Untreated and/or under-treated mental health issues are the root cause for many of our societal issues. We can and should do better on this front. Something simple that you can do today is add the hashtag #BellLetsTalk to any of your tweets. Bell Canada will donate 5 cents to help with mental health for every tweet that includes the hashtag. At the time of publishing this blog there have been 48,631,776 interactions on Twitter today. It’s a wonderful cause and takes very little effort to assist.
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The Penguins impressive January has continued. Last night they continued their winning ways after defeating the San Jose Sharks by a score of 5-2. It was a 2-2 game until Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust decided to compete for who could get a hat trick faster. It was Malkin who finished with the hat trick while Rust had two goals and an assist.
Even with five goals scored the Penguins goaltender played a big role in the victory. San Jose was able to get 42 shots on goal against Matt Murray. It was Murray’s first start since the passing of his father and he was excellent. The Penguins #1 goaltender stopped 40 out of the 42 shots and finished with an overall save percentage of .952. It hasn’t been a great year for Murray to this point and the recent events in his personal life may have played a big part in that. None the less it was a great return to game action for him.
Evgeni Malkin has never won the Rocket Richard trophy. Can he this year? I would consider it a long shot at this point, but not impossible. He sits at 26 goals which is four behind the Russian goal machine known as Alexander Ovechkin. Anders Lee, Wild Bill Karlsson, and Nikita Kucherov all sit at 27 goals apiece. I wouldn’t bet against Ovechkin at this point and Kucherov is one of the best players in the league, but stranger things have happened.
It certainly helps when the other team reverses the puck to nobody
It’s a nice thing when you’re going through the motions of an extremely passive 1-2-2 forecheck at the end of a period and it leads to a unabated high-danger scoring chance. Barclay Goodrow isn’t a defenseman and it showed. If he was he’d know to support his partner on a reverse. Paul Martin would have never let that happen. There’s really not much else to say about the goal. Thanks for the gift.
Malkin’s second goal was also a nice gift and it would give the Penguins the lead for good
This goal actually had a legit F1 forecheck as far as intensity. It still had a mindless blunder of a turnover. They all count the same. Good on Hornqvist for recognizing the opportunity and Malkin gets an easy one.
Malkin’s third goal didn’t have the goalie in the net either. He earned the hat trick with the goalie pulled. Bryan Rust passed up his attempt at the hat trick to pass off to Malkin who was in a better scoring position.
If teams are going to give goals away to Malkin maybe he can earn himself one of the few trophies that he doesn’t already have in his illustrious NHL career. Staying healthy is a big part of why he hasn’t been able to make a run at this award before. So far so good.
Geno will get a close look at the guy he’s trying to catch on Friday. The Penguins are hosting Ovechkin and the Capitals.
Thanks for reading!