Penguin Drill Jackets for First Win; 7 – 2
One of the myriad of problems that plagued the Pittsburgh Penguins last season was a lack of killer instinct. Last season’s rendition of our beloved black-n-gold would often lose to teams that they should have beaten. Last night they took on a Columbus Blue Jackets’ team, defanged over the off-season due to Free Agent (FA) defections (Sergei Bobrovsky, Matt Duchene, and Artemi Panarin) and coming in on the back end of a back-to-back series. They (the Blue Jackets) were ripe for the picking, and unlike last year, this year’s Penguins did reap the harvest.
Last season’s incarnation of Pittsburgh’s Hockey club lacked a killer’s instinct. Even when they would take the lead on teams and looked like they had their opponents on the ropes, they would let them up and either lose outright or at least cede 1 point to the other team by waiting until Over Time (OT) or Shoot Out (SO) to win. Last night, in the 2nd period, they began to look like sharks at a feeding frenzy.
Question, was this a Pyrrhic victory?