Sometimes you can summarize a night (or perhaps even a career?) with a single video clip. If nothing else, Brent Johnson’s one-punch knockout of Rick DiPietro was a pretty good video synopsis of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 3-0 win over the New York Islanders; DiPietro seemed to have his heart in the right place, but he still ended up flat on his back.
The Penguins won another game with Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby out of the lineup, showing that they can gut out victories without their two biggest stars. Really, at this point, the team might be wise to consider letting Malkin rest for as long as the other guys keep putting wins together. (Crosby is still far enough away from a return that they can’t really dictate his comeback at this point.)
Tyler Kennedy and Chris Kunitz beat DiPietro for the Penguins’ two first period goals while Maxime Talbot iced the game with an empty-netter. Johnson didn’t settle for beating up DiPietro alone, as he stopped all the 20 shots he faced before Marc-Andre Fleury played out the game’s final 17 seconds.
The goalie fight was the first regular season netminder squabble since 2007, according to James Murphy. Seth Rorabaugh writes that Johnson received the “biggest No. 1 star ovation he’s ever heard in his life.”
Without further adieu, here’s the video of one of the quickest fights since Evander Kane floored Matt Cooke.
[vodpod id=Video.5494203&w=425&h=350&fv=catid%3D35%26amp%3Bid%3D95819%26amp%3Bserver%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fvideo.nhl.com%2Fvideocenter%2F%26amp%3Bpageurl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fvideo.nhl.com%2Fvideocenter%2F%26amp%3Bnlwa%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fapp2.neulion.com%2Fvideocenter%2Fnhl%2F]
(Screen shot via NHL.com.)
