Saturday, May 10th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Malkin dominates en route to Pen’s victory
When the Penguins brought the “Experience the Evolution” campaign to life immediately after the lockout, they were focused on a collection of young potential stars who had the potential to become a great team. The majority of hockey followers thought that one of these players would become the best player in the world. Fortunately, they were thinking about Sidney Crosby, who has been consistently outshined this season by the sun-bright light of Evgeni Malkin, who is allowing fans to see the maturation process of the likely best player in the world. (This is not to suggest that Sid won’t become the better player, but there is seriously no one on Earth playing more dominant hockey than Malkin right now.)
The game’s first goal came off of the stick of Petr Sykora who flipped a backhand past Martin Biron. The contest then became the Mike Richards show as the Flyer scored on a wraparound and then on a scramble near the net. Richards is a very good, physical player who is almost certainly the best offensive threat the Flyers have, no matter how good R.J. Umberger has been playing. He is the player that the Penguins need to find a way to shut down in this series.
The Flyers supposedly have a clubhouse debate about whether they should focus on Malkin or Crosby, but that debate didn’t matter on Friday night as both scored. Crosby’s goal came late in the first, after both of Richards’ goals, as he was skating in front of the net and a pass from Marian Hossa went off of his stick and into the back of the goal, tying the game 2-2.
Malkin’s first goal came late in the first, as he took a pass from Ryan Whitney that wasn’t offside, but was close, and scored on a wrist shot from the right point with 6.5 seconds left in the period, giving the Penguins a 3-2 lead going into the break.
The final goal of the game came early in the second period during a Flyers powerplay as Malkin, who was trailing the play after being leveled in the Philly zone by Richards, received an outlet pass from Sergei Gonchar and rifled it into the net with a slapshot, putting the Penguins ahead by a two goal margin for good. As multiple media sources have noted, this play was essentially the antithesis of Malkin’s penalty shot against Henrik Lundqvist where he skated in very close before deciding to flip the puck into the goalie’s glove. The goal was the first shorthanded goal of Malkin’s career.
The evolution of Malkin is undoubtedly the most important storyline of this playoffs for the Penguins as he is quickly developing into the kind of player who just takes over a game and wins it for his team as opposed to the star he had been before. With Malkin, the Lemieux comparisons are beginning to look more and more apt with every passing game and Ray Shero is dreading his long-term contract signing (which has to happen this summer) more and more.
Marc-Andre Fleury and the Penguin defense were very good again tonight, only being beaten by Richards and only on those two occasions and then playing shutdown D for the remainder of the night. Fleury’s play has been spectacular throughout the playoffs, but he is not receiving all of the credit that he should because he is being outshined by the other stars of the Penguins.
The 1-0 lead in the series is crucial, as the Penguins could conceivably have a 2-0 lead heading back to Philadelphia, where they probably will not be able to win two games in the hostile environment. The evolution is still continuing, but these kids are beginning to look all grown up.
Leave a Reply