sloppy first

what was hyped beyond belief, turned into a game of miss chances and tons of mistakes. The lip got us goin in the first, Craps came back with goals by Steckel and The Lady making 2-1 after 1. Pens were dominate in the first 13 mins of the game only to muster Lippy's goal. Little less than midway through the first the Pens ran into the dumbness zone and the result turned into a 5 on 3 PP goal by The Lady. 2-1 Craps

Second period had a lot of action, big saves and a few goal posts by Marc-Andre or The Lady would have a few more goals. For most of the period the Pens were blowing some great opportunities on odd man rushes. Craps rookie Gman Varlamov and MAF was playing well, not to mention the save Varlamov made on The Lip keeping it 2-1. Then a harmless shot and a flat out gift of a goal by our new offensive Juggernaut(2 goals in his last 2 games) defensemen Mark Eaton, new hockey game now, feeling pretty good about our chances, with a now shaky goalie I figured we would own the Craps in the third. 2-2 after 2.

Then a early 3rd period goal by Craps Tom Fleischman was all she wrote for game one. Pens worked in spurts in the 3rd. Final and game 1 to the Craps.

No shows for the Pens today were....

Ugly Malkin(he did have a few descent shifts)....

PP, has been down right horrid(0-5 and had the last 4 in a row)

Wingers once again, W(here are)TF(ing) are the wingers on this team.

Nice game for The Lip, Eaton(has raised his game during the playoffs) and Fleury

Come one guys, Valarmov was giving some big time rebounds that we did nothing with...

Bring up Janne....

Vince's Thoughts: So from my stand point there were both good and bad things about this game. First off, the good is that we kept this game close, and showed that we can play with these guys, i was kind of afraid they would come out and blow us out of the water... Winning 3-2 is nothing near to a decisive win, and they will have to remain on their toes the rest of the series. The bad part about this, which i feel outweighs the good, is we did the one thing that I knew we couldn't afford to do... We gave Valarmov the confidence to know that he can win the game... Though i'm sure there is some bad taste in his mouth about the Eaton goal, overall he faired quite well, and hands down won the crapitals this game... In game 2 we need to come out and make him pay for his mistakes, if we get him doubting himself this series is ours...

Arggg!!!

The battling Pens didn't deserve this fate, losing in OT 3-2. We played well enough to grab 2, atleast we got 1. Marc-Andre and Ward  were great. 

Carolina had way to many breakdowns only to be bailed out by Cam Ward.

The line of Captain Close, Pigman and Shittank were dominate. That prolly was the best game I've seen from Pigman, he had great energy. 

I figured the Lip(to many turnovers) and Ugly would be the keys of this game...NOT!!!  Lip had a break away that seemed to be forever and Ugly blew a opp with a no goal penalty shot in the 3rd. Maybe the Lip needs to show him how to go to his backhand for something different.

Now with a quick turn around we go into Pantherland. Hope the boys can dig deep for this one.

 

Nice job everyone

First I would thank Obelix for some top notch work on today game between our Pens and Jokerit, some great photos. We need more Jannics like Obe.  Also nice work by my partner Vince with the game blog. Thanks goes out to all that commented today on the game blog, we hope to hear from more of you to help this blog get it high gear for the start of season. Guess we wait til tomorrow on word if Janne makes the team or not.