Third-period goals lead Canadiens past Penguins
System breakdowns, bad goals allowed and Mike Cammalleri -- it's all part of a tasty recipe for the Montreal Canadiens, whether they're closing Mellon Arena for hockey or sending the Penguins to a second straight loss to open Consol Energy Center.
The final score of their win over the Penguins on Saturday night was 3-2. Two of those goals were scored by Cammalleri, a sharp-shooting winger who scored seven times last spring in the Canadiens' stunning second-round playoff upset of the then-defending Stanley Cup champions.
Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was so frustrated by that series, which for him ended by being pulled from a Game 7 home loss, he spent the summer looking for places on the planet least likely to be inhabited by fans of his boyhood-favorite Canadiens.
He settled on Hawaii.
He'll be feeling heat locally today after Cammalleri and Canadiens center Scott Gomez scored 24 seconds part in the final three minutes to erase the Penguins' 2-1 lead.
Fleury declined comment after the loss.
A fairly frank voice among the Penguins had his back.
"Some people will be rushing to judgment on those last two goals," defenseman Brooks Orpik said. "We made a lot of mistakes, too, on those two goals."
Coach Dan Bylsma said the Penguins "got too aggressive" in the offensive zone.
He described the Gomez goal, scored from a bad angle and strikingly similar to one he allowed early in that Game 7 loss, as "not a good one, obviously."
"To (that) point, he'd looked pretty sharp," Bylsma said of Fleury. "That (goal) shouldn't let other players off the hook."
Fleury, a lightning rod for electric debate among local hockey fans, counts $5 million annually against the Penguins salary cap, and he is expected to make big saves.
Of course, superstars such as center Sidney Crosby and right wing Evgeni Malkin combined to cost $17.4 million against the cap, and they're expected to make an impact in close games in the third period.
The Penguins are 0-2-0 after consecutive 3-2 defeats, and Crosby and Malkin haven't done their jobs -- scoring big goals -- in the final 20 minutes of either game.
Crosby assisted on Malkin's goal early in the second period, which tied the score, 1-1, after Cammalleri had scored late in the first period.
However, Malkin's second-period marker came at the exact second a 4-on-3 power play had expired.
He and Crosby combined for three shots in the final period - only two more than training-camp sensation center Mark Letestu, who pushed the Penguins ahead, 2-1, at 8:42.
For the majority of minutes after Letestu's goa,l the Penguins played with discipline and efficiency.
Then, as quickly as their 3-2 series lead against Montreal vanished last spring, they were sucker punched by Cammalleri. He deflected a shot by center Jeff Halpern past Fleury at 17:48.
Bylsma had talked before the game of the Penguins failing to deny Cammalleri time and space last spring. He matched shutdown defense pairing Brooks Orpik and Zbynek Michalek against Cammalleri's line at every opportunity in this game.
"I guess I'll take that as a big form of flattery," Cammalleri said. "I've got a lot of respect for Dan Bylsma. I think he's an intelligent hockey coach. I enjoyed reading some of his opinions on (the playoff games)."
Bylsma's opinion about this outcome echoed this statement from left wing Matt Cooke: "Right now, we're not doing it at the efficiency or consistency level that we need to."
