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Wednesday, December 04, 2002

By Dave Molinari, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

The Penguins base attendance figures on how many tickets are in circulation for a game, not how many fans actually show up to watch it.

	Penguins winger Alexei Kovalev is driven into the boards by Capitals defenseman Ken Klee. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette)

That means that, with an announced turnout of 11,640 for Washington's 4-1 victory at Mellon Arena last night, the official count of empty seats was 5,316.

It was the smallest crowd for a game at Mellon Arena since 11,485 fans witnessed a 5-2 loss to San Jose Dec. 2, 1999, and last night's attendance did not reflect the no-shows wearing Penguins sweaters. Add all of those, and the total rises considerably.

"I don't think there are too many [players] in here who are happy with their effort," goalie Johan Hedberg said. "It was an ugly game."

	More Penguins Coverage: Jagr, Lang silence small crowd with inspired play for Capitals Penguins Report: 12/2/02

Coach Rick Kehoe described it as "just one of those nights when we weren't sharp," but that doesn't begin to convey how poorly the Penguins played. Or how little they seemed to care.

"It's bad," defenseman Marc Bergevin said. "It's like that 6-0 Toronto game [in the season-opener]. It wasn't 6-0, but it was the same kind of game. We were [awful]."

The Capitals aren't likely to hang an asterisk on their victory, though. Not when they hadn't beaten the Penguins (11-7-3-3) in their previous five meetings after acquiring Jaromir Jagr from the Penguins July 11, 2001. And certainly not after they had sputtered to a 2-7-1 record in their previous 10 games.

When Capitals Coach Bruce Cassidy called it, "our best game, from start to finish," that is more of an indictment of how Washington has performed in the past two months than a tribute to its work last night.

About the only positives for the Penguins were that left winger Martin Straka, who missed the previous two games because of a strained hamstring, got through the game without his problem being aggravated and that defenseman Ian Moran, hurt when he blocked a shot from former teammate Robert Lang late in the second period, apparently doesn't have a broken foot.

Straka played 21 minutes, 58 seconds and said afterward that "I felt pretty good. Didn't feel any pain."

That wasn't the case for Moran, who had a Lang shot smack off his left foot with a little more than two minutes left in the second period.

Give his history of broken bones, it seemed a given that Moran would be on crutches before the game ended, but he was able to return in the third period.

"He got pretty good wood on it," Moran said. "I was moving at him, and it just kind of caught me in a bad spot. I think it's fine. Really."

Moran was one of many Penguins who believed the sparse crowd had no effect on the outcome. More than a few suggested things started to go sour at the game-day skate, hours before the first fan went through the turnstiles.

"We had a crappy pregame skate," Moran said. "And it carried over."

So much so that by the time the game started, the Penguins probably were fortunate guys weren't nodding off on the bench between shifts.

"We didn't have any intensity at all," Hedberg said.

Not when the game started -- "We played sloppy right away, right from the beginning," Straka said -- and not at any point before it concluded.

Consider that the Penguins, trying to rally from a 3-0 deficit, needed 8:36 to record their first shot in the second period. Or that, down 4-0 in the third, they didn't get a shot on Capitals goalie Olaf Kolzig until 11:13 had passed.

That was long after Ivan Ciernik had given Washington a 1-0 lead at 8:46 of the first period by throwing a Ken Klee rebound past Hedberg. After Jagr made it 2-0 at 13:10, when his centering pass hit Bergevin's skate and skidded into the net.

And by the time Lang was credited with Washington's third goal at 1:48 of the second, when Moran inadvertently knocked Lang's rebound past Hedberg, everything except Washington's margin of victory had been settled.

Jeff Halpern raised the Capitals' edge to 4-0 at 2:43 of the third and, while Mario Lemieux countered for the Penguins at 17:07, it accomplished nothing except to raise his league-leading points total to 47 and to deny Kolzig a shutout bonus.

That was the only goal the Penguins scored on 17 shots. Washington, conversely, was 4 of 32 from the field, with two of those going in courtesy of the Penguins.

"Everything that happened out there ended up in the net, one way or another," Hedberg said. "I don't know why. Or how."

Dave Molinari can be reached at 412-263-1144.