Marc-Andre Fleury was the Penguins MVP tonight. by far. He was solid all night, and made at least two jaw dropping saves; One of them a signature MAF cartwheel getting the glove on the puck, and the other a great save with the left pad coming across the crease.
The Penguins were undisciplined tonight, no excuses. They gave the Isles 7 power play chances. I did however have a problem with the officiating . See, the way NHL refs call penalties is very strange. They sometimes purposely ignore penalties, either because that team has gotten called a lot already in that game, or they simply aren't feeling it. Also, NHL refs frequently call penalties that really shouldn't be called. This is the part I really hate. They do this to "even-up" on other penalties in the game. If one team gets a 5-on-3 power play chance, look for the other team to get some cheap calls going their way. The problem in this game was the Penguins had 5 penalties called on them in the second period. None of them had more than 2:00 between them. My point is, if the refs are going to continue to use their arbitrary penalty calling style, they at least have to be unbiased and even.
Fortunately, the Penguins' penalty kill came up HUGE. Brooks Orpik, Paul Martin, and Brandon Sutter were all standouts in their defensive play. Only once or twice did the Isles get a high quality chance on the power play (of which they had 7). Maybe they should stop putting Sidney Crosby out there for the face-off. Joe Vitale can do the same thing at the same success rate.
No comments:
Post a Comment