• "I missed," Egor Chinakhov was telling me late Tuesday night, here at Lenovo Center. And he was referring, of course, to his soul-crushing shootout shank. "I lost it. I lost it."
Yeah, no. He didn't. He really didn't.
Sure, the puck slid off the backhand of his blade after he'd flattened poor Frederik Andersen with a dazzling dangle that'd make Pavel Datsyuk blush:
To which what I mostly have to offer is ... I don't want to hear it.
Not this time.
No, seriously, not so much as a peep about the stupid shootout beyond what's above. Nothing about the shootout record now being an absurd 1-10. Nothing, even, about another wasted four-on-three overtime power play.
Not this time.
I know, I know ... no moral victories, least of all when every point's precious amid a Stanley Cup playoff chase, and both the Islanders and Blue Jackets prevailed on the same night in St. Louis and Tampa, respectively:
NHL
But there's more to this particular moral.
To start, the Hurricanes, as seen above are the clear class of the Metro, riding a 17-2-4 high since the flip of the calendar, and almost fully healthy. They'll be raising another pennant to the rafters when this season's done, and it might by one that's more relevant than just the division.
And they sure looked the part in the opening eight minutes, registering 10 of the first 11 shots.
As if to contrast, the visitors were without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, then disclosed in the morning that Justin Brazeau's injury will keep him out "week to week," per Dan Muse, meaning probably until April, and that Sam Girard was newly hurt.
Enter ... Elmer Soderblom?
Seemingly out of nowhere, the Penguins' newest acquisition, a 6-foot-8 skating ladder, almost singularly powered a shift in which the puck didn't leave the Carolina zone and he could've scored not once but twice, if not for Andersen.
"Impactful," was the word Muse used to summarize Soderblom's night.
It never stopped. He was exceptional in a way that conventional metrics couldn't convey: No points but four shots, seven attempted shots and, oh, my, nearly two minutes of time on the power play.
Did I mention he's 23?
We had a talk afterward about his comfort level:
"I feel like it's betting better and better," he'd say. "It takes a couple games to get used to a new system, new teammates. It felt pretty good today. I'm just trying to not think too much and just play my game."
Anthony Mantha and Bryan Rust put the Penguins ahead, 2-1, by the middle of the second period and carried that into intermission. But in the opening four minutes of the third, two terribly odd circumstances allowed the Hurricanes to leapfrog with two goals -- Mark Jankowski pounced on a loose puck that Connor Dewar couldn't locate between his skates, and Seth Jarvis was gifted a breakaway when Ilya Solovyov momentarily lost sight of the puck while his partner, Connor Clifton, pinched.
"We would have liked a better start to that third," Ryan Shea told me. "Couple bad bounces. And then, a couple of penalties gave them momentum, too."
Right. About those: Shea whistled for cross-checking Taylor Hall, marking Hall's second egregious dive of the game, this one worse than the first and both of them rewarded with Carolina power plays. Soon after, Parker Wotherspoon was sent off for tripping Nikolaj Ehlers, whose own spill was outright comical.
That presented the Hurricanes with a two-man advantage, and Alexander Nikishin made it 4-2.
I'm not at liberty to share how a representative sampling of the Penguins' room felt about those embellishments, but suffice it to say they were angry enough -- and dogged enough and determined enough, in general -- to create this spectacular scene in the final couple minutes:
Don't pause after Rust ricochets that shot in off Noel Acciari. Let it run through to Rust tying with 36 ticks left to pick up easily the least expected point of the season.
I know, right?
“We certainly don’t give up in this room,” Rust would say after two goals, an assist, a plus-2 rating and six shot attempts. “It says a lot about the guys in here.”
“We’re a resilient team,” Stuart Skinner would say after a 39-save output that might've been his best in a Pittsburgh sweater, capped by the NHL's unrivaled save of the nightthat set the stage for those late goals. “We’ve got guys in here who'll do whatever it takes to win games and to get a point. We’re in March now, against a team that’s really hard to beat. The fact that we came back on them is impressive, to say the least. I mean, that’s really hard to do. We battled hard all night. You could tell that it was a division game, and a huge point for us. This group should be very proud.”
That was the broader sentiment in the room, for sure.
"The way the game is, this is a top team in the league, you're down by two goals, and you find a way to get that point ... yeah, you'd like to get the other point, but it's a credit to the guys and staying with it."
And between this point and the riveting three-goal rally to beat the Bruins two days earlier back home, what's Muse learned about his group?
"It's nothing I didn't know about them already. They work. They believe in themselves. They believe in this group."
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. Taylor Haase and I are double-teaming the entire five-game, eight-day trip. Next flight's out to Las Vegas.
THE ASYLUM
Grind: No complaints after this one, all right?
Good Wednesday morning!
• "I missed," Egor Chinakhov was telling me late Tuesday night, here at Lenovo Center. And he was referring, of course, to his soul-crushing shootout shank. "I lost it. I lost it."
Yeah, no. He didn't. He really didn't.
Sure, the puck slid off the backhand of his blade after he'd flattened poor Frederik Andersen with a dazzling dangle that'd make Pavel Datsyuk blush:
Uh-huh. That happened. And so did this: Hurricanes 5, Penguins 4.
To which what I mostly have to offer is ... I don't want to hear it.
Not this time.
No, seriously, not so much as a peep about the stupid shootout beyond what's above. Nothing about the shootout record now being an absurd 1-10. Nothing, even, about another wasted four-on-three overtime power play.
Not this time.
I know, I know ... no moral victories, least of all when every point's precious amid a Stanley Cup playoff chase, and both the Islanders and Blue Jackets prevailed on the same night in St. Louis and Tampa, respectively:
NHL
But there's more to this particular moral.
To start, the Hurricanes, as seen above are the clear class of the Metro, riding a 17-2-4 high since the flip of the calendar, and almost fully healthy. They'll be raising another pennant to the rafters when this season's done, and it might by one that's more relevant than just the division.
And they sure looked the part in the opening eight minutes, registering 10 of the first 11 shots.
As if to contrast, the visitors were without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, then disclosed in the morning that Justin Brazeau's injury will keep him out "week to week," per Dan Muse, meaning probably until April, and that Sam Girard was newly hurt.
Enter ... Elmer Soderblom?
Seemingly out of nowhere, the Penguins' newest acquisition, a 6-foot-8 skating ladder, almost singularly powered a shift in which the puck didn't leave the Carolina zone and he could've scored not once but twice, if not for Andersen.
"Impactful," was the word Muse used to summarize Soderblom's night.
It never stopped. He was exceptional in a way that conventional metrics couldn't convey: No points but four shots, seven attempted shots and, oh, my, nearly two minutes of time on the power play.
Did I mention he's 23?
We had a talk afterward about his comfort level:
"I feel like it's betting better and better," he'd say. "It takes a couple games to get used to a new system, new teammates. It felt pretty good today. I'm just trying to not think too much and just play my game."
Anthony Mantha and Bryan Rust put the Penguins ahead, 2-1, by the middle of the second period and carried that into intermission. But in the opening four minutes of the third, two terribly odd circumstances allowed the Hurricanes to leapfrog with two goals -- Mark Jankowski pounced on a loose puck that Connor Dewar couldn't locate between his skates, and Seth Jarvis was gifted a breakaway when Ilya Solovyov momentarily lost sight of the puck while his partner, Connor Clifton, pinched.
"We would have liked a better start to that third," Ryan Shea told me. "Couple bad bounces. And then, a couple of penalties gave them momentum, too."
Right. About those: Shea whistled for cross-checking Taylor Hall, marking Hall's second egregious dive of the game, this one worse than the first and both of them rewarded with Carolina power plays. Soon after, Parker Wotherspoon was sent off for tripping Nikolaj Ehlers, whose own spill was outright comical.
That presented the Hurricanes with a two-man advantage, and Alexander Nikishin made it 4-2.
I'm not at liberty to share how a representative sampling of the Penguins' room felt about those embellishments, but suffice it to say they were angry enough -- and dogged enough and determined enough, in general -- to create this spectacular scene in the final couple minutes:
Don't pause after Rust ricochets that shot in off Noel Acciari. Let it run through to Rust tying with 36 ticks left to pick up easily the least expected point of the season.
I know, right?
“We certainly don’t give up in this room,” Rust would say after two goals, an assist, a plus-2 rating and six shot attempts. “It says a lot about the guys in here.”
“We’re a resilient team,” Stuart Skinner would say after a 39-save output that might've been his best in a Pittsburgh sweater, capped by the NHL's unrivaled save of the night that set the stage for those late goals. “We’ve got guys in here who'll do whatever it takes to win games and to get a point. We’re in March now, against a team that’s really hard to beat. The fact that we came back on them is impressive, to say the least. I mean, that’s really hard to do. We battled hard all night. You could tell that it was a division game, and a huge point for us. This group should be very proud.”
That was the broader sentiment in the room, for sure.
"The way the game is, this is a top team in the league, you're down by two goals, and you find a way to get that point ... yeah, you'd like to get the other point, but it's a credit to the guys and staying with it."
And between this point and the riveting three-goal rally to beat the Bruins two days earlier back home, what's Muse learned about his group?
"It's nothing I didn't know about them already. They work. They believe in themselves. They believe in this group."
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. Taylor Haase and I are double-teaming the entire five-game, eight-day trip. Next flight's out to Las Vegas.
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