Dumoulin stands out in Penguins’ victory
Picking the three stars in Sunday’s Pittsburgh Penguins-Philadelphia Flyers matinee was a piece of cake, and they weren’t the ones listed on the bottom of the NHL’s game sheet.
The first two were right. Sidney Crosby deserved to be No. 1 for his goal and three assists in the Penguins’ 5-1 victory, and Matt Murray was properly named the second star for his 26-save performance.
But instead of going with Evgeni Malkin for scoring the third goal and assisting on the meaningless fifth, the third star in Philadelphia should have been Penguins defenceman Brian Dumoulin.
While Patric Hornqvist received all the credit and the lone helper on Crosby’s wraparound just past the midway mark of the opening period, it wouldn’t have happened had Dumoulin not separated Michael Raffl from the puck along the rightwing boards.
Dumoulin then gave the Penguins an untouchable three-goal lead in the second period with one five seconds after Malkin had made it 3-1. That tied the NHL record for fastest two goals in a playoff game, but while both names will go into the book, the accomplishment is nothing on Malkin’s goal alone. Dumoulin made it noteworthy.
I also thought the Penguins defence didn’t get enough credit for the job it did keeping the Flyers under 30 shots in front of a typically whipped-up Philadelphia playoff crowd.
Dumoulin was sent over the boards 33 times to lead all players on either team in shifts.
The Penguins are often led by their stars, but in taking a 2-1 series lead against the Flyers, a lesser light deserved more recognition for his contributions.
The Kid is all right: Crosby has seven points in the first three games and now just needs one more to tie Mario Lemieux as the Penguins’ all-time leading playoff point scorer. In 151 post-season games, the Kid has 171 points.
Maybe put it down to his intense focus at this time of the year as to why Crosby stumbled through a post-game question from Hockey Night in Canada’s Christine Simpson about having two full days off before Game 4. “We’ll take full advantage of that and get ready for the game here on, you know, whenever it is,” he said, laughing. “I don’t even know what day it is right now. I just … I think it’s Wednesday, so I’ ll be ready for Wednesday.”
Between the pipes: Brian Elliott was back in the Flyers net, giving up four goals on the first 12 shots. It doesn’t matter how they’re scored, sometimes your goalie has to make a save — especially when your fans are fired up for your first playoff home game of a tied series.
For those scoring at home, Elliott gave up five goals on 19 shots before being pulled in the Game 1 shellacking and stopped 34 of 35 shots in the Flyers’ Game 2 victory.
On Sunday, the Penguins had just 26 shots, including only four in the first period.