Detroit Demolishes Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh Penguins out shot the Detroit Red Wings in the first period of game five on Saturday night, but that was no indication of how things were going to unfold.

Dan Cleary opened the scoring at 13:32 of the first period, with assists from Brian Rafalski and Pavel Datsyuk. After missing seven games over 17 days, Datysyuk didn’t seem to miss a beat.

Evengi Malkin played his usual style, but nothing was effective. The roof began to fall in for the Penguins at 1:44 of the second when Valtteri Filppula gave Detroit a 2-0 lead. Nikolas Kronwall scored at 6:11, followed by a power play goal by Brian Rafalski at 8:26. Henrik Zetterberg got the final goal of the game at 15:40.

Marc-Andre Fleury was replaced by Mathieu Garon after the fifth goal, but the dye was already cast. It was virtually too much of a deficit to overcome.

It was sad to see Fleury leave so beaten, as he had done a wonderful job up to this point, especilly for a player who is so young.

It is tough to say whether frustration lead to penalties or penalties lead to frustration, but Detroit out-shot, out-played, and out-scored Pittsburgh. It’s as simple as that.

I truly felt that Pittsburgh was in a very good position going into this game, but now the experience once again has proven too much.

There have been several momentum swings in this series and now this one may be too much for the Pens to overcome.

Momma Gouche