MVN - Most Valuable Network

Rangers extend series with 3-0 win over Penguins

It was bound to happen eventually.

For the first time in the Penguins’ eight playoff games, they mailed one in tonight.

Give the Rangers credit, they came with the desperation that was expected.  Unfortunately, the Penguins had very little effort in response. 

No one was skating, outside of Tyler Kennedy.  No one was getting the loose pucks.  No one was forechecking.  The Pens were on their heels all night, following the Rangers around rather than taking the play to them.  And eventually, that led to the Pens taking many lazy penalties, giving the Rangers seven powerplays tonight.

The other obvious comparison was that Marc-Andre Fleury had his first mediocre effort of the postseason as well.  Henrik Lundqvist clearly outplayed him tonight.

It wasn’t like the Penguins didn’t have any chances on Lundqvist however.  Breakaway by Ryan Malone was stopped.  Breakaway by Evgeni Malkin was stopped.  Penalty shot by Malkin was stopped.

The first period was a very tentative, cautious period by both teams, with not many decent scoring opportunities at all.

That changed with a little over seven minutes remaining in the second period when Jaromir Jagr came down the left boards with Sergei Gonchar defending him.  Jagr glided to his right and fired a laser wrister between Gonchar’s legs and beat Fleury to the short side to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead.

The Pens had their best chance late in the second period when Dan Girardi plowed into Malkin on a breakaway that the officials had to review because the puck actually went into the net as Malkin collided with Lundqvist.  The goal was disalllowed, but a penalty shot was awarded.  However, Malkin made no attempt to deke Lundqvist at all, slowly skating in and firing a medium wrister that Lundqvist easily stopped. 

The third period started with the Rangers back on the powerplay after a Petr Sykora hooking penalty near the end of the second period.  It was on that powerplay that Brandon Dubinsky got a rebound of a Marty Straka wrister and wrapped it around Fleury to the far post and in the net to make it 2-0 Rangers only 44 seconds into the third period.

The Penguins really didn’t threaten for the remainder of the game.  They’d dump the puck, but wouldn’t have any forecheckers to get the puck.

Things got a little chippy at the end of the game, with both Crosby and Malkin taking roughing penalties on a scrum late in the third period.  With the Pens’ net empty, Jagr scored the empty netter to give the Rangers the 3-0 win.

Hopefully, this should be the wakeup call that the Penguins need to finish this series off Sunday afternoon back at the Igloo.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Game Recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.