It happens to the best of 'em.
All goalies have those types of nights. Doesn't matter who you are, there are just some nights that nothing is going right.
However, one thing is for sure, you CANNOT have one of those games against Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils.
And that is exactly what happened to Marc-Andre Fleury tonight.
In a game completely filled with soft goals, the Pens turned out to be no match for Brodeur and the Devils, and lost 5-2.
The Pens got the quick fluke goal by Christensen, but quickly gave up that lead on what else, a bad clearing pass by Talbot, resulting in a soft goal that knuckled through Fleury's pads. Then the defensive enigma known as Joe Melichar did what he does best, that being get in the way, to deflect the puck into his own net, and the Devils had a 2-1 lead after one perioid. The Pens had several good scoring opportunities in the first period, but Brodeur made some fantastic saves to preserve the Devils lead.
The second period quickly deteriorated, and Fleury gave up yet another squibbler that got through him for another soft goal to make it 3-1, then a rebound off of Fleury resulted in a tap-in to make it 4-1, and was the end of the road for MAF.
Thibault came in and gave up one goal, which really can't be faulted to him, rather the porous defense in front of him.
And once again, the power play, even with Malkin and Crosby together, was non-existent. Let's put it this way, if you were to get points for passing it around the perimeter, the Pens would be excelling. But you have to put pucks on net, and once again they were being too cautious, which resulted in very few scoring opportunities.
No time for the Pens to hang their heads, they've got to fly back to the 'Burgh and face the Isles tomorrow night (although I heard on the post-game that the Pens' flight may have to be postponed because of high winds in the NYC area).
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