Player recap--Alexander Pechurskiy

My mother taught me that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Or is that what Thumper said on "Bambi"? Or was it Flower? Does it matter? You could take this view:

 heh.

If you've read this blog at all, you know I am not a big fan of From Russia With Glove.  The nickname, yes.  But the player, no.

I didn't like how as soon as he was picked up in the import draft everyone got this huge goalie boner for him, thinking he'd be the next big thing between the pipes for the Americans.  Yes, we all hoped that, don't get me wrong.  But personally I wanted to be sure he earned the honors, not just handed the reigns, so to speak.  I felt that Owsley and Martyniuk were given sort of a shitty deal in the 3-goalie system behind Chet, neither of them getting the chance to really shine.  So I thought the three of them should battle it out in camp.

Then FRWG didn't show for camp.  I think he was still at Penguins camp?  I don't know, but then he didn't report to the AMS.  And in that time Owsley carried the mail.  A lot of mail.  So when Alex decided over the winter break that he'd show, I was just generally annoyed.  Suddenly everyone forgot who had got them to that point in the season, who had done all the work in goal for the Americans.  Now it was back to goalie-boner for Alex.  And sure enough, Drew was put into the backup role once again.  Oh I'm sorry, there was the appearance of a tandem at least for a couple weeks.

I have to assume promises were made to the Penguins that if he came here he'd get so many starts and whatnot.  And obvious bias aside, he's not a terrible goalie.  Well, not all the time anyways.  I think it was Mr. Spokant that said that he's the opposite of Drew--Owsley's better the more games he plays whereas Alex is more of a one game every once in a while kind of player.  He really shined when he was not playing on a nightly basis.  Let's be honest (though it kills me sometimes) he did well in his NHL debut.

But Pechurskiy's style of play always made me nervous.  And I'm saying that knowing that I'm completely biased.  Hey, I'm trying here, alright?  In my opinion, he let in too many softies, especially in that slutty 5-hole.  He gave up juicy JUICY rebounds.  To me, and this is only me, it was almost like he was overconfident sometimes.  Too cocky.  Too big for his britches.*  But again, I'm totally biased, I've never denied that.

So whatever, he was a competent goalie.  I do not see him back as a 20 next season.  I think the Pens would like to get him in their system, though I believe he's still under contract with his KHL team?  It's all quite confusing with the Russian team stuff and I never cared enough about him to research it.**

As for a Look-Alike for Alex, I'm going to have to go with Raoul Bova, Italian actor.  Do your own Google Image search ladies, you won't regret it, but I'll leave you with this one:

*yes, I just used "too big for his britches"

** harsh, but true