Pens Through My Lens: A Sid Trip: Pens vs Sens Game 2, May 17, 2013

The towels we were given on our way into the arena for game 2 Friday night read "Buckle Up Baby!"

The Ol' 29er Phil Bourque usually follows that up with "Are You Kidding Me?"

Sid was not kidding.

As far as the CEC crowd was concerned, those towels may as well have been soaked in LSD because Sid took us all on a really good trip.

Unless you were Craig Anderson, in which case it was a very bad trip,

and that led to an early trip

to the dressing room.

It's late (much like this post) so let's get to the photos after the jump.

**************************************************************************

We started the evening by checking out the crowd assembled in front of Mario's TV.

Impressive.

Inside the CEC we were treated to an even more impressive sight.

Pascal Dupuis' playoff beard.

In other playoff beard news...

Not to be outdone, appearing in the the role of "Greybeard" for 2013 (a part made famous by Billy Guerin in 2009), Craig F'ing Adams.

We spotted great friends of the blog Cruxen and Fitz in the crowd, all the way from Brazil and Texas.

Anthems:

Sid gave the Pens an early 1-0 lead.

The Pens were dominating the first but Ottawa cashed in on the power play just 12 seconds after Geno's hooking penalty.

Sid to Vokoun: "Don't sweat that one, I got this".

Sid answered the Ottawa goal less than three minutes later. The Pens would take the 2-1 lead into the first intermission.

Karlsson went off for hooking early in the second.

It would prove to be a costly penalty.

Of course, nearly any penalty against the Pens is costly when their power play is running this smoothly.

Sid blasted this shot past Anderson.

Celebration. Wait, where's Sid?

Oh, there he is.

The hats flew as Sid had completed the second playoff hat trick of his career.

We were at the first as well, coming in game 2 of the 2009 series against the Caps.

This one was much sweeter since it didn't involve a Pens loss and it wasn't matched by a hated star player on the other team.

Craig Anderson's night was over as backup goaltender Lehner would enter the game.

Ottawa had cut the Pens lead to 3-2 just 40 seconds after Crosby's hat trick, but Brenden Morrow restored the 2-goal lead with a tip-in of James Neal's deflection of a Paul Martin slapper.

The Sens' third period tally again cut the Pens' lead to one goal.

Then Orpik went off for boarding. Knitting Lady urged on the Pens penalty kill.

The pressure was once again on Vokoun and his defense.

This wasn't his best game, but once again he was solid at the end, and the defense was even better, allowing just six shots on goal in the final frame.