During our ill-fated 1975 playoff series against the Islanders, a potent Penguins team mysteriously stopped scoring. In an effort to shake his snipers out of the doldrums, coach Marc Boileau devoted an entire practice to shooting pucks into an empty net.
Sadly, the tactic didn’t work. The Pens lost Game 7, 1-0, in the process becoming the second team in NHL history to blow a 3-0 series lead. Greasing the skid into receivership and threatening the very survival of the franchise. But I digress.
While the consequences for our current bunch aren’t that dire, our ability to qualify for the playoffs depends a great deal on somebody…anybody…not named Sidney Crosby or Bryan Rust finding the back of the net once in a while.