The Senators’ faithful weren’t happy with their club’s effort and they had right to be upset – this wasn’t what anybody expected with so much on the line.
The Senators and Penguins will face-off in Game 5 of the series Sunday at 3 p.m.at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. And, after getting beaten five times and posting an.808 SP against Washington in Game 6, Fleury stonewalled the Capitals in the seventh and deciding game, stopping all 29 shots he faced.
If it was a spark he wanted with the goalie change, Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan got it in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals.
These guys have been here before, Sullivan said Saturday morning. “There was a lot of energy and emotion involved with that start”.
“It’s not going to go 16 games in a row perfectly”, he said.
The last penalty gave the Senators’ power play an opportunity for redemption when it mattered most.
Sidney Crosby had a goal and an assist and the resurgent Pittsburgh Penguins beat the host Ottawa Senators 3-2 on Friday night to even the Eastern Conference finals at 2-2.
“I don’t know what the biggest challenge is”, he said. They understand it. They understand whats at stake..
“The team made it pretty easy for me”.
If you decided that was a good time to go get a couple egg rolls, well, hopefully they were exceptionally delicious.
After scoring a total of three goals through the first three games of the series, the Penguins offense, behind Sidney Crosby, netted three in two periods Friday.
“If we played a run-and-gun game that maybe some people would rather watch, we probably wouldn’t be here”, Hoffman said after the thorough dissection of the defending Stanley Cup champs. They’re a really good team, they won it a year ago and we know we’re going to be as close to our best as we possibly can. “Give them some credit”, said Senators goalie Craig Anderson, who made 32 saves.
Home Sweet Home The Predators have won every single home playoff game that they’ve played thus far.
Matt Murray replaced Fleury in the Penguins goal at 12:42 of the first and went on to stop 19 shots.
Dumoulin added the third Penguins goal less than four minutes later with his shot from the left point caroming off the skate of Dion Phaneuf and into the net.
But spare a thought for Fleury, who has always been one of the better soldiers in the National Hockey League. “It’s a fortunate bounce”. So I’ll wait to get something more specific. “If it’s a 2-1 loss or a 5-1 loss, we look at it the same way and just put it behind us and be ready for the next one”. The Sens play an extremely defensive brand of hockey designed by head coach Guy Boucher, who instilled such a mindset when he took over as head coach last May. They just keep playing and nothing fazes them back there. Whether we win 1-0 or 5-1 like today, I don’t think it really matters. We didn’t look sharp at all for the first two periods.
But the defenseman chose to use a term synonymous with peeved to describe his likely mentality if he had missed a prime scoring chance with less than a minute left in the opening period against Ottawa on Friday at Canadian Tire Centre. We could have tied it there. “They’re used to be five, six guys on each team where you’re like, ‘That guy can’t really move out here.’ He’s more of a shutdown guy or crash-and-bang [type]”. “After the game, we were fine”.
How it happened: Crosby scored and assisted on the first two goals to help the Penguins jump out to a crucial early lead against a team that is especially stingy when it’s protecting a lead.
With the return of winger Viktor Stalberg from an undisclosed injury for Game 3, veteran forward Tommy Wingels was a healthy scratch.