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Penguins get torched + Phil Kessel enters record book in style |
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The bad news the Penguins got torched by Calgary after a sluggish start and the team remains unable to earn a victory in Canada. The good news is that there is only one game left in Canada on this road trip and it is against the Vancouver Canucks.
The Penguins laid two eggs in Alberta. Neither game did you get the feeling they were going to come away with a victory. The team played well in period one against Edmonton and did fight back in period two last night, but the damage was already done and Jacob Markstrom wasn’t going to let Pittsburgh back in it. Just when Pittsburgh mustered up a goal to make things 3-1 Casey DeSmith failed to get a line of sight on the puck and let in a crumby goal for the Flames to go up 4-1.
The Calgary loss isn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. You have an east team flying out west on the second night of a back to back. On top of that you have Jake Guentzel and Jason Zucker missing from the top six. Logically, a loss does make sense. The game did highlight an issue with the way the team is constructed, though. The Penguins are top heavy as it pertains to their ability to create offense. When they are missing two top six players it really makes things an uphill battle. Missing two top six players is an issue for almost every team in the league, but other teams might be able to absorb it better assuming it isn’t their best two players, which wasn’t the case for Pittsburgh. The Penguins depth is very vanilla and when you play a quality team like Calgary it is going to feel like struggle. Run into a competent goalie? Forget about it.
Given the fact Evgeni Malkin lost *both* of his wingers last night he had a marvelous game. Zucker was lost to a crosscheck from the Edmonton game and Crosby took Bryan Rust. He was left with Danton Heinen and Jeff Carter. Malkin not only scored the lone goal for the Penguins, he also did about everything else. He finished with CF 24 CA 14 for a CF% of 63.16 which led the team. He also finished with an xGF% of 63.10. A really solid effort given the opponent, being on a back to back, and his quality of teammate dropping off. His goal even earned Sam Poulin his first ever NHL point.
So Sam Poulin made his NHL debut. I thought he did a really nice job on the zone entry to get the puck over to Jeff Carter which led to the rebound goal. He was thrown into a tough spot in his debut. There were a few good moments, like the assist. There’s also work to be done which is understandable. He had a team low xGF% of 41.88. Is he ready for the NHL? Perhaps not, but I’d rather see more of him than someone like Brock McGinn who is just wasting 2.75M of cap space every night. The cap waste on the fringes of this roster remain frustrating.
Huge congratulations are in order for two-time Stnaley Cup Champion Phil Kessel. He is officially the ironman of the NHL. How do you achieve such an accomplishment? Be a nice guy, try hard, and love the game. Kessel took the record over in style. He scored his 400th goal to give the Golden Knights the lead in the first period.
Look at Phil turning on the jets there.
The way the night went down was akin to another legendary ironman, Cal Ripken. Ripken famously homered in his game tying and record-breaking night. Phil Kessel scored on his game tying night, too. It was called back on review. Phil came pretty close to doing what Cal did. Cal took notice of the achievement
Given Phil Kessel was a huge part of two Stanley Cups, one of which he should have won the Conn Smythe, has 400 goals, and is the NHL’s ironman, I’m not sure how you can keep him out of the Hall of Fame. I think he deserves it. If Guy Carbonneau and Kevin Lowe are in…
Pittsburgh is off until Friday when they take on the winless Vancouver Canucks. Things aren’t going so great at the moment and the takes are getting crazier by the minute
Yeah, I’m just going to state something that should have been incredibly obvious to the author. Jim Rutherford is the one who ran those Hurricane teams into the ground and is currently running the Canucks. Might want to temper expectations there.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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