Sidney Crosby had the puck at the beach and missed the ocean.
The power play took enough shots to fill the ocean and missed the planet.
Patric Hornqvist was penalized for thrusting his own face into the end boards.
Kris Letang accidentally bumped a rebound into his own net, then was accidentally -- allegedly -- bumped by Claude Giroux skating backward with enough force to send him into concussion protocol.
Oh, and an opponent that had looked utterly unraveled two nights earlier somehow, with a seeming flick of the wrist, flipped the broader script.
"That's hockey."
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Matt Murray spoke those two words to me, soon after he and the Penguins had fallen, 5-1, to the Flyers in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs Friday night at PPG Paints Arena, and they so succinctly summarized what had just taken place that I asked if I could borrow them for this column.
"As a quote?" he came back.
No, man, the whole column. The headline, even.
Because really, that's it. Sometimes weird, stupid, unfortunate things happen when bodies and blades and vulcanized rubber are bouncing around for three hours, and this undoubtedly was one of those.
But since I won't get away with a two-word column, and since there's bound to be the standard public angst following any playoff loss, let's shoot instead for a twin-concept column that will take an unfettered look at potential reasons for worry, weighed against their potential legitimacy.
Sound fair?
Cool. Here we go:
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