Penguins vs. Flyers - Game 1

[Louis Lipps Service]

Let's freaking go!

[jeemie]

Skinner announced as the goalie.

[swissvale72]

Gotta take this one....prob stay with Stu either way??

[jeemie]

Maybe the Pens oughtn't to have rested so many the last three games.

They are not matching the Flyers' intensity at all

[jeemie]

Piss poor D by both Mantha and Letang on that goal.

[Louis Lipps Service]

Just got home from the game.

My perspective from the arena:

Inexperience, particularly from a coaching standpoint reared its ugly head.

Seemed like we completely underestimated how playoff games are officiated. Philly was physical and spent the entire game clutching and grabbing every chance they got.

The experienced guys looked to be doing their best to fight through it, but the younger guys struggled mightily with it.

Kindle, Novak and Chinakhov, especially, all looked frazzled by it and became hesitant to pick pucks off the boards behind the net.

Those guys are the guys who often drove in to do puck retrievals during the regular season, and their apparently hesitancy tonight meant we weren't getting pucks and weren't getting zone time.

When we do get zone time, we need to shoot. We spent too much time going east and west. It worked in the regular season, but Philly isn't letting us get away with it.

I think we have enough big bodies that we can play a physical and gritty game, and that's what we need to do. We just haven't had to do so much up to this point, so we're going to be reluctant to do so.

I think this is where we find out how adaptive Muse can be. Will he be stubborn like Sullivan was the last few years and keep trying to play his way, or will he right the ship in game two.

Disappointing loss, obviously. But the way I see it, we weren't supposed to be here. Any playoff experience we get is a giant bonus that'll payoff in the years to come with some of these young guys.

[Louis Lipps Service]

Also, Malkin has to keep his cool better. I don't know how much was shown on TV, but he could have easily had 3 penalties today on plays that were well away from the play.

On one, he was going to the bench for a change and got bumped by a Flyer. Instead of continuing to the bench, he spent a solid 10 seconds pushing and shoving the Flyer player. The problem? The Pens player coming on for him left the bench right before Malkin got bumped, meaning we had 6 guys on the ice for that entire 10 seconds he was messing with the Philly penalty. Should have been an easy call but was somehow missed (refs were pretty bad overall tonight).

Malkin also had several blind passes to the middle of the ice that went the other way for fast breaks. That might have been a product of the east-west game that wasn't working, and less on Malkin. But either way, those passes could have killed us tonight.

[jeemie]

One positive for me was Skinner's play.

Flyers had several great chances that he stoned them on.

Game could have been out of hand earlier.

[swissvale72]

Just got home from the game.

My perspective from the arena:

Inexperience, particularly from a coaching standpoint reared its ugly head.

Seemed like we completely underestimated how playoff games are officiated. Philly was physical and spent the entire game clutching and grabbing every chance they got.

The experienced guys looked to be doing their best to fight through it, but the younger guys struggled mightily with it.

Kindle, Novak and Chinakhov, especially, all looked frazzled by it and became hesitant to pick pucks off the boards behind the net.

Those guys are the guys who often drove in to do puck retrievals during the regular season, and their apparently hesitancy tonight meant we weren't getting pucks and weren't getting zone time.

When we do get zone time, we need to shoot. We spent too much time going east and west. It worked in the regular season, but Philly isn't letting us get away with it.

I think we have enough big bodies that we can play a physical and gritty game, and that's what we need to do. We just haven't had to do so much up to this point, so we're going to be reluctant to do so.

I think this is where we find out how adaptive Muse can be. Will he be stubborn like Sullivan was the last few years and keep trying to play his way, or will he right the ship in game two.

Disappointing loss, obviously. But the way I see it, we weren't supposed to be here. Any playoff experience we get is a giant bonus that'll payoff in the years to come with some of these young guys.

Yeah....I didnt like the Tocchet v Muse matchup. And yes on Skinner, until of course, last half of 3rd period.