What a comeback last night!

**RuthlessBurgher** · 10-31-2009, 02:41 PM

Missing Malkin, Gonchar, Kennedy, and Talbot from the lineup with injuries (and with Fleury getting the night off), the Penguins stayed undefeated on the road with their 6th win away from Pittsburgh and an 11-2 record overall (best in the league).

Down two goals with less than 3 minutes to play, the Pens tie it up on goals by Ruslan Fedotenko and the amazing Alex Goligoski (his +13 rating leads the entire NHL, his 5 goals are tied with Dion Phaneuf for most among NHL defenseman, and his 12 points trail only Dan Boyle and Tomas Kaberle, who each have 13, among NHL defensemen).

Then they win the game in the shootout on a Crosby goal that snuck past Mason while Brent Johnson did not allow any of the 3 Blue Jackets that faced him in the shootout to score.

Since it is Halloween, I have no problem describing this team as scary good.

**Jigawatts** · 11-05-2009, 02:54 PM

I was actually at that game. My buddies wife got us all free tickets so the trip to
Columbus was well worth it. Free club level seats is enough to get me to travel to
an away game. But well, it wasn't really an away game. I expected to see plenty of Pens
fans there, but as we were walking from the hotel to the arena it seemed like there
were nothing but Pens fans. I'd say there was probably somewhere in the area of
35 percent Pens fans there.

It made for an awesome atmosphere. I don't know if you could here it on tv, but every
time the Columbus fans chanted "Let's Go Ja-ckets" it was followed up with a "Let's
go Pens." Great battle between fans throughout the entire game, but when Goligoski
scored you can feel the Jackets fans thinking "we're done" and at the same time you
could feel all the Pens fans KNOWING "we got this one."

Awesome atmosphere and awesome game. The Jackets fans were great. I'm hoping the
current financial turmoil doesn't force the team out of Columbus. It would be nice to see
them build on what they have and create a large fan base that we can battle with in
the future.

Pittsburgh · 12-30-2009, 10:42 AM

Unfortunately, the same thing happened to us last night. We blew a 3-0 lead against Buffalo and went on to lose 4-3 for the second straight game. While I can take a loss and fully realize that we can't win them all, there is no excuse for blowing a three goal lead. That's what happens when you show up for thirty minutes against a fairly good hockey team instead of the full sixty minutes. We resembled a top notch franchise in the first period and then we rested on our laurels. The pulling of Miller and Stafford's PS goal started the snowball effect.

Well, it's not going to get any easier tonight in Jersey and then the always dreaded Florida road trip. Tampa is not playing bad hockey right now, winning four out of their last five. The Panthers, while not playing great hockey, always seem to play us strong. While we have beaten the Panthers all three times this season, two of those games went to OT and the other to a SO. It's not going to be easy and hopefully we put on a better showing than we did against Toronto and Buffalo. Full sixty minutes.

**RuthlessBurgher** · 12-30-2009, 12:20 PM

Originally Posted by Pittsburgh

Unfortunately, the same thing happened to us last night. We blew a 3-0 lead against Buffalo and went on to lose 4-3 for the second straight game. While I can take a loss and fully realize that we can't win them all, there is no excuse for blowing a three goal lead. That's what happens when you show up for thirty minutes against a fairly good hockey team instead of the full sixty minutes. We resembled a top notch franchise in the first period and then we rested on our laurels. The pulling of Miller and Stafford's PS goal started the snowball effect.

Well, it's not going to get any easier tonight in Jersey and then the always dreaded Florida road trip. Tampa is not playing bad hockey right now, winning four out of their last five. The Panthers, while not playing great hockey, always seem to play us strong. While we have beaten the Panthers all three times this season, two of those games went to OT and the other to a SO. It's not going to be easy and hopefully we put on a better showing than we did against Toronto and Buffalo. Full sixty minutes.

Yeah, that is a game that can come back to bite you in the @$$ later in the season. To have a 3-0 lead, chase Ryan Miller from the net, and not come out of the game with even a point is gut-wrenching.

Then again, we've won games that we had no business winning (like my last-ever game at Mellon Arena in which Guerin scores with 0.4 seconds left to tie the game against Boston, which we then take in OT), so I guess it all eventually works itself out in the end.