It wasn't always fun, but the Pens somehow got out of that third period and regrouped for relatively quick OT. Brian Strait went off for holding Crosby, and Kunitz cashed in on the PP. dfandksfklsdfkldnkldfgnfgfgd
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Pittsburgh Penguins @ New York Islanders
Series Tied 1-1
NBC, TSN, RDS - 12:00 pm/et
Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum - Uniondale, NY
Are you awake? Hopefully the Penguins are. Today we'll get to see if they decided to learn anything from game two, or if this is the same Penguins team that believes their own hype and doesn't learn from their mistakes. They said pretty much all the right things in this story. Great leadership from Iginla here:
"I think we go over it -- and we have -- to see what the feeling is why we didn't win. What is the reason we got beat?" Iginla said. "Our execution could be better. They came out harder -- give them credit -- but we didn't make plays that we can make, simple things. We weren't as sharp.
"We regroup. We see what we didn't do. We go out for another game. It's just the next game to try make it 2-1."
That's the kind of attitude the Pens need right now. Don't dwell on the loss, but look back on it, learn from it and realize what you could have done better. Will they?
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Pic of towels layed out at the Nassau Coliseum. Marks the first time Isle fans get something free since most of the fathers in attendance first jail stint at Rikers Island.
-- Oh hey remember that crazy Mom that trolled James Neal? She's back.
"He and his mom have attended a lot of practices but this happened unexpectedly."
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Ideally, the Pens take both at Nassau and close it out in Game 5. We, especially now, don't want any part of a Game 6.
Recap:
Sidney Crosby scored two goals in his return and Evgeni Malkin added another, but the Isles came back from a 3-1 Penguins lead to win game two by a score of 4-3. Kyle Okposo got his first Playoff goal and it turned out to be the game winning goal.
The Pens lost their first playoff game ever when Malkin and Crosby both score. They were 9-0 previously.
The Islanders simply worked harder and played their system better than the Pens did. It felt similar to the Flyers series from last year as the Pens played their opponent's style and lost because of it. The Isles dominated the Pens for most of the game.
Game three is on Sunday afternoon on Long Island. Should be an insane crowd on the Isle on Sunday. Can't dwell on this one too long.
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New York Islanders @ Pittsburgh Penguins
Penguins Lead 1-0
ROOT, NBCSN, MSG Plus, TSN - 7:00 pm/et
Consol Energy Center - Pittsburgh, PA
Game two at home following a Penguins blowout in game one. Sidney Crosby will be back. The Penguins' worst enemy tonight could be becoming complacent. It would be a huge mistake to let the Islanders back into this series.
For a bit of a different look than we usually give, here are the Penguins and Islanders player usage charts for game one from Some Kind of Ninja.
PENGUINS
ISLANDERS:
You can click on them for a full size image. Here's a bit on player usage charts from Some Kind of Ninja:
The horizontal axis is the percentage of time the player started in the offensive zone, the vertical axis is a rating of how good the players he played against are, and the bubble sizes are a relative rating of how many shots were directed at the net while the player was on the ice. A blue bubble (good) means more shot attempts were made at the opposing team's net when the player was on the ice, a red bubble (bad) means the player was getting outshot.
For example, look at Paul Martin's bubble. Its positioning shows you that he started most of his shifts in the defensive zone and that he played against a relatively high quality of competition. The fact that his bubble is blue means that, while he was on the ice, more shots were directed at the Islanders' net than at the Penguins' net. Translation: He has a lot of responsibility and he handles it well.
For tonight's lines, see our line combinations post from earlier.
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Likely Pens lines from Penguins.NHL.com:
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Kunitz - Crosby - Dupuis Bennett - Malkin - Iginla Morrow - Sutter - Cooke Glass - Jokinen - Adams Martin - Engelland Murray - Niskanen Eaton - Letang Fleury |
Likely Isles lines from Arthur Staple on Twitter and from Daily Faceoff:
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Moulson - Tavares - Boyes Bailey - Nielsen - Okposo Ullstrom - Aucoin - Grabner Martin - Cizikas - McDonald Streit - Strait Harmonic - MacDonald Hickey - Visnovsky Nabokov |
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Via @Penguins on Twitter.
SIDNEY CROSBY IS BACK!! Returns to lineup tonight for Game 2 vs Islanders!! #Pens #PITvsNYI
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) May 3, 2013
EDIT from Rick: There was a Photoshop here before, but I totally stole the idea for it from Days of Y'Orr.
Their original post is here. I don't want to take credit for their creativity. We love them too much to do that. Sorry everyone. I just got excited.
Here's a video of cats jumping instead:
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