Washington DC - May 9, 2009

The Pittsburgh Penguins took a three game to two series lead at Verizon Center in Washington DC tonight in stunning and controversial fashion.  In a series that has had it all from dueling hatricks, to accusations of Alex Ovechkin targeting Russian players for injuries, to a death threat against Ovechkin himself — perhaps nothing could top the drama and the intrigue that will come out of this one.

It’s probably fitting that in a town known more for politics then anything else, the game of politics is playing out on the ice.  Are the officials screwing over the Capitals, because the league for some reason would want to choose Sidney Crosby over Alex Ovechkin? Are the officials that blind that they would possibly miss an abundance of “should-be” calls against the Caps?  All fitting questions, with no credible answer — but as the NBA is aware, controversy breeds outrage and outrage breeds ratings.

We’ll take a period-by-period look at this pivotal Game 5 win for the Penguins.

Overtime: It didn’t take long, but there was plenty of action to digest.  The Capitals — who have not been happy all series long with the officiating, and have been correct in some instances — are feeling that they were robbed again.  However I disagree to a large degree.  Alexander Semin who was great for the Caps in the first round win over the Rangers, has been largely invisible in this series, with the exception of missing the net wildly at times.  Semin committed a bad turnover that Washington got away with, and then the bad karma came back to haunt him.  Shortly after the turnover, Semin drove through the nuetral zone, trying to create on his own and came up short — a problem for the Caps all night long.   In the process, Semin fell down for a good non call, although the crowd of 18,277 would largely disagree.  In a game of ebb-and-flow, and quick turnarounds, the Pens rushed up the ice and drew a tripping penalty on Milan Jurcina, as Evgeni Malkin tried to split the defensive pair of Jurcina and Federov.   On the penalty kill, the Caps broke into the neutral zone, and on into the Penguins defensive zone area, but as was the case all night — were met with resistance.  The puck then was thrown towards the far corner, where there was a big collision between a Pens defender and Boyd Gordon of Washington.  The puck was directed to the area, but it could have been called a crosscheck or at the very minimum, interference.  It was not called, and down the Pens came for the game winner off the stick of Malkin, via the body of  a sliding Tom Poti who was trying to swallow the cross ice pass.  Instead of swallowing it, the puck went through a stunned Varlamov’s legs for the game winner in overtime and the Penguins are one win away.

3rd Period: An early goal for the Penguins ties it up at 2-2 as Ruslan Fedotenko has always been a great playoff scorer, unleashed his fury top-shelf, glove side over Varlamov on just a gorgeous between his legs, drop pass by Evgeni Malkin.  The Penguins took the lead, when the line of the night as far as Pittsburgh is concerned, combined for a huge score.

Alex Ovechkin was simply being swallowed up at the attacking blue line, and the Penguins used that suffocating defense to turn it into offense.  Tyler Kennedy drove in to the Caps zone and took a good shot that forced a juicy rebound, which Jordan Stall took a whack at — leading to another rebound before Matt Cooke poked it home.

With the score 3-2 Penguins, and Caps fans looking at an all too familiar storyline of having to win a Game 6 on the road, just to stay alive — Alex the Great struck again on a feed from Nicklas Backstrom for quick low snap shot that got past Fleury.  Sergei Federov saved the day in a couple of ways for the Caps, clearing a loose puck in the final minute of regulation from a open goal mouth, and because he was switched to defense to play the point, with Mike Green playing up front– Green was able to be in position to drive through the blue line to set up the game tying score.

2nd Period: Finally both teams crack the scoreboard, with the Pens breaking out on top first on a perfect feed from Miroslav Satan to Jordan Stall who beat Varlamov top shelf on a quick snap shot.  Mike Green, the Capitals best offensive defenseman was on the ice again, and continues to be a major defensive liability.  The Capitals killed the Pens momentum right away, as the ‘Great 8′ struck again for his 9th goal of the playoffs, a stop and load snapper with Brooks Orpik who got all over Ovechkin in the press, giving the Russian superstar way too much room to uncork.  The Caps then took a 2-1 lead, on a beautiful give-and-go goal off the stick of Nicklas Backstrom who darted a pass to Sergei Federov, who quickly fed it back to a streaking Backstrom for the go-ahead tally.

First Period: This is why hockey is breathless, and by far the best playoff sport and one can make a strong argument, you get no better entertainment value for your dollar.  The Penguins and Capitals played an amzing 6:58 without a whistle in the middle of the first period, with great scoring opportunities on both sides.  Not ONE whistle.  No break. No time-outs. Nothing but drama and exhilarating action.  No goals were scored in a tense 20 minutes, but plenty of good chances  for both sides.  Both Marc-Andre Fleury who made 12 saves,  and the even younger phenom Simeon Varlamov who turned aside 11 saves, were sharp and withstood some heat.  Best players in the first 20 minutes were Nicklas Backstrom for the Caps, David Steckel of the Caps, Brian Pothier of Washington and Chris Kunitz and Ruslan Fedotenko of the Penguins.  No Sergei Gonchar for Pittsburgh, which is a killer — but the NHL was right not to suspend Alex Ovechkin no matter what Brooks Orpik had to say.