Dunlap: Can't Get Down After Game 1 Win
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The Fan) - Yeah, the Penguins didn't register a shot for what seemed like three days.
Yeah, no Penguins defenseman had a shot in the opening game against Nashville.
Sure, this team allowed a 3-0 lead to dissipate and had to scramble at the end like madmen.
Yep, some idiot threw a catfish on the ice and it felt like the Penguins' overall game stunk from there.
So we will hear it over the next day-and-a-half or so, we will hear all about it --- we'll hear how the Penguins "stole" Game 1 or how Nashville deserved better or something along those lines. Yak-yak-yak it will go and it will be resounding and repetitive.
How about looking at it from this vantage: The Nashville Predators more than doubled the shot total of the Pittsburgh Penguins (26-12) and outhit them 37-31 and still couldn't knock off the defending champs.
That's the way I look at it.
That's the way I'm viewing all of this.
Forget all the doom and gloom surrounding the Penguins and not playing anywhere near their best game; think about it from the other side.
If I'm in that Nashville locker room right now, I'm thinking about exactly what it will take to beat Pittsburgh as the Predators outplayed, outshot and outhit Pittsburgh but still couldn't muster a win.
That is what stings much more than a team not playing its best hockey and getting a win --- the team that feels like it should have won and coming away with nothing.
Perhaps it is just in our nature as sports fans or the glass-half-empty way many of us look at things, but after having a good think about things after waking up Tuesday morning, I really can't get too down (although it seems many are) about what transpired in the opening game with the Penguins. They found a way to win; they gritted through 37:09 without a shot on goal and still find their way up in the series.
Who cares how it happened, all that matters is it did.
You can think about all the things the Penguins need to fix to try to generate more offense or get things going so such a stale span of time doesn't happen again as this series moves forward.
Or, you can look at it another way. You can look at it from a perspective of a team that just held the ultra-powerful Penguins to no shots in more than a half-hour of ice time and still got five goals scored on them as they come away from Game 1 with nothing to show for it.
That's how I'm looking at things --- how dismal it must be to be faced with the reality the Predators are looking at right now.
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
