Not so good

I'm not going to do a recap since many other people have already. If you want, check out nhl.com's recap, or the ever excellent Pensblog, which is far more entertaining than nhl.com.

Thoughts about the game:

-Naturally, I am disappointed with the score, but the first period was great. The second I wanted to scream, which I did numerous times, to no real effect since I was surrounded by tons of French Canadians also screaming. The third found me trying to drown myself in a Molsen cup.

-Fleury is even faster in person and made some just downright sick glove saves. His goalie pads still make my eyes water though.

-We took a lot of penalties, and although the Habs did too, the officiating didn't seem to be evenly matched. I watched one particular hit on Oulette that seemed to be a little nasty, but that could be because from my vantage point he took the hit and then just disappeared for a while down behind the boards.

-Our power play needs some serious work.

-Crosby wasn't up to his normal 'holy crap did you just SEE what he did?' standards last night, but I bet they were all a little tired from playing the night before and then the trip up. I know I was tired just from driving 2 hours.

-Crazy Nasreddine goal.

-I was surprised about the 10 min call on Ruutu and Rivet in the 3rd over that fight. I didn't realize they had called such a big penalty until I saw Ruutu get out of the penalty box and leave the game. The Montreal announcers were a little slow sometimes.

-Thorburn and Talbot had a nice game. Colby got into it a little more, although I would like to see a bit more on the forecheck from everyone. It also could just be because I wanted some blood at the end of the 3rd.

Now for the dirt:

-We had great seats behind Huet for two periods off to the side on the players' benches. We were about mid way up, right below the line where the camera stops if you're looking at a tv shot on the goal. I've never sat this close before, so for the first period I was distracted by just leaning as far out as I could to catch the players' faces and expressions as they moved the puck. During the anthem I amused myself by watching Fleury fidget at the other end; Sidney was doing the same thing in the line up.

-I've seen enough Pens games so that even without being able to see the numbers, I can usually tell who is who by the way they skate. Malkin and Crosby are unmistakable, as is Malone, just because he's such a friggin' tall guy. Armstrong was pretty easy to tell as well, as was Recchi, who was a heck of a lot shorter than I thought.

-Watching Sid come over and tap Fleury's pads every intermission was very cute. Also was impressed with how consciencious Sidney was, such as checking in with other players, bringing in broken sticks, and coming over to chat with Fleury a few times. Who knows, he could just be coming over and saying, 'hey, did you see that hot girl they put up on the screen?' but I doubt it.
-I've seen Sidney skate live before, but being this close brought home just how frigging fast he can be. Too bad he didn't get a good breakaway, I would have loved to have seen that.

-Taking advantage of the fact that I was close enough to throw my overpriced beer and quite possibly hit the netting, I yelled the entire game through. My friend, who actually winced once, said that I was that one loud away fan that you can hear through all the booing. I tried to see if this was true, and kept yelling when Malkin came in to shoot on Huet. He actually looked up once, so I'm inclined to believe her. I did the same for Sidney, but one lone Pens fan was not going to get over the racket that everyone else made, although I tried every time. Next game I'm bringing a megaphone.

-There were more Pens fans in attendance than I had thought, although not as many as when I went last spring. I found that most of the Penguins jerseys there were Crosby ones, and worn by French Canadians. I saw quite a few Rimouski Oceanic jerseys, two (only two!) Lemieux ones, and just one lone Talbot jersey. I sat next to a Pens fan, a French Canadian girl who didn't speak much English who was wearing a Fleury jersey. We were just about the only two people in our section to jump up and cheer and clap when they got a goal.

-A bunch of guys behind us kept talking smack in French (my friend translated some for me), but they did switch to English to say, 'He's no Gretzky'. I turned around and said, 'No, he's Lemieux', even if Sidney does have some very 99-ish ways about him.

-My friend, who was wearing a santa hat with the Canadiens logo on it, and I, enjoyed confusing the hell out of people all night by screaming for the opposite teams.

-Tim Horton's is the food of the gods.



For other news in the nhl, I'm just going to point to Steph's post since she's got everything wrapped up. I do have one thing to say, though: Ha ha ha, the Ducks lost.

Okay, I'm done.



Next game is against the Blues on Tuesday. Hopefully this will be a nice little pick me up from Saturday. I'm going to try another prediction and say a clean 3-1 win for the Pens, with a Sidney goal in the 3rd to get everyone cheering.

Go Pens!