Obviously McDavid is faster than Malkin, but he wasn’t able to adjust to the turnover quick enough to catch him. McDavid was very frustrated with his team heading back to the bench, screaming at them for something. It was nice to see.
Neither team scored again int he second and the Pens took their worst nightmare to the locker room, a 4 goal lead, 5-1.
As we all quietly wondered how the Pens would manage to blow this lead Tristan Jarry again quietly forgot to start the period. Egor Chinakhov received a pass from Novak and let his strength show with an absolute wicked wrister. The teams played on for about half a second until the goal horn went off.
Egor Chinakhov (8) Assisted by Novak (18) & Ivany (7) @ 2:50
This puck went in-and-out quicker than a senior quarterback on prom night. Chinakhov has a ridiculous wrist shot as evidenced here, and should be demanded to fire it at least 6 times per game. 6-1 Pens. Did I say 6-1??
Matt Savoie would score with about 6 minutes remaining to make it 6-2. After playing the entire game with a pulled goalie Edmonton didn’t have the option for the extra attacker late, time expired, and these Penguins have won the first 3 games of the West Coast swing outscoring their opponents 16-6.
I couldn’t find the “thought” label, so I felt this one was most appropriate.
- The moves Dubas has made were once again int eh spot light tonight. Mantha, Brazeau and Chainakhov offensively, and Jarry also offensively.
- The streakiness of this season continues, and the Penguins wake up to now find themselves a clear 2 points ahead of the Islanders in 2nd int he metro at the 50 game mark
- With just Six games remaining before the olympic break, the conversations in the GM room are likely turning with this recent development
- Chinakhov needs to shoot all the time, what a shot
- This was fun
It has been a wild few years for me. In hindsight, starting this blog while in medical school was probably the dumbest thing I ever could’ve done, but man was it worth it. For 6 years this thing was the core of my mornings and chatting with you all a highlight of the day. It did start to wear though, I felt I was recapping games as if I was an actual media member. Put dumb amounts of pressure on myself to be right about what happened for each play etc, and at some point I lost touch with the fun of the game. Shortly around this time, we lost our first born, and hockey, and life for that matter, seemed so insignificant. In fact, hockey oddly was making it worse. Time is an interesting thing, and though it doesn’t heal, it does allow space for acceptance. During my 4 year hiatus (and this is not an official announcement of return), we have welcomed two more children into our family. Now coupled with a beautiful 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son, over the last 12 months I have found myself watching more and more hockey. Found myself wanting to dust off my skates. Found myself sitting on the couch with my children, watching the Penguins as I had always imagined. Maybe it wasn’t an accident that I stumbled on the discord site that was the birth of this blog. Maybe it was my subconscious saying it is time. The next day I lurked on the site like I always do and saw a comment from Geno asking “Rad for a hug” and suddenly it felt like this is what should happen. I cannot commit to full time recaps again, but I am toying with the idea of a weekly recap. This was oddly therapeutic, to be typing at 5 AM again. This team is oddly therapeutic. Some misfits and veterans that weren’t supposed to be any good. Are they actually good? Hell if I know. But it is fun to watch again. Maybe that is just my perspective, but I don’t care. In the words of my daughter, “is this hockey or what!?”
See you soon.
-Rad