The Penguins and Blue Jackets traditionally meet for two preseason games a year, convenient for all given the geography. They haven’t had a preseason game like this, which officially was a run of the mill NHL exhibition game. Then again, run of the mill NHL exhibition games don’t draw a sell out crowd full of the emotion that comes from saying goodbye to a franchise icon. The unique Marc-Andre Fleury game is here.
The Pens’ lineup for the night, marking the preseason debuts of all their best players
to join Fleury, who it was announced would play the third period.
The Blue Jackets didn’t bring many of their bests, nothing unusual for a road preseason game where a team does a favor to their top guys and lets them stay at home and take a night off.
Columbus scored in the first period on a 2-on-1, nice finish.
Sidney Crosby looks ready for the season. Exquisite placement on this shot, and check out the little setup by Avery Hayes. Looks pretty good. 1-1 game.
The Pens took the lead with just 1.6 seconds left in the second period on the power play, Erik Karlsson’s point offering got hung up with Crosby near the net and Rickard Rakell was there to chip the loose puck home from the crease. 2-1 game.
It turned into the Fleury show in the third period, the veteran goalie took the ice to a standing ovation and a crowd chanting his name. Letang even needlessly played the puck back to his buddy to get him a touch — and more importantly a chance for another big roar from the crowd. Fleury went vintage with one more pokecheck a few moments into his period.
Fleury was active making saves, many routine but to the delight of the crowd, and then the Pens doubled the lead out of no where. Ville Koivunen did well to pick off a breakout attempt and turned that into an easy goal for himself. 3-1.
Owen Pickering got rung up for a penalty, even though it look like the other guy just fell down. Tristan Broz picked the team up by keeping his legs moving to draw a makeup call soon after and nothing comes of it.
Columbus pulls their goalie late, but by the cruel irony of fate, the play never comes close to Fleury to offer him his elusive dream of a goalie goal. Rakell takes care of that to tack on his second of the game. 4-1.
The game came to a perfect end when the Pens put Malkin, Crosby, Rust, Karlsson and Letang all on the ice for the final shift. With about 12 seconds left Malkin pulled the plug on trying to score again and passed the puck all the way back to Fleury to soak in the final seconds.
The home team in preseason games can elect for a shootout, regardless of game score. The Pens did so, and Blue Jackets agreed. A few more moments in the spotlight for Fleury.
Letang went first for the Pens, and chipped a shot high.
Yegor Chinakov got to go against Fleury, pad save on the aggressive challenge!
Crosby was next up for the home team, denied on his shot.
Cole Sillinger goes next, he can’t beat Fleury’s sprawling leg to the far post and the shot is wide anyways as it clicks off the outside of it. MAF gives the post a little love, one more time.
Malkin is next but his shot doesn’t work.
Luca Del Bel Belluz goes next, Fleury gives his classic pushups as the series starts. He picks himself up and gets beaten to the forehand to end the game, not that anyone minded.
Some more thoughts to finish it up
- Setting Fleury stuff aside for a second, the way teams choose to break forwards into pairs is always intriguing. Crosby-Rust has been a long-term connection that we all know about. Malkin-Mantha have been together extensively this training camp, looking ready to form the basis of a line. Rakell-Koivunen is another combo that’s gotten a lot of play this preseason. The ultimate end result may well be to move one or both of Rakell and Koivunen to Crosby’s line, but the creative idea to expand the depth is sitting there, at least as a possibility. It would outside of the box but interesting to think about if the talent stays split across three lines various pieces like Justin Brazeau, Philip Tomasino, Tommy Novak, maybe Danton Heinen (and eventually Rutger McGroarty when he’s healthy) get worked around into the blank spaces available to fill out those pairs that have played together so far. If it comes to that, which it might not since Rakell is going to need a pure center sooner than later. (And, afterall the Pens went Rakell-Crosby-Rust for a d-zone draw late in the game before their ENG for a reason..)
- Could Avery Hayes play his way into the mix? He didn’t look out of place with Crosby tonight. Based on the math, you would think not and this could be a one night only type of thing for now, but it certainly does make for a good data point in the minds of the coaches and managers to see Hayes do well in that spot in case it might be something to look at again at some point during the long season.
- A premiere game also means something towards the defense usage and potential future plans. Tonight Parker Wotherspoon and Caleb Jones got huge opportunities to partner up with Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang, respectively. Whether it’s popular or not, Jones may be a placeholder for Ryan Graves, who played last night. If that’s more of less the top-four, the picture clears up for Harrison Brunicke and Owen Pickering to fit in if it works out (Matt Dumba and Clifton Connor then going to healthy scratch island, at least until the decision to keep or send Brunicke back down). The picture could be shuffled at any time, but it’s not difficult to see those pieces slotting together.
- Columbus didn’t dress a good lineup, the Pens put a lot of big names out there. Why didn’t the Pens crush them right out the gates? As always, this Jack Han take has to be considered:
- First power play group for the night: Malkin, Crosby, Rakell, Rust, Karlsson. We’ll see how much staying power that ends up having for the regular season, the Mike Sullivan/David Quinn power play often had Malkin split away from Crosby for significant times last year, for pretty much the first time.
- Player development can be unnoticeably small and take a while, but it certainly looks to the eye like Ben Kindel has been incrementally better in each and every viewing during this preseason. At the beginning of the Prospects Challenge in Buffalo he was barely a factor, eventually having a great game at the end. The same has unfolded in his three preseason games to date. He’s not quite NHL ready yet, but the talent has been on display more and more.
- One goal and two assists for Crosby in his preseason debut, still looking like the same old Sid (as if there were any doubts).
- Murashov ended up stopping 12/13 shots he saw in 40 minutes, including a flair for the dramatic with a big glove save on a breakaway. We can only hope this night is the obvious bridge from past to future in net, even if 575 career wins are too big of skates for anyone to expect to fill.
- Fleury made all eight saves on the shots he saw. You can understand why everyone would want the shootout to extend the night even longer but that was unnecessary. Named first star of the night, Fleury earned one more chance to soak up the adoration of the crowd that showed up to cheer him on every second he was in there. Special moment to take in.
A picture taken before the game, for your viewing pleasure:
Truly a night for the history books that will hold a special place in the franchise’s lore for all who got to experience putting a well-deserved cherry on top of one of the greatest careers the NHL has ever seen. Congrats, cheers and merci to Marc-Andre Fleury for wrapping it up in the place he belonged.
