Yes. He stood on his head plenty for plenty of saved tonight. The save on Jagr. The incredible leg save. A very nice glove save in the third. Philly could have easily scored 6 or 7.



Have you seen our defense? I haven't. Yeah, his numbers aren't great, but a 26 year old Marty Brodeur would have a hard time putting up better numbers with some of the piss poor play in front of our own net that I've been seeing. A goalie can't control every single rebound. It's just not possible. When they do happen, the D needs to be around to clear the puck out of there. Too many times we've let guys slip in the back door to bury easy goals.

_________________

I'm going to ay it again- he was offside, but the Penguins iced the puck just before their third goal, and it wasn't called either (and no reason for it to have been waved off- I think it wasn't even called).

I don't complain about that shit- it tends to even out (unless you're the New Jersey Devils and deliberately insult the refs!)

_________________
I know this, your ability to think concisely, your ability to make good judgments is much easier on Thursday night than during the heat of the game. -Bill Walsh

After the 1st period, that was a pretty piss poor performance. Need to step it up on Friday!

_________________
Playing football was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. If I could go out today and suit up, I would do it.--Jack Butler

I'm not using it as an excuse - we played horrendously from the start of the second onwards, and that's the only reason we lost.

The thing about icing is that there's a judgment aspect to it - was he attempting a pass? Could the dman have gotten to it or was he intentionally dogging it? I don't recall the specific play you're referring to and have deleted the game from the DVR, but there are plenty of times when icing is called and you could argue it shouldn't have been and vice versa. Offsides is black and white - was the man completely across the blue line before the puck? There's no real excuse for missing it.

Edit - through the wonders of FIOS - undelete! - I was able to watch the play you're talking about. I'm not sure how anyone can say for sure that Sullivan didn't get there first. The linesman signaled icing, Doc asked if it would be icing, but the play happened just off my screen (in nonHD - maybe it was more visible in the HD picture). Either way, lots of judgment involved there vs. black and white offsides.

Either way, it's over - we sucked for 38 minutes and paid for it. Now we need to take at least one in the enemy's barn.

_________________
- Dman 29

NHLN crew (Tappen, Jaffe, Modono) thought icing should have been called....but as you're saying 29, was more an opinon vs. a definitive. They all agreed (though it was a no-brainer) that the missed offsides was just fuckin' brutal....inexcuseable.

They also zeroed in Stahl standing around, pickin' his ass on the game-winner.

Realized this morning that our Norris candidate (Letang) and our Selke candidate (Staal) we're standing right there on the game winner.

_________________
- Dman 29

CBC actually showed a clip that as soon as the puck crossed the Philly blue line that the linesman is IMMEDIATELY waving the icing off, so regardless of who touched it first the play was going to continue. So I'll stand by my assessment that the Hockey Gods will make the blown offsides call even. Not saying that was the reason we lost (you can blame the Special Teams minus 1)

I said this to my friend this morning: "Whoever loses Game 1 thinks it's the end of the world". So sleeping on it gave me some perspective even though I'm still a bit raw this morning.

The positives:
The Pens maintained their discipline and avoided the Philly antics
MAF played well, there was nothing he did wrong on any goals allowed
Pens dictacted the physical play

Negatives:
Special teams let them down (minus 1 on the night)
Bryz seemed to settle in after the first period
James Neal was pretty invisible
Martin and Z getting worked over in the corner
TK's turnovers and unreliable defensive play

Turning points of the game were Staal's post when it was 3-0 and then the failure to kill the Orpik penalty (which was an absolute garbage call)

_________________

I'm sick of hearing 'bout the have and have-not's
Have some personal accountability
The biggest problem with the way that we are doing things is
The more we let you have, the less that I'll be keeping for me

I'm hanging on the memories of '91, where Pens lost the first game of EVERY playoff series, on their way to winning their first Cup.

I think the Pens really miss a guy like Max Talbot -- I'm still not sure why he wasn't re-signed -- going to Philly made it a double negative.

Signing him away from us made them stronger and us weaker -- great move by Philly. And then they snatched Jagr too.

If the Penguins hadn't lost every meaningful game played against Philly at the Consol (including, as Swiss mentioned, blowing all those mutli-goal leads), I'd be more hopeful.

The Consol Curse MUST come to an end on Friday, or this series is gonna be real short.

_________________
I know this, your ability to think concisely, your ability to make good judgments is much easier on Thursday night than during the heat of the game. -Bill Walsh