Not even a miracle – in this case, a goal from Brooks Orpik – could help the Pens pull out two points against Nashville Sunday afternoon.
Orpik scored his first goal in 112 games to give the Pens a 3-2 third-period lead, but Shea Weber tied it up with 7:43 left in regulation and the Predators went on to win 4-3 in a shootout. It was the Pens first loss in eight tries this season in the glorified skills competition.
Pittsburgh had a chance to end the game in OT when it was awarded a power play 1:16 in. Despite controlling the puck in the Preds’ zone for most of the two minutes and having a couple of glorious opportunities, the Pens could not find a way to get the puck past Dan Ellis. Bottom line, the game should have ended on that PP. It didn’t, and you know what happened next. Letang and Crosby faltered in the shootout, and some guy named Cal O’Reilly and Martin Erat beat Fleury to win it for the Preds.
Crosby scored a first-period PP goal and his face-off win helped set up Orpik’s tally. Crosby now has 42 goals and 78 points. Malkin extended his point streak to 13 games with an assist on Sid’s goal. Matt Cooke scored in the second, jamming home a rebound off a shot from Jordan Staal. To recap, the Pens held leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 and just couldn’t get the two-goal lead they needed to seal the deal. Erat (on the PP) and Jordin Tootoo scored second-period goals for Nashville.
Between this game and Friday’s OT loss to the Rangers, I think the Pens let a couple of points get away. One thing I’m sure of is this is not how the team wanted to enter the Olympic break. It’s tough to lose that extra point – on home ice, nonetheless – to an inferior opponent. An optimist would probably say, “Hey, at least we got two points.” A pessimist (or a realist), however, would be quick to point out that the team lost two points that could prove very costly by the end of the regular season.
An entire nation (no, not Pens’ Nation) shuddered when Crosby took a shot off his right leg in the second period. Sid appeared to be in discomfort immediately afterward and was seen wincing on the bench. But Canada was breathing a hell of a lot easier by the end of the game, when Sid looked like his normal self.
After 61 games, the Pens (36-22-3) sit in second place in the Atlantic with 75 points; two behind New Jersey for the division lead and eight ahead of Philadelphia for third.
Now we have over two weeks to sit back, relax and enjoy some Olympic hockey. (USA! USA! USA!) The Pens return to action March 2 against Buffalo for the first of 15 games in March. That’s a lot of hockey in a short period of time.
Random Thought
I would be shocked if the Pens didn’t make some kind of move to bring in a scoring winger at the trade deadline. In case you didn’t notice, Ruslan Fedotenko was deservedly demoted to the fourth line for today’s game. He hasn’t scored since Jan. 5 and has only 8 points in 20 games in 2010. He’s also a team-worst minus-16. With 8 goals and 22 points on the season – skating mainly on a line with the league’s reigning scoring champion – it would be a massive understatement to say Fedotenko is underachieving. And because of his struggles, Dan Bylsma has been forced at times to break up the most effective third line in hockey to play Staal with Malkin. Last year at the deadline, Ray Shero went out and got a couple of wingers for Crosby. Let’s hope he can get somebody to play with Malkin this year.