Recap: Devils 4 - Penguins 3 (OT)

Just when you thought the team was starting to turn the corner, just when you believed the Penguins of last season had returned, just when you allowed yourself to think about the playoffs again the Pittsburgh Penguins reminded you that a Penguins lead if the most dangerous lead in hockey.

Again.

Somehow the Penguins were outshot 39-16 in regulation and yet, with less than 10 minutes remaining in the game, they were up 3-1. And then they remembered that it's not the 2008 playoffs and they crumbled like a house of badly coached cards.

For the second game in a row Marc-Andre Fleury gave the Penguins a chance to win. Unfortunately his defense did the exact opposite. I would call them "soff" if I had any sort of respect left for Michel Therrien.

The fact that they even got a point out of the game was remarkable considering how throughly the Devils dominated the shot count. After the first the shots were 19-7 and somehow the Penguins left that period up 2-1. Not much happened in the second but then Evgeni Malkin scored at 8:35 of the third. It looked like Fleury was going to steal a victory.

But any wall will collapse if it's hit enough.

The Devils turned it on in the third, outshooting the Penguins 13-3. Pittsburgh's defense was weaker than a sick four-year-old.

If the game was 31 seconds shorter I would be talking about how the Penguins stole a win on the road against the hottest team in the NHL. Unfortunately the Pens couldn't clear the puck when they needed to and suddenly the score was tied.

Anyone who had ever watched a Penguins game before knew this wasn't going to end well.

And yet, with nine seconds left Malkin and Crosby rushed up the ice. Crosby was hooked behind the play which left Malkin covered. He found an opening and passed the puck. It looked like the impossible was about to happen. Unfortunately the puck ended up on the stick of Pascal Dupuis. With nine seconds left in the game and overtime looming you would think Michel Therrien would have put someone like Petr Sykora on the ice with Malkin and Crosby, but no, it was Pascal Dupuis. Dupuis is a great skater with the ability to get himself open very often, but he can't shoot the puck to save his life. And so his shot was stopped.

In overtime it was all Devils.

The end.