Nasty Newark on Friday Night

The Hockey Tattler

March 13, 2010

Vol I. No. 15

The thugs were out in force last night. On the ice, that is.

In a high intensity game between the Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins and the New Jersey Devils, 21 penalties were handed out with a total of 63 penalty infraction minutes, including two 10 minute misconducts and one game misconduct.

In between all the interruptions, the Devils managed to best the Penguins by a score of 3 - 1. The third goal , scored by Ilya Kovalchuk, was disputed by the Pens. It seems that Travis Zajac might have interfered with Marc-Andre Fleury's glove, but the referees did not see the problem. All the crowd saw was a distraught Fleury whacking his stick over the goalpost in frustration.

The Devils have owned the Cup champs this year. Pittsburgh has lost a perfect 5 out of 5 games against New Jersey since October 24th. In that time, New Jersey has outscored the Penguins with a total of 17 goals for, and 3 goals against. They have been able to shut down the likes of Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Ponikarovsky, Gonchar and Dupuis. That is just not normal. It defies reality. Pittsburgh averages 3.06 goals per game. Somehow, the Devils have whittled their offense down by 80%.

The season series between these two teams is not over. An encore performance is scheduled for Wednesday March 17 in Newark. The Pens will be working with two days of rest. On Friday, they were coming off a Thursday night OT loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Expect the sixth and final regular season game on St. Patrick's Day to be a real doozy. You have to wonder if the refs will try to make a statement and contain the non-hockey activities early. If they don't, the evening will be long and the penalty box will again be stuffed with occupants.

But the Penguins cannot afford to waste their energies fighting the Devils that night. Why? Because the very next day, on Thursday March 18th, the Pens visit Boston's TD Garden. Last Sunday was the game that saw Boston's Marc Savard "eliminated" by Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke. The Thursday game in Boston is likely to make Newark look like a ladies tea party.

Hockey Rules.