Game Five Awful

Game Five was so bad I had to give myself time before I wrote about it. Seriously. Thinking about it now still makes me cringe. I wish Game Six were being played in five minutes just so we can move on.

Yeah, so Detroit chewed up the Pens and spit them out on Saturday night. The 5-0 score pretty much says it all, but there are a few things I want to touch on:

+ Marc-Andre Fleury. He just wasn't good. I'm not placing all the blame on him because the entire team was just ridiculously bad, but it definitely wasn't his best showing. Bylsma made the right move by pulling him; I might have done it one goal earlier. I'm not worried about the kid though. He's a different kind of 'mental' than most goalies I've met. He'll be fine. One this is certain: he needs to have the game of his life on Tuesday, and should the Pens force it to seven, he needs to have an even bigger one then. If all else fails, put John Curry in. Simeon Varlamov anyone?? ;-)

+ There's been talk about how Detroit is a bunch of old guys who get tired, blah blah. Well, Pittsburgh certainly showed its age by acting like babies on Saturday. They completely lost their heads and took stupid, selfish penalties out of pure frustration. It was like they were looking for the fastest way to dig their own grave. The Pens have my heart, but to see them act like they did is embarrassing. Lock it up boys. No one is going to feel sorry for you if you behave like that.

+ Just a quick comment on the Hossa situation. I'm not angry with him because he took less money to play for Detroit. The big reason this whole saga pisses me off is how he went about it. For one thing, he told Pittsburgh he wanted big money to stick around. So Pittsburgh offered him big money. Oh - then he decides he doesn't want that anymore. But above all, he publicly came out and slapped his former team in the face by literally saying he had a better chance on Detroit. It's like, "Hey, good times guys, but you're not going to win the Cup next year. You're not good enough for me. Okay, thanks. Bye." Maybe he got confused and still thought he was in Atlanta. I mean as you can see, Pittsburgh is a pretty legit team. OH - and then there's that whole loyalty thing that I'm pretty big on. So in any case, it's not that he took less money to go to Detroit. Yes, that's cute. It's just the way he went about it.

So yeah, Saturday night was bad. Really bad. How Pittsburgh responds will be key. They can either use Game 5 as motivation or they can use it as discouragement and watch the Cup slip from their fingers. Going home will give them a big jump, and anything can happen in a Game 7. They need to get their confidence back to where it was in Game 4 -- when you could see that they realized they could beat these guys. And (fingers crossed) if they make it to seven, they will need it more than ever at the Joe. Because believe it or not Pens, you CAN win in Detroit.

Do it.

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