** Updated Poll to include "o" as an answer since poll won't accept "0," literally reverts to 1-4 instead of using 0-4 **
Penguin Audio
Dan Bylsma
Tomas Vokoun & Brandon Sutter
Pascal Dupuis & Matt Cooke
Courtesy, Pittsburgh Penguins
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At the risk of oversimplifying matters, the Penguins did anything but benefit from the NHL schedule makers’ eight-day layoff between Rounds 2 & 3 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Pittsburgh went from playing its most complete brand of hockey to an empty sheet of ice at exactly the wrong time for it to make a postseason push.
When the Penguins won 15 straight in the month of March, their longest break between games was two days.
In fact, the Pens longest stretch of off days was three and those circumstances occurred two times – from April 6-8 and April 14-16.
Is this the reason the Penguins have lost three straight games to the Boston Bruins?
Of course not. The Bruins have managed their game better, capitalized on Pittsburgh turnovers and frustrated top stars like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
But when a team gets a longer break between playoff rounds than the entire length of their training camp, such a question is more than reasonable.
For whatever reason, the Pens took an extreme amount of time before figuring out how they needed to play against Boston.
Maybe the B’s are just a better team than Pittsburgh.
The Pens needed Game 3 in the worst way and Boston didn’t let them have it. Credit goes to Tuukka Rask, Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, among others, for preventing Pittsburgh a glimmer of hope.
The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the Bruins have simply played better than the Penguins in the Eastern Conference finals.
I just wish the playoffs had been kept on schedule in time with the regular season.
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Did you see Sidney Crosby skate like the Tasmanian Devil with his helmet knocked off right before Boston’s game-winning goal? He nearly pulled off an incredible individual surge that would’ve been remembered by Penguins fans for years to come.
Or how about Jarome Iginla and Evgeni Malkin with their individual rushes from their blue line, only to see magnificent rushes stopped by Rask. Pens fans are right to question defensive systems, inability to adapt types of coaching questions, but the effort was their Wednesday. Every last drop of sweat and blood.
Tomas Vokoun – what a gutsy effort. The goalie was nearly unbeatable after Boston’s first goal and gave his team every opportunity to win. Coach Bylsma commented that he wasn’t looking for perfection out of his starting goalie for Game 3. In retrospect, a shutout would’ve been the only way Pittsburgh could’ve won.
There were some glaring errors, too. Early in the contest, the Pens were set to go on the power play after Marchand took a penalty. For whatever reason, Joe Vitale let his emotions get the best of him and took an even-up call after the whistle that negated the man advantage. Selfish plays like that were not exclusive to Vitale.
Kris Letang’s stock has taken a hit like Eastman Kodak’s in the postseason. He’ll never be confused for a disciplined defenseman, but c’mon, the NHL playoffs are not pond hockey. Blind passes, turnovers, you name it, Letang’s done it. It used to be the good far outweighed the bad with the blueliner. That hasn’t been the case in the postseason.
Bylsma. Wouldn’t you like to see him show some emotion just once on the bench? Maybe grab a hockey stick or two and heave ‘em across the ice? Sometimes it looks like his head is going to burst on the bench – see Malkin’s puck-flip delay of game penalty for details – but the Penguins coach refuses to lose his cool.
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Favorite hit of the night
Deryk Engelland
checks Milan Lucic up and over Tomas Vokoun for a field goal.
Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it
Game 4 is set for Friday night at 8:00 pm in Boston. Will the Pens come out with the same intensity they showed Wednesday or will they pack it in for the summer?
The bet here is that they’ll come out smoking. Whether they can keep up that intensity is another question. It’d be nice to see what would happen if the Penguins scored the first goal in a game or simply got the lead at some point. They haven’t led against Boston at any point in the entire series.
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Treasure Life!
JT
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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