Pens v Coyotes (L 0-3)

OY! What a week so far. I missed Mario's birthday, the wind took out part of my roof's gutter, AND today I had jury duty. (I'm about a month away from turning 32, and this is the 4^th fricking time I've been called. Grrrr!!) And since I was again chosen, this will be the second time I've served on a jury. Last time it was a criminal trial; this time it's civil. It's supposed to be a one-day case (on the day before my birthday), so I guess it could be worse. Still... >:(

Superstar and Flower handed out pizzas to students waiting on line for tickets before today's game. :)

The good news: The Sporting News Magazine (rightfully) announced that Pittsburgh is the Best Sports City! :) The bad news: The Pens were a collective shell of their Stanley Cup winning selves tonight. Ten minor penalties and a failure to get into a rhythm led to the loss tonight.

FIRST PERIOD

Choppy. That's the best way I can describe the first - a period we were lucky to end down only by one goal. The Boys took too many penalties against the Gretzky-less Coyotes, which forced Dan Bylsma to jumble the lines, which prevented the Pens from being able to get into the groove.


Guess who was watching the game with Le Magnifique at the Mellon tonight? GARY ROBERTS!! :) I miss that guy. Less than a minute into the game, Cooker took an interference penalty. Siddo was out killing the penalty (likely because he's been a beast winning 65% of his faceoffs). He looked really good on the PK, but you all know he's good at pretty much anything he does. The Coyotes didn't score, but having Sid out on the PK that early forced the aforementioned line jumbling.


Later, Geno would take the dreaded 4 minute minor for high sticking causing bleeding. Just over 3:30 into it, Jovanovski fired a beautiful shot from the far side through traffic for the goal. [Pens 0, Coyotes 1] I thought the momentum would shift following a stunning glove save from Johnson in his first game as a Pen on Doan. Seeing Johnson in goal is a little strange. In appearance, he's like the anti-Fleury: his pads are black. ;) Sarge was called for hooking, but the Pens kept the Coyotes from scoring. In a matter of seconds, Geno took a questionable high hit in the neutral zone from Jovanovski, and McKee was elbowed in the face by Hanzal - neither of which got the Pens a power play. They did get one a bit later when Fiddler was called for hooking, and despite a valiant effort from our title man (and his teammates!), they didn't score with the advantage.


SECOND PERIOD

Siddo drew his first penalty this season. It was an interference call on Aucoin. Things got a little out of control from there. On the ensuing power play, Sid was called for a one handed slash. Neither team scored. Boedker grabbed and held Orpik's stick, which resulted in a terrible hooking penalty. It didn't even take a minute for Prucha, after falling and while on his backside, to score by poking the puck up and over Johnson. [Pens 0, Coyotes 2]


The post kept Doan from adding to the tally later. A patient Gogo waited for the perfect shot - and got it - but it was immediately clear the goal wasn't going to count because the whistle had blown just as he was taking the shot. The whistle was for an interference call on Cooker. Then it got even crazier. Seconds later, Vrbata got the even up call. Just after that, Sid and Aucoin took coincidental minors for infractions on each other. Only a bit later, Cooker and Hanzal took coincidental minors for roughing.

After all the penalties, the closest the Pens got to scoring legitimately was when TK hit the post after a Pens 3-on-1 fail. With less than 20 seconds left in the period, Jovanovski targeted Geno for the third or fourth time, this time attracting attention from the officials after hitting Geno in the back of the head. The Pens didn't score on their abbreviated power play.


THIRD PERIOD

Just after the Pens failed to score on the remainder of their power play, woodstock (whom I haven't seen all week) came home from work. And to be perfectly honest, considering the way the Pens had been playing, I kind of checked out at that point. I stopped taking notes, but here's what happened in a nutshell: Kunitz, McKee, and Aucoin were all given minors (neither team scored), Johnson (who looked good despite what the score reflects) was pulled in favor of the extra attacker with more than 2 minutes left in the game, and the Coyotes got the empty netter with just under a minute to go.

Tomorrow it's our first meeting of the 2009-10 season with the Flyers. Given the history of these cross state rivals and with the sting of this loss, expect it to get nasty. >:D

GO PENS!!!!!!!