Matt Cooke Steals Headlines in Penguins’ Shootout Win at BetLM

Matt Cooke Steals Headlines in Penguins’ Shootout Win

It only makes sense that a sloppy but enjoy­able game like tonight’s Pitts­burgh Penguins-Vancouver Canucks match ended with a guilty plea­sure “skills com­pe­ti­tion.” While Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin scored gor­geous shootout goals to help the Pen­guins hold on for a 4–3 SO win, most of tonight’s game didn’t go as expected.

Malkin earned an assist on James Neal’s oppor­tunis­tic goal on the power play, but he was held in check in a way that he didn’t expe­ri­ence very often dur­ing a red-hot pre­sea­son. (Malkin’s chem­istry with Neal and vet­eran winger Steve Sul­li­van was appar­ent on mul­ti­ple plays, how­ever, so it remains rea­son­able to main­tain con­fi­dence in his Hart Tro­phy candidacy.)

Instead of a big first night for Geno, Vancouver’s would-be MVP can­di­dates were the biggest difference-makers, as Daniel Sedin scored the game-tying goal and an assist while Hen­rik Sedin earned two pri­mary helpers. Letang was pro­duc­tive on offense in his own right, scor­ing that SO goal and col­lect­ing two assists.

Cooke pro­duces nice results in first game since suspension

Matt Cooke was the true headline-stealer, though, as he scored two goals to give the Pen­guins 2–0 and 3–1 leads before the Sedins took over. Cooke found the net thanks to a great behind-the-net pass by Pas­cal Dupuis and used a Canucks defender as a screen to foil Roberto Luongo on an odd angle shot to score short­handed. (Marc-Andre Fleury let Luongo’s softy off the hook to an extent by allow­ing a strange one of his own for Maxim Lapierre’s 2–1 tally.)

It’s com­mon to assign a ” … But he can actu­ally play” qual­i­fier to a good num­ber of pests, but the descrip­tion actu­ally fits Cooke, even if his neg­a­tive moments grossly out­weigh his pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions in the eyes of most. Even with that praise in mind, it’s use­ful to note that he usu­ally makes a dif­fer­ence on the penalty kill rather than on the score­board, so a two-goal night is a great treat for the Penguins.

Maybe a pos­i­tive return from shame and a sus­pen­sion could help Cooke turn the cor­ner? The best reac­tion is to take the “Wait and see” approach to that sit­u­a­tion, which is prob­a­bly a wise strat­egy to take with all of the NHL’s sea­son open­ers. Brian Eng­blom caught up with Cooke after the game.

***

Both teams and their goalies expe­ri­enced some rocky moments, but there were also uplift­ing ones. Neal showed a lot of burst after a tough sec­ond half of 201–11. Keith Bal­lard (of all peo­ple) scored a gor­geous goal thanks to a fan­tas­tic feed by Hen­rik Sedin. The Pen­guins started out strong on the road while the Canucks shook off a some­what shaky start to earn a point in their home opener. The NHL’s elite find ways to make the best of less-than-spectacular nights and both teams showed glimpses of that poten­tial on Oct. 6.

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