The Morning Steel Mill: Penguins Playoff Thursday

Yinzers,

With the series at 2-1 in favor of the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Ottawa Senators had their back to the wall in Scotiabank Place on Tuesday night. The thought of letting the walls of the senate come crumbling down was at the forefront of the Senators' thoughts. The votes were tallied and the decision was made in a slightly more decisive fashion than Roe v. Wade...it was 7-4 in favor of Pittsburgh.

This game was fatter around the middle than Casey "Big Snack" Hampton with nearly all the scoring taking place in the second period...8 goals to be exact. There was but one goal in the first period and it came from Evgeni Malkin on the power play. The Senators were matching the Penguins stride for stride and playing solid team defense, doing their best to keep the pucks from getting to Brian Elliot.

All things changed in the second period. The Penguins simply owned the play in the second period. The Penguins opened up the second period with goals coming just 12 seconds apart at 3:47 and 3:59 from Sidney Crosby and Matt Cooke, respectively. Sidney Crosby then added another tally for the Penguins at 6:12, making it 4 unanswered goals. Brian Elliott was pulled at this point and replaced with Pascal Leclaire. The Senators showed that they still needed taken seriously, scraping to get back two goals. Chris Neil scored at 7:06 and Daniel Alfredsson added another at 10:59, drawing the Senators within 2 at a score of 4-2. Maxime Talbot answered with his first of the post-season on a beautiful redirection on a pass from Craig Adams. Did I mention that it was short-handed? No? Well, it was. The Penguins were exploiting the fact that the Senators had a forward, Matt Cullen, playing defense on the power play. Talbot's goal was on one of four short-handed scoring chances on the penalty kill. Cullen did make up for his blunders by scoring a power play goal at 13:19, making the score 5-3 in favor of the Penguins. The Penguins closed out the second period controlling the play and getting a 6th goal, this time from Chris Kunitz at 18:15. The Pens took a 6-3 lead into the locker room after two complete.

Desperation is a foul cologne and the Senators were bathing in it. The third period got very chippy, very fast. Jason Spezza added a power play goal for the Senators at 7:37, bringing the totals to 6-4 and the Senators were not going away quietly. Jordan Staal sealed the deal with the 7th Penguin goal at 12:27 and the Senators went into Wal-Mart mode...cheap stuff. Andy Sutton, Chris Neal and Jarkko Ruutu began running at anyone and everyone with Neal and Ruutu eventually getting 10 minute misconducts to each, and Matt Carkner following suit. At any rate, the final score was Pittsburgh 7 - Ottawa 4 and the series was now 3-1 in favor of Pittsburgh. The Pens head back to the Igloo Thursday night with a chance to eliminate the Senators on home ice. The Pens need to continue to get contributions from around the team. To this point, the Pens have gotten goals from 11 different players. This just makes it that much harder for teams to stop the offensive onslaught of the Penguins. Look for secondary contributors on Thursday night.