Penguins vs Canadians Series Preview
Feature Image Credit: Penguins Twitter
By Austin Shaw
Okay, now the real hockey is back. The exhibition games are done. The Pens looked decent but couldn’t really get the offense going the way they should have. A 3-2 overtime loss isn’t the worst thing in the world. I think it was a good foundation to start with. I have no doubt that they went to the room after and talked about just getting the scoring chances up.
Letang looked terrible… Yeah baby, the 24th best Pittsburgh athlete of all-time according to Dejan Kovacevic at DK Sports. That’s just such a great take. Letang is much better than; Kurt Angle, Bill Mazeroski, Jerome Bettis, Dan Marino and so many more. This is from the updated 2020 list. He’s still on there.
I will say this, Jack Johnson looked fantastic. Seriously, he stayed back, knocked some pucks down, had two hits, a blocked shot and had an assist. I’m team JJ now. Let’s cheer for this guy.
Now let’s look at the goals given up by the Pens and the Habs.
First, the Pens took the lead. Sheary scored a beautiful top shelf goal in the first five minutes. Then the Pens managed nothing until the last five minutes thanks to Zucker picking up some scraps.
In between those were two goals by the Flyers. The first one, you can just give credit to Pettersson. The guy takes a dumb penalty and then Couturier shot one off him and it goes in. Not on MM. That’s on Pettersson. Fact.
Then, my God. Please watch this…
Geno? What in the holy hell were you doing there? Thank God this was an exhibition otherwise I’d be saying a lot worse. That’s just terrible. Never, ever clear the puck out of the zone through your own slot! It’s okay. Relax man. The game doesn’t matter. Why are you so mad? Again though, not on Matt Murray.
I’m good. Okay… The Flyers went on to win as they scored a filthy goal in OT.
We won’t see anything like that when the playoffs start though. Exhibitions and round robin games are 3 on 3 OT for five minutes then shootout. Playoffs are five on five until someone scores. Jarry also took over in net halfway through the game. So really, neither goalie let up a “bad goal” or anything like that. The first one was on Pettersson. The second one was on Malkin. And the third was a three-on-three stretch pass with a dirty finish. Nothing you can do there. Murray and Jarry both looked good. They just need to get the offense going.
Carey Price DID NOT look good for the Canadiens in their exhibition against the Leafs. He gave up TWO short handed goals. TWO! That’s unbelievable. I don’t think Montreal has enough in them to break the Pens down. They gave up four goals against a very good offensive Toronto team. The Leafs won 4-2.
All that the Canadiens are going to be able to do against the Penguins is try and slow them down. If they can slow them down and keep every game under five goals they have a chance. A chance. But, they truly do not have enough weapons offensively to score more than three goals a night in my opinion. The only way they win a game is if Price steals one and after that first impression, it’s not happening. Originally, I had Pens in 4. I’m sticking to it. But, I won’t be surprised by a sweep by the Pens.
I can’t wait to say, “Hey Montreal… You can get ‘AHT!'”
Game One Saturday at 8 p.m.
COMON.
COMON Network 