Penguins tie series
Marc- Andre Fleury stopped 23 shots for his second shutout of the playoffs and the Pittsburgh Penguins evened their Eastern Conference final against Ottawa with a 1- 0 victory in Game 2 on Monday. Phil Kessel beat Craig Anderson with a wrist shot 13: 05 into the third period as Pittsburgh finally broke through against Ottawa’s packed- in defense.
PITTSBURGH — Mike Sullivan calls the energetic back- and- forth on the Pittsburgh Penguins’ bench “a man’s argument.”
If his players have something to say, Sullivan wants them to get it out. Enter Phil Kessel, the mercurial forward with the blistering shot and occasionally blistering tongue.
Frustrated by an inability to get anything by Ottawa’s Craig Anderson, cameras caught Kessel pounding his fists and ordering his teammates to look for him.
Consider the message delivered. Kessel took a feed from Evgeni Malkin and zipped a wrist shot by Anderson 13: 05 into the third period as the Penguins evened the NHL Eastern Conference finals series at 1- 1 with a 1- 0 victory in Game 2 on Monday night. Game 3 is Wednesday in Ottawa.
“To be honest, I think I yelled more than once tonight, so I don’t remember that time,” Kessel said with a laugh.
Kessel’s first shot smacked off Jean Gabriel Pagueau and came right back to him. It happened so quickly Anderson didn’t have enough time to reset, his left pad flailing as Pittsburgh’s game- long domination finally resulted in something tangible: a lead and a tie series.
“I caught an edge, simple as that,” said Anderson, who finished with 28 saves. “A defenseman or forward catches an edge, he falls down, nothing happens. I catch an edge, it’s in the net.”
That was enough for Marc- Andre Fleury, who stopped 23 shots for his second shutout of the playoffs and 10th of his postseason career. Fleury’s 62nd playoff victory moved him ahead of Henrik Lundqvist for the most by an active goaltender, heady territory for a guy who lost his starting job to Matt Murray during the course of the season. Now Fleury is the main reason the Penguins are three victories from a return trip to the Stanley Cup finals.
Fleury spent long stretches with nothing to do as the Penguins hemmed Ottawa in its end. The Senators went nearly 19 minutes between the second and third periods without recording a shot, a testament to Pittsburgh’s ability to play keepaway on the other end.
“We were pleased with the way we dictated the terms out there,” Sullivan said.
A marked departure from
Game 1, as Pittsburgh struggled to generate any sort of extended pressure in a 2- 1 overtime loss. The Stanley Cup champions responded by heavily tilting the ice at times, remarkable considering they spent most of the game down two men after forward Bryan Rust and defenseman Justin Schultz left in the first period with injuries.
Rust was on the losing end of a clean check by Ottawa’s Dion Phaneuf 4: 58 into the game. Schultz, who has become Pittsburgh’s most important blue liner with Kris Letang and Trevor Daley out, slid awkwardly into the end boards after getting bumped off the puck by Senators forward Mike Hoffman about midway through the first.
Sullivan offered no updates on either player.
Somehow, the Penguins found a way to make it work. The five remaining defensemen all played at least 20 minutes, including 24: 49 from 37- year- old Ron Hainsey, who is in the playoffs for the first time in his career.