I was there! PENS WIN 4-2! Helluva game.

Well, that was fun. Sorry for not posting a gameday and a late recap, but I was in DC for the game lacking my computer.

I'll get to it.

1st Period:

It starts out with a lot of hitting. AO polishes Geno off on the boards, but then some druggie takes a dumb penalty and puts the Pens on the PP. No goal but a solid powerplay nonetheless. Ovechkin is good. He takes a few hard shots on the Flower but all were flown from distance with little chance. We all see early that MAF is on the ball today. He stops a few more for the period.
Physical play aplenty as Ruutu lays out a Craps player behind the net. Solid hit. The millions of Pen fans in attendance, myself included love it. Time passes. NO SCORE after one.

2nd Period:

The Craps come out firing. They get a few good shots but MAF doesn't seem very beatable.
Eventually, Alexander Can't-Make-Semin makes a pretty nice move on Geno at the top of the circle and fires one on net. The puck gets tipped and to our shock it is 1-0.

But we would rebound. A minute or so later, Jeff Taffe gets it in his own end and rushes it forward. He then realizes that Geno and Sykora are with him. He can't believe it. A few minutes later, before anyone can say "Quidditch," the puck is in with Syko getting the tally. Nice tic tac toe goal.

And then it came for Sid. He gets a rebound from Gonchar. He puts it home.

Hal Gill takes a "penalty" on a terrible call. Then Orp takes one. The STD guy, Semin, then gets the Crapitals back even with a powerplay marker. I was getting Diet Cokes. Sorry I missed that one.
The bathrooms at Verizon Center are disgusting.

3rd Period:

Fast forward to 30 seconds left in the game. The score is still 2 apiece.

The USS Hal Gill (see Pensblog) slaps one hard from the point. It caroms into the corner. El Sid picks it up.
Spinorama. One hand pass. Puck suspends in time for a moment. Niklas Backstrom, our new friend, inexplicably has whacked it into his own cage. Dumbass!!!!!!!!! Good for us. We in the stands went wild! Empty Netter.

Hockey game is over. I fly home happy.


Jagoff of the Game- aside from the Pens fan on the scoreboard wearing a Jagr jersey, revised to say JAGOFF was easy.
The jagoff of the game is Backstrom. I love him for it, but WOW. He just gave it to us. What a guy. Swede. He'll be fine.

3 Stars.

1.Fleury- fantastic effort.
2.Sid- numbers speak for themselves
3.Geno- see comment for Sid

Honorable mentions to Hal Gill and Dupuis for great efforts. No Hoss, but he'll be back Wednesday at home. See you later.