Round 2 - Washington Vs. Pittsburgh

And I miss that while I'm refreshing this page...

PENS WIN!!!

...and Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a SERIES....

:%%:

Off Morrissonn, tough break for the Capitals.

there was no way the caps were gonna sweep and now they have malkin going makes the series harder now for the caps

CRAP!

I wouldnt mind Pits winning the cup, if not for Crysby.

if pits wins the cup comes to Sault Ste Marie!!

Washington 2, Pittsburgh 3

	1	2	3	OT	T
WAS	1	0	1	0	2
PIT	0	1	1	1	3

Final OT

7:00 PM ET, May 6, 2009

Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Caps tie late but Letang rescues Pens in OT to cut series to 2-1

PITTSBURGH (AP/ESPN)-- The Pittsburgh Penguins finally solved Simeon Varlamov, finally controlled Alex Ovechkin for most of a game and got the victory they needed to get back into their playoff series against the Washington Capitals.

Kris Letang scored his first career playoff goal on a shot from the point after Sidney Crosby's faceoff win in overtime and the Penguins avoided going down three games to the Capitals, winning 3-2 in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Wednesday night.

Letang's shot deflected off a Capitals player and ricocheted past Varlamov, who had stopped nearly everything the Penguins threw at him. Washington scored first -- on a goal by Ovechkin, who else -- then let Pittsburgh control most of the way.

The Penguins outshot the Capitals 42-23 and had a 7-2 edge in power plays.

Pittsburgh also got Evgeni Malkin's pivotal first goal in six games and shook off Nicklas Backstrom's late power-play goal to win their sixth consecutive overtime playoff game, five by 3-2 scores.

The victory prevented near certain elimination for Pittsburgh. No NHL team has rallied from a 3-0 playoff deficit in 34 years.

Game 4 in a series in which Washington won the first two games by one-goal margins at home is Friday night in Pittsburgh. Game 5 will be Saturday night in Washington.

Malkin, the NHL scoring champion, snapped off a wrist shot from the high slot on a power play with 4:59 remaining that gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 edge.

Crosby, who had four goals in the first two games, didn't score in Game 3 but set up the goals by Malkin and Letang for his first assists in six games. Letang, a defenseman, was uncertain he would play until earlier Wednesday because of a shoulder injury.

Pittsburgh pressed constantly for the go-ahead goal after Ruslan Fedotenko tied it near the midpoint of the second period, throwing flurry after flurry at Varlamov -- the cool-as-it-gets rookie who played only six games during the season. Malkin finally got a shot through with Bill Guerin screening in front.

The goal by Malkin gave a huge lift to the Penguins and appeared to be enough to get them back into the series. Thanks to Backstrom, it wasn't.

The Capitals, scoreless and badly outshot since Ovechkin scored his fifth in the series off a seemingly harmless dump-in 83 seconds into the game, got the tying goal with 1:50 to play on a bad-angle shot by Backstrom from behind the goal line with 1:50 to play.

With Washington on its first power play since before the halfway point of the first period, Ovechkin got the puck down low to Backstrom and he banked it in off the back of goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
As in each of the previous two games of a tightly played, physical and fast-paced series, the visiting team got the first goal and controlled the early tempo only to have the home team regain the momentum.

Ovechkin scored his eighth of the playoffs after Mike Green's dump-in ricocheted wildly into the slot, causing Fleury to accidentally lose his stick as he unsuccessfully scrambled back to the net to try to defend the shot.

Right about then, some of the 17,132 fans in the standing room crows had to be wondering if the Penguins were ever going to shut down Ovechkin, who already had five goals in the series that was only two games and less than two minutes old.

At that point, Ovechkin (5) and Crosby (4) had all but four of the 13 goals in the series.

The Penguins, badly outplayed in the opening 10 minutes, tied it at 9:29 of the second as Max Talbot took the puck away from Tomas Fleischmann and started a rush that ended with Fedotenko wristing a shot that Varlamov couldn't control at 9:29. It was the first goal by a Penguins forward other than Crosby in the series.

Game notes
The Capitals previously were 3-0 in the postseason when tied after two periods. ... Pittsburgh is 6-2 against Washington in Game 3s and 7-3 in Game 3s when down 2-0 in a series. ... The Penguins scratched F Petr Sykora and played F Miroslav Satan for the third time in the playoffs.

Malkin' back... Cap's are going to have to answer.

Not Yanni fans: Caps owner, GM miffed

PITTSBURGH (AP) May 7, 2009-- Yanni is forcing the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins to play two playoff games in as many nights, and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis doesn't like it.

Three events in eight days at Mellon Arena required the NHL to schedule the Capitals and Penguins to play Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series in Pittsburgh on Friday night and Game 5 at the Verizon Center in Washington on Saturday.

"You don't want to play back-to-back," Capitals general manager George McPhee said. "Neither team wanted it."

The teams are playing every other day during the series except for the back-to-back games. Normally, the teams would have played Friday in Pittsburgh, Sunday in Washington and Tuesday [if necessary] in Pittsburgh, but the concert conflict ruled out Tuesday.

Instead, Game 6 would be played Monday night in Pittsburgh, the third game between the teams in four days.

A WWE wrestling event this past Tuesday and a Dane Cook show on Thursday in Pittsburgh also factored into the NHL schedule.

"It is a shame that both teams will have to play back to back games ... because the Pittsburgh building -- against NHL rules -- booked a series of concerts and forced the league to alter the playoff schedule," Leonsis wrote recently on his blog, Ted's Take.

"This is bad for the league, both fan bases and for the players."

"The playoffs are very intense and physical and players need time to recoup. No one is advantaged by playing back to back games so no one can complain but it is unfortunate that the Yanni concert takes precedence over high quality NHL playoff hockey."

The Penguins did not immediately respond to Leonsis' comments.

"We saw the schedule," Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said Friday. "That's the way it is."

Leonsis has a reason to dislike playing two games in two days. Last season, the Capitals played on successive days in their first-round series against Philadelphia and lost Game 7 in Washington, 3-2 in overtime, a day after winning Game 6 on the road.

There have been no other back-to-back games so far in the first two rounds of the NHL playoffs, although they have occurred fairly regularly in past years. Last season, teams played on back-to-back nights five times.

The Penguins' Max Talbot said he didn't think it was a big deal.

"Whatever teams wins [Game 4] will have the momentum going into Game 5, which is good," he said. "I like it."

According to NBC's Web site, the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals are scheduled for Friday, June 5 and Saturday, June 6, although -- unlike the Capitals-Penguins games -- they would be played in the same city.

Washington 3, Pittsburgh 5

	1	2	3	T
WAS	1	1	1	3
PIT	3	0	2	5

Final

7:00 PM ET, May 8, 2009, Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Penguins break Varlamov to pull even with Capitals after Game 4

PITTSBURGH -- Alex Ovechkin disappeared, at least as much as the game's most dominant scorer can, and so did all the magic Simeon Varlamov was working. Suddenly, the Washington Capitals are in a familiar position against rival Pittsburgh, losing their grip on a playoff series that seemed to be theirs.

The Penguins shook off an opening-minute Washington goal, scored three times in less than 12 minutes in the first period against a suddenly vulnerable Varlamov and beat the Capitals 5-3 Friday night to even the Eastern Conference semifinal at 2.
The Capitals won't get much time to try to regain any confidence they lost by losing twice in Pittsburgh, not with Game 5 in Washington on Saturday night.

"We're right back in it and we have momentum on our side and we'll try to keep it going," said Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who made 19 saves.

Washington scored one-goal victories at home in each of the first two games as Ovechkin scored a combined four goals, but he was shut out on two shots while being constantly shadowed by defenseman Rob Scuderi. Penguins star Sidney Crosby had his playoffs-leading ninth goal and an assist.


Fast Facts


• Sidney Crosby scored his postseason-leading ninth goal and added an assist as Pittsburgh evened its series with Washington at two.
• After Nicklas Backstrom scored less than a minute into the game, Pittsburgh ran off three straight goals in the first period and never trailed again.
• The team that has scored the first goal has lost each game of the series.
• The Penguins' win snapped an eight-game losing streak in Game 4s on their home ice.
• After scoring five goals in the first three games of the series, Alex Ovechkin was held without a goal in Game 4.
• Game 5 is in Washington on Saturday.
-- ESPN Stats & Information

"They were desperate down here," Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said. "Alex is only human, he can't be unbelievable every night. He's a great player, he just had one of those nights where he's not going to get three goals."

Capitals owner Ted Leonsis is unhappy at playing twice in two nights in two cities, all because of a Yanni concert in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. He may be even more concerned with the Capitals' first major letdown in the series, an opening period in which Washington's one-goal lead quickly became a two-goal deficit as Sergei Gonchar, Bill Guerin and Ruslan Fedotenko scored.

Now, the Penguins again could do what they did against the Capitals in 1992 and 1996 by rallying to win after being down 2-0 in a series.

"We said we've got to get two at home and now we've got to try to get one on the road," Scuderi said.

Pittsburgh has a major worry, though, as Gonchar was helped off the ice late in the first period after absorbing a knee-on-knee hit from Ovechkin. There was no immediate word about the injury, or how long it would sideline the Penguins' most experienced defenseman, who missed three-quarters of the regular season with a shoulder injury.

"I mean, you can run guys, guys are fair game, but the guy [Ovechkin] takes strides every time and leaves his feet a lot of times, too," defenseman Brooks Orpik said. "To us, we got the feeling he's really trying to hurt guys at times."

Ovechkin denied during a postgame talk with Penguins star Evgeni Malkin's father that the hit on his former Russian Olympic teammate was dirty.

Comparing The Stars


Sidney Crosby and the Pens got the best of Alex Ovechkin and the Caps to even the series, even without Evgeni Malkin producing.


Game 4

	Crosby	Malkin	Ovechkin
Shifts	15	19	23
Time on Ice	18:06	20:05	25:22
Goals	1	0	0
Assists	1	0	1
Shots on Goal	4	4	2

"Yeah, it probably was knee on knee -- I tried to hit him with my shoulder and he just moved left [into] the same spot," Ovechkin said.

Asked if he is worried about a fine or suspension, Ovechkin said, "I don't know what's going to happen, but I didn't want to hit him. I wanted to hit him, but I don't want hurt him, especially knee on knee."

Varlamov came in with a 1.64 goals-against average despite having only six games of NHL experience, but could be seen shaking his head at his inability to stop not-difficult shots.

Varlamov, arguably the best player on the ice while making 39 saves during Pittsburgh's 3-2 overtime win in Game 3, probably couldn't be blamed for Guerin's go-ahead goal on a rebound of Crosby's in-close forehander midway through the period.

But the 21-year-old goalie had a good look on Gonchar's tying goal from close to the blue line, which came slightly more than 3 minutes after Washington's Nicklas Backstrom scored with 36 seconds gone.

Maybe that was a bad omen for the Capitals, since the team scoring first has lost all four games in the series. A much-worse omen came when Sergei Fedorov couldn't score on two excellent scoring chances not long after Gonchar's goal, and Varlamov began looking shaky. He was beaten on a seemingly harmless 50-foot wrist shot that Fedotenko was trying to throw on net at 15:25 of the first, making it 3-1.

"There were four soft goals out of the five," Boudreau said. "But he'll bounce back. He's a real competitive guy."

The Capitals twice came back from two-goal deficits on goals by Chris Clark and Milan Jurcina, with Jurcina scoring short-handed. But the Penguins answered as Crosby and Maxime Talbot each scored in the third period. Crosby has nine playoff goals, one more than Ovechkin.

Game notes
Pittsburgh had lost its previous three Game 4s. ... Washington came in with an 11-6 scoring edge in the first period. ... Pittsburgh has 23 power plays in the series to Washington's 13.

Has the tide turned?

shabbs wrote:Has the tide turned?

If Gonchar is gone for more than one game and Ovechkin for less than one then the Pens are in trouble.

I predict Gonchar out, Ovie in.

shabbs wrote:I predict Gonchar out, Ovie in.

That's what I am predicting as well. However what happens in the next game? The Pens can afford 1 loss, but only 1. And even with Gonchar out, for 1 game they can all raise their level of play and actually win one for the Gonchar. But if he's out 2 or more, could be over.

If Gonchar is out for an extended time, the Pens will be in trouble.

if Gonchar's hurting bad, much as Shabbs has stated, and misses more than one game, the Pens are in deep dung. I'm sure they'll rally, but missing that key experience and calmness of Gonchar will hurt...

I don't see Ovie getting suspended, despite what that idiot Orpik, who's laid MUCH more questionable hits on players, said.

I really hope the Caps trounce the Pens and then end it in the mellon for game #6.

This one is going 7 Cronie with the pens moving on

Gonchar out several weeks.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=278120

No discipline for Ovie.