BY: PAT PICKENS
Watch enough playoff hockey and you quickly learn to expect the unexpected.
Consider the Los Angeles Kings’ 2012 run from last team in to Stanley Cup champions. Or more recently, Cal Clutterbuck’s playoff-opening goal on Tuesday, which put the eighth-seeded Minnesota Wild up on the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Chicago Blackhawks just 4:48 into Game 1.
If you want chalk and predictability, stick to the NBA.
With that said, the Pittsburgh Penguins are starting to look like a lock to advance in round one.
Pundits and prognosticators from coast-to-coast have predicted the East’s top-seeded team to romp over the eighth-seeded New York Islanders in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals.
But there’s still that whole ‘play it out’ thing that needs to go. Many expected the Blackhawks to wipe the floor with Minnesota, yet Chicago needed overtime to claim Game 1 at home.
Not Pittsburgh. Even without the world’s best player, Sidney Crosby, and even after James Neal — who is only one of Pittsburgh’s top-two wingers — was injured in the second period, the Penguins looked unbeatable.
Pittsburgh scored five times in the first 33:07 — even Beau Bennett and Tanner Glass scored goals — in its 5-0 Game 1 win.
Though stereotyped as a finesse and offensive-minded club, Pittsburgh played coach Dan Bylsma’s style perfectly Wednesday.
Pascal Dupuis, a microcosm of the Pens’ tenacity, shined by scoring two goals and serving as a veritable thorn in the Islanders’ sides. Evgeni Malkin and Jarome Iginla each had two assists.The Pens were defensively stingy, and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 26 of 26.
Though Pittsburgh played a seemingly-perfect game Wednesday, it was its post-game attitude that should inspire fear into the Isles and their future adversaries.
“It’s one win,” Dupuis told the Associated Press. “We definitely feel good about it, but we’ve got to put this one behind us and get ready to work for the next one.”
With a better effort in Game 2, the Islanders can strive to resemble their 1993 counterparts — the bunch that upset the heavily-favored Pens in seven games — instead of the 1994 team that was swept out of the first round by the eventual-champion New York Rangers. It would only take one win to steal home ice and flip this series on its head.
But with the way Pittsburgh’s playing, even if Crosby and Neal don’t return, New York may not even get one win this series.
