Pens Lose. No One Prepared Us For This.

The Leafs outpaced the Pens last night in our home opener, 5-2, in a game where the Penguins looked surprisingly listless.  Some observations from a forgettable one:

• The Legend of Clarke MacArthur continued in Pittsburgh: MacArthur, whose name sounds, let's face it, totally made up, is a career 0.54 points per game player.  He's got a decent skill set, but nothing about him jumps out at you.  I doubt his play has inspired any nicknames from the fans in Toronto (though here are some suggestions: C-Mac.  The Skulking Scotsman.  Braveheart.  Craig MacTavish.).  But against the Penguins, he somehow turns into the second coming of Darryl Sittler.  His career line against us, after potting a goal and an assist last night: 23 games, 9 goals, 14 assists, 23 points.  Jiminy Christmas. 

 

• MacArthur's partner in Penguin-killing, Mikhail Grabovski, also showed up, with a goal and assist.  Grabovski is one of those Enigmatic (Bela)Rusians; unlike C-Mac, his skills are immediately visible.  He's fast as the blazes and has a killer wrist shot, and when he's on (that is, when he plays the Penguins) he absolutely looks like an elite scorer.  Still, his career points per game?  0.63.  In his career against the Penguins?  17 games, 7 goals, 11 assists, 18 points.


• James van Riemsdyk.  Nice to see you again?


•  If you're looking for silver linings, the Penguins penalty kill was outstanding again, holding the Leafs to a 1-of-8 showing with the man advantage, with the lone goal coming in the final minutes, when the game was all but over.  Particularly impressive was a lengthy 5-on-3 kill in the second period, though the Leafs power play was nice enough to play passy-passy while the seconds ticked down. 

• We should take a moment to doff our caps to Gentlemanly Craig Adams, who has played as well as is humanly possible short-handed.  When he retires and writes his book-length treatise on the art of killing penalties, I'll  be buying the first copy off the presses.  Craig Adams went to Harvard, is what I'm saying.


• Speaking of penalties, I hate to complain about the refs (no, nope, I love to do that), but those were some QUESTIONABLE-ass calls last night.  Three very borderline boarding calls, two on Kunitz and one on Letang.  Yes, they should have recognized that the refs were calling the game tight, but those are hits Kunitz makes every night.


• It was nice to see Crosby score his first goal of the season, on a nice breakaway he set up himself with a blocked shot at the point.  BUT, I'd like for someone to explain to me how, with Dion Phaneuf standing at his own blueline, presumably watching Crosby skate right towards him awaiting a pass from Dupuis, Phaneuf ended up beaten THIS badly:

          Look how out of position he is!  He started out in a prime position to thwart the breakaway,
          and somehow didn't think to make a move towards the best player in the world until he'd
          already blown by him.

• Yes, it was nice to see Crosby score his first goal of the season, but he has also looked rusty these first few games.  He has been turning over the puck an awful lot in the offensive zone, and hasn't been as dominant along the boards as we're accustomed to.  Eventually, he'll stop forcing passes and start being Sid again, and that will be cool.


• Eric Tangradi played under 5 minutes last night, but boy did he make an impression!  He made two huge plays that changed the complexion of this game: in the first period, he intercepted a pass and broke into the Leafs' zone in a 2-on-1 with Malkin on his right.  He then proceeded to skate in a wide arc toward the left side boards, giving himself no angle for a shot OR a pass, while allowing the defenseman to stand there and wait for Tangradi to try and pass the puck through him, which he was unable to do.  Meanwhile, Malkin, only the most dangerous scorer in the building, was basically a decoy in this theater of the macabre.  to better illustrate my point, I've diagrammed the play, showing what Tangradi (#25), Malkin (#71), and the Leafs defenseman ("D"), did:

       
          It was a real Family Circus cartoon of a play, if you will.

• Tangradi's second big play occured when he decided to carry the puck up the middle of the ice (generally a bad idea), and, with Neal skating right next to him, maybe 10 feet away from him, he uncorks a backhand pass that was so far in front of Neal that it made me seriously wonder if he'd ever used his back hand before.  Here's a screenshot:

          Look at that pass.  LOOK AT IT.  Why, on God's green earth, would you make this pass at
          the opponent's blue line?  What can be gained here?  Even if it's a perfect pass, Neal will be
          in exactly the same position as Tangradi is.  It's literally a lateral move.  And look again,
          please.  I know it's hard.  But the Pens have numbers here.  If Tangradi dumps the puck and
          lets his all-star linemates chase down the puck, maybe we get a scoring chance.

• If it's not clear, that's not what happened.  No.  Tangradi's pass went pretty much directly to the Leafs d-man, while Neal was stuck out of position trying to chase the puck.  All of the Pens ended up awkwardly half-in-half-out of the Leafs' zone, and when Despres was caught off guard when the puck came back to him, the Leafs counterattacked and C-Mac, of course, scored on the ensuing rush.  I think - I think and I hope and I pray - that we can pour dirt on the Eric-Tangradi-as-a-Top-Six-Forward Experiment.  Oh, how I will miss Pens fans pinning all their future hopes on the Big Dog.  And congratulations Beau Bennett, you are now officially the new Penguin that fans are convinced will be Sid's scoring winger of the future despite never having seen you play!

• If we're looking for new wingers to pair with Malkin and Neal (and please God, let it be so), I thought Kennedy lokoed decent playing with them last night for a shift.  He can skate, he's a good puck control guy behind the net, and lord knows he's not shy about shooting.  Right now my top choices for the role of Bernie on what The Pensblog is brilliantly calling the Weekend at Bernie's Line are: 1. Trade for Jarome Iginla  2. TK   3. Dustin Jeffrey (who my girlfriend's dad said played well in Croatia)  4. Beau Bennett  250. Tangradi


• With Tangradi in the (Big) Dog house for most of this game, Bylsma ran out a ton of different lines.  I might have been hallucinating, but I think I saw a Vitale-Neal-Kennedy line for a moment there.  Calm down, Dan boy.  Pick your lines and stick with them.  Oh, and whenever he loads the Crosby-Malkin-Neal WMD, it is terrifying.


• Sutter is going to score soon.  He will start taking over.  And, when it finally and inevitably does, it will be beautiful.