The Pens have lost any semblance of team discipline and if they have a scheme in place to consistently forecheck and backcheck I'm not seeing it. Fleury has been bad. The Pen D is exposed for being mostly weaklings in their own end. The forwards only look forward. Granted, if Bryz doesn't make a handful of 10 bell saves at critical moments it could be a little different now but he did and Fleury hasn't and the Flyers are putting in all the mistakes and the Pens only a few of them.
It's been suggested by Pelle that the Pens were a better TEAM without Sid in the lineup and I'm finding myself agreeing with that. Without him (and also Malkin) the Pens had to claw and work and grind and they were pretty good. They now have all their star forwards back & the goal scoring lust is upon them as they work to score without a thought to defend. Even when the forwards do get back they fail to pick up open Flyers. Crosby has done a lot of that.
What was thought to be the best series of the 1st round has now turned into a rout. It's not a failure as it's been passionate, entertaining and gruelling but it's not been the closely contested down to the wire games that were expected. Game #1 was a fine one and if I had to point to one huge defining moment that turned this series it was Bryz making the big glove save on Letang that stopped it from becoming a 4-1 Flyer deficit.
Outs
Posted on Apr 16, 2012, 11:00 AM from IP address 72.23.65.160