We've been blessed with an embarrassment of hockey riches over three decades in Pittsburgh, to the point that, on this Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena when Sidney Crosby was No. 1 star, when Evgeni Malkin should have been No. 1 star, maybe the most memorable moment came from the resident third superstar.
Yeah, here I go yet again about Phil Kessel.
This goal wasn't exactly pivotal in the Penguins' 5-1 flattening of the Sabres, coming with 6:46 left in what had been a two-goal game. It also wasn't at all out of the ordinary, certainly not for a shooter of Kessel's caliber:
See, not much to it. Kessel gets a chip from Evgeni Malkin inside the Pittsburgh blue line, takes off, encounters some strikingly passive defense from Buffalo's Jake McCabe, doesn't bother skating a full stride beyond the top of the right circle, then just humiliates Chad Johnson with a short-side wrister.
Wholly unremarkable, at the risk of repeating myself.
Except for one thing, and it's the only reason for this small article: From the moment Kessel collected the puck with a clear sheet of ice in front of him, the crowd of 18,582 roared. Then roared a little louder. And each additional stride seemed to add an additional decibel until ... boom! That thing that we all expected to happen happened.
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