Monday, May 5th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Hossa imperative to Penguin victory
Immediately after Ray Shero made the blockbuster trade for Marian Hossa (and Pascal Dupuis), commentators everywhere said that giving up Colby Armstrong, Eric Christiansen, a number one pick this year and top prospect Angelo Esposito would only be worth it if Hossa helped the Penguins win a Stanley Cup Championship. On Sunday, Hossa went a long way towards doing that, scoring two goals and providing the difference in a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers, propelling the Penguins into the Eastern Conference Finals.
Hossa’s first goal came shortly after the winger had laid out to prevent a puck from leaving the Rangers’ zone as he put it back in, Sidney Crosby and Ryan Malone threw it around for a couple of seconds and it ended up back on the stick of Hossa who buried it in the net from beneath the right circle. The play leading up to the goal showed why picking up Hossa was necessary, even when he doesn’t show up on the score sheet very often. Hossa is a high-tempo, hard-playing type of player who scores by shooting the puck a lot, which is essentially what the Penguins needed. He isn’t a fancy stick-handler or anything like that, but he manages to have the puck in big situations and to fire rockets that somehow find their way into the net.
That was particularly true on the overtime goal, as the puck went to Hossa’s stick on an attempted pass from Dupuis to Sidney Crosby. It didn’t quite work that way, though, as the puck went to Hossa who was standing in the slot and he blasted it past Henrik Lundqvist to end the game and the series. After the game, Hossa told NBC’s Mike Millbury, “The puck came to me and I missed it and it went five-hole.” If that laser is what happens when Hossa misses, then Bob Nutting should probably be afraid of being hit by a Hossa shot all the way over on the North Shore.
Evgeni Malkin continued his quest to become recognized as the best player on the planet, scoring a ridiculous goal in the second period where he stopped, lost the puck, somehow regained it and fired a backhanded shot past Lundqvist to put the Penguins up 2-0. Malkin’s play of the game, though, came in the overtime period when the Rangers ended up with a very good shorthanded chance, but Malkin skated all the way back to Marc-Andre Fleury to backcheck the puck away. The play showed the defensive consciousness and heads up play that are going to be absolutely necessary to success for the Penguins in later rounds.
Fleury wasn’t at his best today, giving up two more goals, and it was fair to say that Lundqvist outplayed him for the second consecutive game. The days of rest between now and the beginning of the Semi-Finals will be very good for him and will hopefully allow him to regain the top form he had been flashing until the last couple of games.
The Penguins definitely benefited from some favorable officiating in this game, as Ryan Malone was not called for high-sticking Chris Drury early in the third period, drawing blood, while Drury was called for high-sticking Malone at the end of the period leading to a Penguins’ power-play for about 2:40 of the overtime period. The call on Drury was correct, but the no-call on Malone was not the right call. It may have helped the Penguins (the Rangers did score twice over the time period when the penalty would have been called) in the end, but pointing out the officials’ mistakes is always fun.
Philadelphia is up next in a series that is sure to be extremely exciting as there has been no hotter team in the NHL outside of Philadelphia except for, maybe, Pittsburgh.
Leave a Reply