Gotta admit, I was not a happy Pens fan after the 1st period.
It might have been the Pens' worst period in a looooong time in terms of their tentativeness and lousy passes all over the place.
Combine that with the obligatory goal from the point, and the Pens were down 1-0 after one period.
I really thought it was gonna be a long night for the Pens.
But give the Preds your thanks for pumping up the Pens, courtesy of Darcy Hortichuck, who absolutely leveled Nasreddine, which prompted Max Talbot to jump in and at least make an attempt to fight, which failed for both players.
After that, things sort of went easy for the Pens.
Jordan Staal got a nice lucky bounce off of the D-man's stick and then the post to tie the game at 1.
Geno nailed a one-timer from Recchi on the power play to make it 2-1.
Recchi got would be construed as a soft goal by Mason to make it 3-1.
Ruutu's empty netter finished the scoring at 4-1 Pens.
But having said that, I like the way Nashville plays, really very similar to the Pens. The only major difference is that I believe their defense is much faster.
Certainly, one can see why their record is so good.
However, there is one statistic that could very well be a telling sign for the Predators.
The Preds are 16-2-1 against Columbus, Chicago, and St. Louis. Those are 33 big points in the hunt for a playoff spot.
Now I don't think there's any doubt that Nashville was a playoff team even without having the luxury of playing weaker divisonal opponents.
But now those same complaints that people used to say about Detroit's record in prior years is now being said about the Preds.
The Flyers are next up on the Pens schedule on Thursday night. I won't say anything about a letdown because I think the Pens realize that every game is a playoff game now, and also the fact that Philly is playing much better nowadays.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment