The Pittsburgh Penguins lost last night's game to the New York Rangers until they didn't.
It was one of the more unique finishes in NHL regular season history. It appeared that Dan Boyle scored on Marc-Andre Fleury to end the shootout in the Rangers favor, however on replay it appeared that Boyle had actually touched the puck twice.
There are really only two questions that need to be answered from this sequence.
Did Boyle double hit the puck?
Are you allowed to do that?
Boyle did do that and it is against the rules. It wasn't a controversial decision.
If you go back and watch the arena horn was repeatedly sounding in order to keep the players at their respective benches for the review process. Both teams ignored the horn, both teams had goaltenders who took off some of their equipment.
The weird ending was just one of the interesting parts of this game. It was an extremely entertaining game well before the two teams lined up for the shootout.
Henrik Lundqvist stole a point for the Rangers by stopping 38 pucks and only giving up two goals. Lundqvist was tremendous throughout the game. A game in which the Penguins controlled 58% of the shot attempts at even strength. This is the exactly what Lundqvist was able to do in the playoffs last year, steal games when the Rangers were not seeing the majority of shot attempts.
It wasn't for lack of trying by the Penguins, both Crosby and Malkin were on full display and noticeable on about every shift they took as the game wore on. Malkin finished with a goal and an assist, but his most memorable play came behind the Rangers net when he blew up Dan Girardi with a booming clean body check.
It was a great hit, the kind you want to see in the game still. It was much like the Phaneuf situation from Friday night. A clean hit happens and then the team unnecessarily tries to take some kind of revenge for it. Can't we have nice things in hockey? Can't players let clean hits go? They would if things were handled more often like they were on Friday night.
Against the Maple Leafs it was Malkin who jumped in after Phaneuf labeled Hornqvist and the referees gave him an extra minor penalty for starting the ruckus. Last night it was an identical situation however the Rangers did not end up with an extra penalty. For throwing a perfectly clean body check the Penguins lost Evgeni Malkin for two minutes while the two teams continued to play at even strength. Personally I hope the league is more consistent and calls things like they did Friday night. Anything that deters players from overreacting to clean hits is a win in my book.
In overtime I thought Mike Johnston did something that was incredibly awesome, but then followed it up with something so colossally inept I didn't think the same man was calling the shots.
Raise your hand if for the past 5 years you wondered why Sid and Geno never played in 4 on 4 overtime together but just accepted it because that's what Bylsma did? Me too. In hindsight this is such a great idea and should have been utilized more throughout the past 5 years. Johnston loaded up for the first shift of overtime by putting out his best forward and defense pairs. Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Martin is a hell of a four man unit.
Coach Johnston then did the unthinkable. After matching minors play shifted from four on four to three on three. Somehow Rob Scuderi was selected to play in this unique game situation. This does not make sense on any level. We've all played three on three shinny hockey, we all know how much time and space there is out there. Time and space is not Scuderi's thing. To nobody's surprise Scuderi's foot speed was exposed and the Rangers earned a power play after Scuderi tripped a Rangers player on a breakaway. Truthfully it should have been a penalty shot. Go three forwards in that situation coach, never ever go Full Scuderi. That goes for four on four play as well.
Paul Martin and Brandon Sutter put on a clinic killing the penalty, it culminated with Sutter sliding to block a shot and then hitting Letang coming out of the penalty box for a breakaway which King Henrik smoothly shut down.
Marc-Andre Fleury doesn't get to say he does too many things better than Henrik Lundqvist, well really only one thing, the shootout. Fleury is the NHL's career leader in shootout save percentage. This is one area in which his athleticism is finely tuned for success.
Beau Bennett still hovering around that 10 minutes per night mark. He played 10:56. Interestingly enough that was more than Malkin's left winger Nick Spaling, who played only 10:11.
Tanner Glass doesn't do too many things right on the ice, add celebrating in front of the opposition's bench when his team doesn't actually win to the list.
Olli Maatta will be making his return very soon, will it be Tuesday night against Montreal? Who will sit? I would roll with seven defensemen rather than dress Craig Adams.
Geno summed this game up best
I can’t believe… It’s rules. We’re back and win!”
The Penguins face the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night in a battle with two of the Eastern Conference's top teams.
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