Kindel’s Dramatic Return Sparks Penguins’ Unforgettable Triumph Over Canucks
- Novak’s play in the neutral zone has been great lately. Whether it’s skating the puck and gaining the zone or blocking breakout attempts he’s been everywhere. It’s been paying off in big ways like the setup for the Malkin goal, it’s also all over the place to be on the puck constantly.
- Two goals for Kindel! He’s still been playing well all over the ice without the puck despite the lack of goals lately, popping in two for the homecoming of the Vancouver native in his first game there was a special moment for him to create.
- Between the team’s rookie party and seeing his family in a luxury box, how expensive was the weekend for Kindel? The old joke about playing for free might have some level of truth to it, he’d probably take it for the two goals, including the GWG.
- The Bob Grove stat of the day: today was game 1,000 (including playoffs) of the Big 3 all in the lineup together.
- St. Ivany only took three shifts (playing 2:54) before leaving with what was announced as an upper body injury. That meant the Pens basically went the distance with only five defenders for the balance of the game tonight.
- They still found a way to ease Letang back into the lineup, though you wouldn’t tell it from his overall ice time (16:50 through two periods, overall for the game). Letang wasn’t used on the PK. He hasn’t been a huge PK guy this season (averaging 1:27 per game), but that still ranked fourth among Pittsburgh defenders for a somewhat regular shift or turn in the rotation.
- Another quality start in the books for Skinner, as has become his norm as of late. There were times he didn’t have a lot of action, though at the start of the game and the Canuck power play early in the second he had to be good, as was. Moneypuck had Vancouver with over 2 expected goals at the halfway point of the game. Thanks to Skinner it was 0 actual at that point. Could it have been another OT/SO loss and three-goal third period lead blown for the Pens? It was trending that way until Skinner’s late game heroics.
- Maybe when the Penguins come back East they will find some power plays back at home. Pittsburgh only had six total power plays over the four-game western swing, including zip, zero tonight.
- Can’t complain with the results though, four games on the trip end up as four wins. Big time results there.
The Penguins gotta be looking around seeing if the NHL has any more teams for them to play out in the northwest. Sadly, they do not, the team will return home and look to bottle up the momentum for their next game on Thursday against Buffalo.
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