Tomas Fleischmann scored the game winning goal at 1:46 of the third period to give the Capitals a 1-0 lead in their Eastern Conference Semi-Final series with the Penguins. The goal game on a bad defensive breakdown by the Penguins, as Sergei Gonchar and Brooks Orpik were beat badly on a passing play by Alex Semin and Nicklas Backstrom. Evgeni Malkin's backcheck on the play also left a lot to be desired.
That goal came after Sidney Crosby was robbed by Simeon Varlamov from in tight after a beautiful drop and go with Chris Kunitz. If Crosby had scored, the Penguins would have staked themselves to a 3-2 lead, but it was not to be.
Crosby did score minutes into the first period to give the Pens an early lead, but that was nullified not long after when Dave Steckel put in a bad rebound by Marc-Andre Fleury. Alex Ovechkin followed up on Steckel's tally to give the Capitals a 2-1 lead on a 5 on 3 powerplay later in the period.
Mark Eaton also scored for the Penguins, tying the game at two apeice before Varlamov's theatrics led to the game winner by Fleischmann.
Notes-
-The Penguins played horribly in this game, but still had a chance to win at the end.
-The powerplay was unsurprisingly atrocious, going 0 for 5.
-Petr Sykora was back in the lineup. He played very poorly.
-Kunitz had maybe his worst game as a Penguin.
-One interesting fact: The Caps are 7-1 against the Pens in Game 1, but 1-6 in those series.
-The Penguins came to D.C. needing to earn a split of the first two games. That can still happen.
1 comment:
i don't think they played horribly...except on the power play. Sid was all over the place. Mark Eaton. Wow.
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