All things considered, tonight was not exactly the ideal start to a season. The Hurricane defense did a tremendous job of shutting down Crosby (keeping him scoreless and ultimately pointless on the night), Eric Staal showed up his little brother and the defense couldn't have looked weaker around the net. Even deeper on the roster, the second line wasn't able to pick up the slack of the poor play from the first line despite keeping Cam Ward from his first season shutout with under four minutes left in the game.
I genuinely felt this game was feasible, but it seems the team will have to really put on the pressure tomorrow night at home. What can they do better? Hard to say. They defintiely put on plenty of shots, even outshooting the Canes 34-33 on the night. Perhaps the real solution to tonight's loss is the presence of the defense. The penalty kill shutdown 4 of 5 attempts, while the powerplay capitalized only once on six attempts with a tap-in goal from Recchi from Malkin and Gonchar.
So maybe I was a little over-zealous when I predicted the Penguins' victory tonight. But I'm just going to play the ignorant card and say this - The Pens open at home 17 hours from now and nothing could possibly make up for the loss tonight than winning the first home game of the year in front of a cup hungry town.
