Sunday, February 6, 2011

Punches, Blood, and a Goose Egg; Penguins vs. Capitals

This was the first time the Capitals and the Penguins played each other since the Winter Classic at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania where the Capitals beat the Penguins 3 to 1. The Penguins had their star players Steven Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in this loss on January 1st.

The rematch was hosted at the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. The arena was 100% full to see their Capitals take on the Penguins. The Capitals scored first at the end of the 1st period, Brooks Laich backhanded shot into the Penguins' goal, guarded by Marc-Andre Fleury, with assistance from John Erskine and Mattieu Perreault (1-0 Caps). At the very end of the 1st period, Capitals' Mike Green was hit on the right side of his face by a puck shot by Brooks Orpik, not intentionally, there was blood getting on to the ice from his face. In the 2nd period the Capitals' were setting up for a goal when Penguins' Alex Goligoskip was battling with Capitals' Matt Hendricks and pushed him into the Penguins' goal tender while Mike Knuble had placed a puck into the Penguins' goal. The refrees called goal tender interference, which was a right call, but also called a penalty on Hendricks, which was not a right call the ref was definitely not fully paying attention. During the last seconds of the Penguins' power play Marcus Johansson, Capitals' rookie center, scored a shorthanded goal assisted by Jeff Schultz (2-0 Caps). Around 8 minutes into the 3rd period after a face off Penguins' Tim Wallace and Capitals' David Steckel, who was the one that hit Crosby that gave him his concussion unintentionally as well, got into it and both was penalized 5 minutes for fighting. 16 minutes in Matt Cooke of the Penguins tripped the Capitals' Alex Ovechkin which Ovechkin and his teammate Nicklas Backstrom didn't care for and double teamed Cooke while other teammates from both teams started to pile up until the refs broke it up seconds later. Cooke got the penalty for tripping and the Capitals weren't able to capitalize on the power play. The Penguins' left their goal empty, with around 2 minutes to go, to try to over power the Capitals and score a goal to make it a closer game but Hendricks was able to take the puck to the other end of the ice and passed it to Mike Knuble who made the empty net goal, Hendricks got the assist (3-0 Caps). The Capitals shutout the Crosby and Malkin-less Penguins.

There were 0 penalties in the 1st period, 4 in the 2nd period (3 by Penguins and 1 by the Capitals, bad call), 4 in the 3rd (2 by Penguins and 2 by Capitals; both were for fighting and tripping). Capitals had 1 goal in all 3 periods. Michal Neuvirth's 2nd shut out of the season.

First hockey post so sorry if it sucks...also new to hockey.

Links:
Recap- NHL.com: http://bit.ly/hc7XTd
Boxscore- ESPN.com: http://es.pn/e2JsrU

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