Penguins vs Rangers game 72 mini-recap.

Pens played a good 2 and a half periods of hockey against the Rangers yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, like seems to be the theme in Consol against teams in their division, they dropped another game at home against a rival trying to get the Pens home ice playoff spot. The Penguins are now just 1 point ahead of the Lightning who could take home ice advantage from the Pens with a victory tonight and 1 or 0 points form the Penguins. This cannot happen and beating Detroit is essential tonight in "Hockeytown."

With the game tied 1-1 in the third period yesterday afternoon, this happened:


Completely unnecessary penalty, which was being killed off handsomely to the tune of 18,000 people screaming for a huge PK. Well then comes a Matty "Ice" Niskanen high stick and 2 Ranger goals after Chris Kunitz put this beauty in after going out of his mind for a series:

Not only does Kunitz almost get a free breakaway after a neutral zone turnover, he gets the puck anyway after battling hard along the boards and from the face off circle lets that sniper round off through the stick side of Henrik Stunnedqvist. Leaving him... stunned, I'm sure. Kunitz now has 6 points in 3 games (3g 3a).

In the end the Pens got beat up because of a 5 on 3 penalty kill that gave up 2 goals due to just down right bad penalties to take in a playoff caliber game. Did the Cooke hit cost them the game? No, because Kunitz scored the shortie during it, did the Niskanen high stick cost them the game? Yes, because asking your PK unit to kill upwards of 7minutes straight of penalties including nearly 2 minutes of 5 on 3... is well, not a recipe for success.

Pens take on the Flying Tires tonight in Detroit. Some one probably has a squid taped to their leg. Cooke will most likely be suspended through the rest of the Regular season. The hearing is at 1:30 today.