Penguins knot series with 1-0 Game 2 victory over Senators

“Two games, we score two goals”. Ottawa obviously has the best defenseman in the series in Erik Karlsson.

Here are tonight’s starting goaltenders, courtesy of LeftWingLock.

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan challenged his team to stop searching for the ideal shot and just fire it at Anderson instead after Pittsburgh struggled to create any traffic in front of the goaltender during a 2-1 overtime loss in Game 1.

Ottawa clearly frustrated Pittsburgh in Game 1, as it took away space the Penguins are used to having due to their speed.

Q: Was there more zone time, at least from our perspective, it looked like there was more offensive zone time from Pittsburgh.

They might better have taken a short stroll down the street to Point State Park, where once Fort Pitt stood at the convergence of the Alleghany, Monongahela and OH rivers.

The key now will be trying to build on their performance in Game 2 on Monday night.

There they could have had an abject lesson in what happens to those who fail to adjust, who are too stubborn to accept that there might be other tactics more suitable to the situation. Now, the team has a chance to repeat this feat against Pittsburgh. With 1 minute, 2 seconds left in the third period in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Jean-Gabriel Pageau completed his hat trick to tie the game 5-5 after the Senators were down 5-2 to start the third period.

The official line from the Penguins is that both Schultz and Patric Hornqvist are day-to-day with upper-body injuries.

Everyone knows the Ottawa Senators have had a tough few years, in a lot of ways. And it was working. And, believe me, it is high comedy when Penguins forward Phil Kessel goes nuts on the bench.

Kessel had gone three games with no points and had just one point, a goal, in his previous five games. “We couldn’t really get going and create momentum for a long period of time”. The puck zipped over Fleury’s glove and suddenly Ottawa had the lead. He finds Kessel maneuvering into the zone.

Just like that, the Penguins were up 1-0.

And if they weren’t before that moment, they surely got locked in as much as Kessel afterward.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve got huge favorite bias here. Fleury’s 62nd playoff win moved him ahead of Henrik Lundqvist for the most by an active goaltender, heady territory for a guy who lost his starting job to Matt Murray during the course of the season. After the game, Sullivan seemed to embrace the fire that came from his guys on the bench. Hockey is a game with so many moving parts, from the puck to every part of the players.

Not that it seems to bother Ottawa. Nothing quells an argument like success.

If necessary, Sullivan said he will mediate disputes that linger longer than others. To insinuate that there’s something afoot in the Penguins’ locker room is silly.

That said, Pittsburgh, with Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel both ranking among the leading point-getters so far in the playoffs, should be competitive on home ice. It’s a message he repeated before, during and after Game 1.

It’s night and day different.

Mark Streit is the most likely option.

“I don’t think our attitude changes (in overtime)”, he said.

It may have been a goalless affair, but the initial 20 minutes were packed with a bunch of bonecrunching hits – including this one from Dion Phaneuf on the Penguins’ Bryan Rust.

So how do the Penguins still own a respectable PP%, despite being shut out on the power play for the last four games? Trevor Daley could return, but if his mobility is anything like it was against Washington, the Pens are in trouble. The Senators, however, have embraced coach Guy Boucher’s neutral-zone clogging system and found a way to slow Pittsburgh down in the process. Talk to guys when they come by. They are healthy, but they are struggling to get unsafe chances against Pittsburgh. The Predators have yet to lose on home ice this postseason (5-0). This is the first Ottawa-based Eastern Conference final game in 10 years and the fans will be pumped.

The Senators had not been shut out in the playoffs before Monday.

The only danger in such outbursts is if they become too commonplace from the same player (which Kessel’s are not) and then the rest of the team has a penchant to tune that player out.

Sullivan was unable to provide an injury update after the game.

The under has now hit in the last four meetings between these two teams. You would’ve thought the Sens were up by 3. Often their shot-blocking and physical play opened up even more chances for the Penguins.