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PITTSBURGH (AP) — Casey DeSmith is not the highest-paid

in Regeln und Informationen 15.02.2019 06:40
von douhua2233 • Niemand | 38 Beiträge

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Casey DeSmith is not the highest-paid or most accomplished goaltender on the Penguins. Yet he’s playing like it Adidas Michael Hutchinson Jersey , a development that’s helped Pittsburgh keep its season from unraveling.The backup thrust into a starting role while two-time Stanley Cup winner Matt Murray recovers from a lower-body injury and shaky play stopped a career-high 48 shots as Pittsburgh fended off a third-period Boston rally to slip by the Bruins 5-3 on Friday night.DeSmith improved to 7-2-1 in his last 10 starts, keeping his cool even after the Bruins erased a two-goal deficit in the third period by scoring twice in 54 seconds. Jake Guentzel restored Pittsburgh’s lead by tipping home Kris Letang’s point shot with 9:13 to go, and DeSmith did the rest.“It’s always fun, though, when you’re getting peppered as long as you come out on the right side of things,” DeSmith said. “It was a little (chaotic) there at the end but glad we pulled it out.”The Penguins appeared to be firmly in control after Zach Aston-Reese’s short-handed goal — Pittsburgh’s first down a man in 57 games — with 58 seconds to go in the second period made it 3-1.Boston’s Chris Wagner and David Krejci drew the Bruins even when they beat DeSmith less than a minute apart in the third. But the Penguins executed perfectly on a faceoff in the Boston zone, with Sidney Crosby winning the draw and then sending the puck back to Letang. He shot it and Guentzel extended his stick to get a piece of it. The puck slid by Jaroslav Halak for Guentzel’s 13th of the season.“I know he’s going to shoot it,” Guentzel said. “I just put my stick there and hit it. We run that (play) in practice. Sid kind of gave the nod so we knew it was coming. Obviously a great play by Sid.”Brandon Carlo scored for the first time in 115 games for Boston and Halak stopped 24 shots but the Bruins had trouble with DeSmith, who has filled in capably with Murray spending most of the first two months of the season dealing with injuries or a serious dip in form.The team activated Murray on Wednesday but coach Mike Sullivan has chosen to stick with DeSmith, though Murray is likely to make his first start since Nov. 17 on Saturday night when the Kings visit. DeSmith insists he won’t change his approach now that he’s engaged in a full-on competition battle for playing time.“I think when I get a game, I go out there, try to win, try to play my best,” DeSmith said. “(Just) keep working hard in practice, doing all the same things. That’s the way to keep having success is to not change anything once you get a hold of it.”The Bruins dominated for long stretches thanks in part to sloppy play by the Penguins, but DeSmith managed to keep Pittsburgh in it.“He’s a good goalie Adidas Mike Hoffman Jersey , but I thought our scoring chances weren’t A scoring chances, especially in the first period,” Krejci said. “But that’s how it goes sometimes.”DeSmith’s flashiest stop came in the first. He was sliding to his right when Brad Marchand picked up a bouncing puck and moved to DeSmith’s left. The goaltender reached back with his glove and plucked a shot out of midair to keep the game scoreless.“I just kind of fell over and stuck something over there and thankfully it went in my glove,” DeSmith said. “That was not technique.”Derek Grant gave the Penguins the lead shortly after DeSmith’s save on Marchand. Phil Kessel, playing in his 277th consecutive game with the Penguins — the fourth-longest streak in franchise history — and 723rd straight overall, doubled Pittsburgh’s advantage 1:56 into the second period.The Bruins responded by pressing Smith, who eventually relented when Carlo fired a laser from the top of the right circle 11:53 into the second for just the seventh goal of his career and first since March 4, 2017, against New Jersey.“It had been a long while,” Carlo said. “But I feel like with the way that I’m starting to put the puck to the net a little bit more, the opportunities were coming for me to shoot the puck, tonight especially.”Though Boston eventually pulled even, Pittsburgh still ended up pulling away, with Aston-Reese putting in an empty-netter with six seconds left to ice it.NOTES: Letang exited late in the third period favoring his left leg and did not return. … If Kessel stays healthy, he could break Craig Adams’ club record of 319 straight games played near the end of the regular season. … The Bruins were 0 for 2 on the power play. The Penguins were 0 for 1.UP NEXTBruins: Welcome the Sabres on Sunday. Boston took the first meeting 4-0 in Buffalo on Oct. 4.Penguins: Host the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night. SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) With the top three teams in the Eastern Conference all coming out of the Atlantic Division Adidas Jonny Brodzinski Jersey , there’s a good chance the second and third best teams in the East will play in the first round for the second straight year.That imbalance has led some to push to abandon the division playoff format and go back to seeding teams one through eight by conference. Why stop there?The minor league that brought 3-on-3 overtime to hockey more than a decade before the NHL followed suit is adding a new innovation this season for the playoffs.The Southern Professional Hockey League will use a ”pick your opponent” playoff format, with the first-place team choosing its first-round opponent from the teams that finished from fifth to eighth place, then the second- and third-place teams makes their choices before the final two teams get matched up. In the second round, teams will be matched by regular-season points.SPHL President Jim Combs said he decided to bring this format to his 10-team league after a conversation with an executive from Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga, which already uses it.”I immediately knew this was the greatest idea I’d ever heard,” Combs said. ”The person at the top earns the right to pick the weakest of the bottom four. He can base it on travel, he can base it on difficulty of opponent, how the guy has been playing the past three or four weeks. A lot of times, you don’t want the eighth-place team because that’s the guy who has hustled and played hard and put the team together the last two or three weeks of the season. That’s the hot team.”Combs said most teams started the year with thoughts of following the old format of picking the team with the fewest points as the opponent. But as the season has gone on, Combs said teams seem more open to picking what they believe is best matchup.Calgary coach Glen Gulutzan said if the format was used in the NHL, he’d probably make it known he’d pick the lowest seed available in any case.”The first thing that comes to my mind is all of us coaches are paranoid,” Gulutzan said. ”So to actually have to pick somebody, you think immediately we’ve given them some fuel in a playoff series, right, like: `Oh yeah, they picked us.”’To add even more intrigue Adidas Peter Budaj Jersey , the SPHL will broadcast the selection show at the end of the season so fans and teams can watch live as the matchups are chosen and the extra motivation is created for whoever is picked as the most desirable playoff opponent.”I think there would be some bulletin board material,” said Columbus defenseman Ian Cole, who won the Stanley Cup the past two seasons with Pittsburgh. ”I think that would certainly fire a team up if you’re picking them because you think you could beat them.”Dallas general manager Jim Nill agrees with that sentiment, saying ”it might be great for their league, but it’s not something I’d encourage our league to do and I couldn’t see it ever happening.”Others are more intrigued by the idea, pointing to the unfairness last year that had Pittsburgh and Columbus matched up in the first round despite finishing with the second and fourth most points in the league, respectively.”It sounds like a great idea,” Buffalo backup goalie Chad Johnson said. ”I mean, why not if you’re in first place you should have that choice of who you want to play? It gives you that advantage regardless, because sometimes the eighth-place team, you might have struggled against them, right?”Combs said he has heard from executives from other minor leagues, NHL teams and a few people from the NHL league office about the new format and hopes it will become more widespread after people see the added drama it creates even if there is some initial hesitation.”In 2004, when we started 3-on-3 overtime, everyone laughed at us and said `Hey this will never happen at the top level,”’ Combs said. ”We played it for 10 years and the NHL adopted it Adidas Matt Read Jersey , they’re playing it, they revamped the All-Star Game. They have totally embraced it. Will the NHL take this? They might. I don’t know why after all this excitement every sport wouldn’t do it.”GAME OF THE WEEKPittsburgh at Toronto on Saturday. Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews has been sidelined since Feb. 22 with an apparent shoulder injury but could be ready to return this weekend for a showdown against Sidney Crosby and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. Even if Matthews can’t go, this is still an intriguing game between two Cup contenders.LEADERSThrough Tuesday’s games: Goals: Alex Ovechkin (Washington), 40; Assists: Jakub Voracek (Philadelphia) and Blake Wheeler (Winnipeg), 57; Points: Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay), 86; Wins: Andrei Vasilevskiy (Tampa Bay), 39; Goals-against average: Carter Hutton (St. Louis), 2.02; Save percentage: Hutton, .934.—AP Hockey Writers Larry Lage in Detroit and John Wawrow in Buffalo, New York, contributed to this report.—

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