Follow @james_tanner123 Barry Trotz had a bad decision turn out good last night. Inexplicably dressing seven defenseman, the bad move looked pretty smart when Matt Niskanen was ejected just several minutes into the game.
(Side Note: not only did he dress seven D, he paired Alzner and Orpik, perhaps marking the first ever instance of tanking in the playoffs......someone should let Trotz know how the draft lottery works; but I digress).
If you're reading this, you no doubt saw Niskanen cross-check Crosby in the head/ face while he awkwardly fell onto his left leg.
Sidney Crosby is the best player in the NHL. He has a history of concussions. No one wants to see him injured, especially by a headshot.
Whether it's almost chopping a guy's finger off, hitting a player in the genital area, or himself administrating multiple neck-chops, Crosby is one throat-rip short of being a full-blown Steven Seagal himself - so the high and mighty tones people were taking after the incident were a bit much.
Still - it was a dirty play.......for house-leage Atom......in the NHL it was a standard cross-check to the face. I'm all for getting this stuff out of the game, but until the NHL takes action to better protect it's players and change its culture......what can you say?
Beyond that, even, is the fact that this looks way worse in slo-mo. At full speed, it's hard to see it as anything more than a reaction by a guy trained to play as close to the edge as humanly possible. People get hurt, accidents happen, the end.
If you look at the game though, no surprises........FOR THE THIRD STRAIGHT GAME, THE WASHINGTON CAPITALS WERE THE BETTER TEAM.
Now the series is 2-1 Penguins, but the Capitals can at least take some solace that they finally won a game. Once again, the Caps controlled the majority of the shots and play - this time 56% of them.
Of course, the Penguins played the whole game without their best player - Crosby - and their third and fourth best players - Letang and Murray - so what else anyone would expect is beyond me.
Had they lost - which they easily could have - they'd be down 3-0 and it would be all over but the crying. Lucky the unreasonably maligned Kevin Shattenkirk scored the O.T winner and the good guys went home happy.
On a day when the President proved to have a worse grasp on American History than my 17 year old Canadian son, it really was all that you could ask for.
Good times.