Happy Mother's Day....Saturday Night in the Burgh

First off and most importantly, Happy Mother's day to all mothers.

I didn't see the Penguin's victory live last night. My wife and I were at PNC Park in the Heinz Field-esque weather watching Jeff Karstens smoke & mirror his way to six shutout innings and a victory against the mighty St. Louis Cardinals.

Weather Tangent....Weather like last night is one of the downsides of buying a ticket package and picking your games ahead of time. Its actually the second of three games we have gone to that have been unseasonably cold but not raining. Its also further proof that Pittsburgh has the wackiest weather around. Wasn't it 75 and sunny for Thursday and Friday night's games? We were actually hoping for a rainout while driving in a downpour and especially while eating/drinking at the Bettis Grill. However, once we got in the park, we were prepared (bundled up) enough that the cold wasn't that bad. The wind had noticeably died down since 5:30 when we parked the car. Actually, if you take away the annoying clueless wackos behind us, I really have no complaints.

Anyway, the clearest sign it was the city of Pittsburgh's night? When Joel Hanrahan blew away Albert Pujols on strikes to end the eighth inning, stranding two runners on base and perserving the Pirates 1-0 lead (when I think everyone in the building expected a three run homer). It was like the Mighty Casey striking out in shock value. The Pirates added an insurance run in the ninth and Octavio Dotel struck out the last two hitters to end it just a minute or two after the Penguins had survived the Canadiens' last minute push.

I did watch the Penguins game via DVR. Its just not the same when you know the outcome though. I did pick up a couple things:

-Malkin dominated for shifts at a time. Its amazing he only had one assist.

-Fleury faced the most action he has faced in the series and responded accordingly (enjoyed the action actually). Its too bad he didn't get the shutout. I am not sure how the referee still "had sight of the puck" on the Montreal goal. Apparently he has x-ray vision.

-Crosby may have zero goals in the series, but is making a ton of little plays that make a difference. He has not let the goal scoring drought affect his backchecking/defensive effort in general. They will need at least more of the same (if not a goal) to finish Montreal off.

-I'll take Mark Letestu over Fedotenko or Ponikarovsky any day. Letestu is always around the puck and seems this close to scoring a goal. The other two seem bored to be to playing.

-Did Craig Adams have the hardest legal hit of the year at the end of the first? Wow.

-And again, great things happen when Kris Letang hits the net.

Will this frustrating series end on Monday? Or will the Canadiens find a way to send it back to Pittsburgh for potentially the final Mellon Arena showdown? Who knows at this point? Not me. I had this series over two games ago.

Wake Me for the Third....Pens vs. Habs Game 3

I'll be honest. I barely made it through the first two periods last night. There are typically very few things more intense than a close NHL playoff game. Last night was an exception, at least for awhile.

Here are a couple of really boring things that are infinitely more entertaining than watching New Jersey Montreal sit back in a neutral zone trap style and wait for a mistake (and the Pens allowing them to do it):

-The NFL Draft Scouting Combine. The NFL Network actually airs college kids running 40 yard dashes and lifting weights. I watched for an hour one time and will regret it for the rest of my life.

-The MLB Draft. No way this should be televised, but it was last year for the first time. Most players aren't playing in the majors for at least 3 or 4 years. And over half the guys drafted won't even sign. And there are 50 rounds! Sign me up.

-Running on a treadmill. I just can't do it. I end up staring at the time left screen or miles traveled screen from about 30 seconds in on. There is not a thing in the world that makes time move slower for me than a treadmill. That half hour seems like 6 months.

However, the third period was much more fun to watch. Play opened up a bit as both teams realized somebody had to score to win. And when things open up, the Pens skill is usually going to win out....You had Malkin doing what he does on the power play, Fleury being dominant late when he needed to be (much better than "average" I would say), and a well deserving Pascal Dupuis throwing in an empty netter.

Two other notes:

-Expected better from the Montreal fans. Between expecting a penalty anytime a Canadien fell to the ice and chanting "Crosby Sucks" like the lovable Philly fans, they seemed to be the ones doing the whining that Sid gets accused of.

-Am I the only one that noticed Steigerwald's fascination with PK Subban? He seems to love just saying his full name. Sort of like when they play Fedor Tyutin. For the longest time, I had no idea that was his whole name. I thought his last name was Federtutin (who knows what I thought his first name was).


It was not a work of art by any means, but the Pens are back on track to take this series in five or six games.

Fleury and the Eye Test

It is funny how Anthony and I totally switch philosophical sides when it comes to hockey. He becomes the stat guy while I talk about certain players passing the “eye test.” Fleury is one of those guys.


Save percentage in hockey is comparable to RBIs in baseball. It has a lot to do with your surroundings and how your teammates perform in front of you. This is proven by the fact that the guy who leads the league in save percentage in a given year is usually a guy playing on a "neutral zone trap" type team. Those teams tend to give up a lot of long shots but not very many good shots. Perfect example of a ton of shots that weren't good chances was the Capitals in game 7 the other night. Halak had an unreal save percentage but never made what you would call a memorable save.


Meanwhile, getting back to Fleury, it all comes back to the fact that defense within the Penguins organization has been optional since ....well, forever. They are more interested in pushing forward and scoring goals. Its been especially atrocious this year. As a result, Fleury gets "hung out to dry" more than any goalie I have ever seen (at least on a good team) by defenders who should probably just give up and be wingers (Alex Goligoski anyone?). He may face 25 shots in a game but 24 of them will be GREAT scoring chances. The three overtime game against Ottawa in game 5 was the classic case. The Pens controlled play the majority of that game but couldn't do much to generate solid scoring chances. However, Ottawa got a number of odd man breaks that forced MAF to make great saves. Those break outs only count as one or two shots.


Bottom line is...Stats just don't tell you as much in hockey as they do in baseball. There is nothing in the box score for the play Sidney Crosby made in the crease in the Ottawa series. There is no stat to show how much better Fleury has become at handling the puck behind the net as his career has gone on. He has gone from being about as comfortable looking as my Alaskan Malamute in 90 degree heat to it being almost second nature. On the other hand, you can determine almost anything that happened in a baseball game somewhere in the box score or on a site like Fangraphs.com.


One final note.. Don't let Anthony convince you that Marc-Andre Fleury is the only goalie he has ever "doubted." This goes back as far Tom Barrasso. If Marty Brodeur was in goal for the Pens, he would still be complaining about his "terrible" play in the Olympics. MAF would probably need to go 82-0 with a 98% save percentage to appease Anthony. Crosby also tends to be a target of Anthony, but we will get back to that some other time.

Typical chance on MAF, Notice the large number of Penguin players around the net protecting him...

Fluery & Bird vs. Anthony and STATS!!!

Marc Andre Fleury. Just another human being...and a HUGE source of disagreement between Bird and I.

First of all, I love how the morning talkshow hosts on 93.7 "The Fan" dismiss Fleury bashers like we're 9-11 conspiracy theorists. Personally, I love bashing Fleury because I can prove he's not great. And as long as it is being shoved down my throat that he's elite, I'll continue to prove people wrong.

I'm going to take a page out of Bird's argument handbook. I'm going to use stats to back up my argument.

The two most telling statistics for a goaltender are save percentage and goals against average (GAA). In the 2009-2010 regular season, Fleury's GAA was 2.65 (ranking him 24th amongst all qualifying NHL goaltenders in the 30 team league), and his save percentage was .905% (he was not in the top 30 in the NHL for this. How does that happen? Well, some backup netminders who qualified based on games played ALSO had a better save percentage than Fleury). Fleury's save percentage ranked 53rd, total, out of all goaltenders that played in the NHL this year.

The Penguins backup goaltender, Brent Johnson, had a better save percentage than Fleury. And Johnson sucks.

Flower (brilliant nickname) was also pulled from games 8 times this past season. Is that elite?

Here's where Fleury supporters get crazy. They'll argue that Fleury is a great bounce-back goalie. Are you kidding me? Is that a good thing? If true, that means Fleury essentially needs destroyed in order to raise his level of play. In a playoff series, if you need to "bounce back," that suggests you already probably single-handedly cost your team a game. Remember, there are only a maximum of 7 games in a series, so every game means a TON. Why shouldn't you ALWAYS have your game face on? The great goaltenders do.

In the Ottawa series, I've heard a lot of Penguins fans give Fleury credit for playing extremely well after game 1. Really? Again, to beat a dead horse, why is it okay for him to get shelled just so he can raise his level of play? Of the 8 remaining goaltenders in the playoffs, Fleury has the worst save percentage so far (.890%) and is 6th in GAA (2.75).

Fleury should thank God he has Sidney Crosby on his team. Besides making a save in Game 1 versus Ottawa, Crosby does enough offensively for the Pens that they can afford to deal with Fleury's inconsistencies and outscore opponents when needed (see the 7-4 win vs. Ottawa as an example).

All of that said...I don't think Fleury is terrible. I just think he's about average. He makes some pretty awesome saves and allows some pretty soft goals. He's at an age where he should be in his prime, but his play just hasn't been very good this year. I'm hoping he decides to play great every night, and that he doesn't need a shlacking (remember the 5-0 loss to Detroit last year) in order to play great (remember games 6 and 7 vs. Detroit last year?)

The next time someone says Fleury isn't all that great, don't just dismiss it because he's won a Stanley Cup or because he seems like a nice kid. Remember, the Steelers won a Superbowl with Mitch Berger, too. Just sayin'

The stats don't lie. Flower is average.