20140423

Scoring first not recommended

Watched the tail end of the Penguins/Blue Jackets game tonight.  When I turned it on, the Jackets were still down 3-2 after allowing three goals in twelve minutes in the first period.  But they had been battling back, since.

Well, it took them several minutes to mount a chance at all (including killing a penalty), but they had several chances in the last few minutes.

But they weren't able to break through until the final minute of regulation, when Fleury went to play the puck behind his net, fumbled it away, and watched it passed in front and shot in before he could get back into position.  It was a terrible capstone to a pretty good game for him.

And that sent it into overtime.  For the first half a minute or so, the Jackets went right at the Penguins, and had several chances.  Then the Penguins came back, and had a few chances of their own.

But one of those chances was stopped by a Blue Jacket stopping a shot.  It was pushed to neutral, the blocker (Umberger, I think) threw the puck back across to Foligno, who broke into the zone and shot it low, right at Fleury.  And he was rewarded when Flower went Power-less to tie the series.

That leaves the series tied (with the team scoring first giving up their lead in every game, and losing in three of the four).  If that late-game failure gets into Fleury's head at all, I have to wonder if he's going to look like he did in the playoffs the last two seasons.  That would amuse me no end, but we'll have to wait and see.  I think I'd bet against it, but I'm hopeful.

Go Jackets!

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