Last nights game was pretty exciting as Pens beat the Canes in the shootout. Fleury was a huge part of this win. Since recently Fleury has been put under microscope for his less than stellar beginning of the season, I’d like to go into some details of the shootout. Bylsma had Letang start the shootout. Letang made a few fancy moves while slowly coming up to the net and got a pretty sweet backhander that beat Justin Peters. First shooter against Fleury was a rookie and the youngest player in NHL currently Jeff Skinner. Why did Canes HC put Skinner to be first shooter? Few reason as i imagine, here are a few i could think of beside the obvious fact that Skinner is good in shootouts. Till this point he was 1 for 1 in SO in his short NHL career. First of all Jeff Skinner is a rookie leader in points and assists, so the kid definitely has some talent. Secondly, since he is a rookie he is new to this league and as you might know goalies study possible shootout opponents. So more than likely Fleury had no clue what this kid was going to do. However, all that didn’t prevent Flower from making the save and maintaining advantage in the shootout. Crosby was second for Pens in the shootout. We all know Crosby is solid so no need to go into details besides stating that he put the puck between Peters’ 5 hole. Second shooter for Canes was Jussi Jokinen. If you didn’t know he is considered one of the best shootout specialists in the league. Jokinen has over 50% career in shootouts, compare that to Crosby’s 40%. Jokinen attempted some fancy moves on Fleury however got denied by Fleury’s pad. And that was game! 5-4 Pens in shootout. Thank you for being flawless in the shootout Flower! Here is the video:
Writing this for all those people who are still busy with their investigations on whether or not Fleury is officially back. Lets Go Pens!!!
Wow, the Pens really make this shit look easy lol! Thanks for posting this!