Alexander Ovechkin Benched Tuesday -- and the Strategy Pays Off
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Can you imagine Dan Bylsma benching Sidney Crosby for the last minute of regulation with the Pens down a goal?
No, neither can I but that’s exactly what happened Tuesday night in Washington with Alexander Ovechkin and coach Bruce Boudreau. With the Capitals down, 4-3, against Anaheim, Boudreau went with the best guys he thought might get a game-tying goal and it worked. Ovechkin just happened to not be one of those players.
“I thought other guys were better than him and I thought there was just a chance that other guys might score the goal,” Boudreau said in the
Washington Post. “I’ve got to put out the guys that I think are going to score the goal and 99 percent of the time Alex is the guy I think is going to score the goal. I just didn’t think Alex was going to score the goal at that time tonight. You go with your gut feeling, thinking that line is going pretty good and I got lucky.”
You can see video of Ovechkin apparently swearing at Boudreau on the bench.
Not surprisingly, the tyrannically-swayed former coach and current NBC broadcaster, Mike Keenan, fully supports Boudreau and what he did with his star player. Keenan said that Ovechkin needs to show respect to his coach staff.
After watching HBO’s 24/7, isn’t cursing the highest form of flattery for Boudreau?
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Team Lokomotiv died because a pilot accidentally activated the brakes and then lifted the plane too sharply, according to the
Associated Press.
Donations can be made at
here.
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Did you know Chris Kunitz registered the sixth highest shooting percentage in the NHL last year? He scored 23 goals on 133 shots for a 17.3 percentage. This season that mark is down to 10.8 percent but the winger has four goals in his last six contests. Kunitz also leds the Pens with 31 hits.
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Twitter Short Takes
malkin71_ Евгений Малкин
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If the NHL does go through with re-alignment, it needs to have some sort of rivalry fortnight. Two weeks of games against rivals that teams won’t play “enough” because of the new setup. If Pens-Flyers matchups are that important – and I think they are – then the “rivalry fortnight” will take hold and become an annual event. The first two weeks of February would work well.
Here in Western Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh football games against Penn State were the most anticipated around. Regional rivalries make sports and the NHL has to find a way to keep the passion burning.
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If you’ve never seen the TV show, Mantracker, you need to. It’s basically a hide ‘n seek game in the wild for adults. Shane Doan and his brother, Brook, took on the Mantracker and his side kick in a recent episode.
Shane navigated the an extremely steep side of a mountain and literally left his brother gasping for oxygen.
Without giving anything away, Doan leads Mantracker to the sides of cliffs, through some fairly rapid streams, basically everywhere in the wild except the blue line. Check your local listings as the show is often replayed.
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There’s nothing like the look on the face of a youngster after Marc-Andre Fleury flips a puck over the glass at practice. It’s just magical.
Penguins announcer, Steve Mears, spoke on Penguins Radio 24/7 on Wednesday about the excitement of watching the Penguins practice at Southpointe. Talking to fans, there’s a level of difficulty in pinning down exactly when the team might practice there and whether the practice is open to fans.
One fan said he called the practice facility Monday morning and after an extended period of time on hold, a receptionist answered and said that there were only a couple Penguins rehabbing at the rink.
As it turns out, the entire team did hold a mandatory practice.
Here’s a simple solution: Record an announcement on a Southpointe phone number extension stating whether the team is practicing that day and whether it’s open to the public. It will save a lot of aggravation for dads and moms looking to bring their youngsters to see Penguins players up close and personal.
Simple as that.
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Tyler Kennedy has been out for a few weeks now and it looks his concussion is anything but a minor one. He has no timetable for a return.
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RINK LINKS
Dejan Kovacevic of the
Pittsburgh Tribune Review interviews Sidney Crosby.
Crosby's genes come with one gear.
"Personally, I don't like to slow things down," he said. "There are a few guys who can do that. A guy like Pavel Datsyuk, he seems to have that knack."
Datsyuk, Detroit's brilliant forward, can go zero to 60 to zero on the same shift.
"I think I can do that in spurts. There are games where I feel the need to do that," Crosby continued. "But to say that I want to mold my game that way or to change it, no, that's not it. Over a 60-minute game, I'm not going to have as much success if I'm not attacking, being aggressive, creating turnovers and going after loose pucks."
Missing goals frustrate Penguins’ Sullivan, the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. There have been more Big Foot sightings in Northern California than goals scored by Sullivan in a Penguins' uniform.
"I'd love to score goals," he said. "No one wants to score goals more than I do right now, but I think I've got to make sure I keep doing everything else around my game, make sure I'm doing those things right and trying to make a contribution everywhere.”
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Have a great Wednesday!
JT
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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