Why the Penguins beat the Senators

In case you've been wondering...

Goaltending - first and foremost, Marc Andre Fleury was outstanding in net. He gave up only 5 goals in the four games against the Sens to post a 1.26 GAA and a SV% of .955 and a shutout. He only have up more than one goal in game 2 where he gave up 3. Fleury is my pick for MVP of the series.

Special Teams - The Pens were 6 of 23(26.1%) on the power play and held Ottawa to 1 goal on 13(92.3%) penalty kills. Nuff said.

Defense - Pittsburgh defensemen allowed only 5 Ottawa goals in the series. Of those 5, four occurred in the second period and only one in the third. Ottawa did not score a goal in the first period of any game in the series. Pens defensemen were able to get to the puck before the Senators forwards could and were able to get the puck up the ice and out of the defensive zone without much problem.

The matchup of Brooks Orpick and Sergei Gonchar, who were primarily paired up against Ottawas first line, held that line to no even strength goals. This is the same line that accounted for nearly half of Ottawa's goals in the regular season.

Offense - The Pens scored goals when they needed to. And even when they didn't need to. In fact they pretty much scored whenever they wanted to.

Role Players - the third and fourth liners contributed to the overall success of the team by chipping in a bunch of goals and controlling the tempo of the game when they were on the ice.

Coaching - Bryan Murray did all he could to motivate his players. Too bad it wasn't enough. Not sure that this bunch of players could have been motivated at all. They looked like they knew they would be beaten from the opening face-off of game one.