Pittsburgh’s troubles in December continued last night as they struggled against the Sabres in Buffalo. Sure, it was a road game and road games are supposed to be tough, but the Sabres are in 8th place in the East and even though the Penguins are in seventh, they are much better than that.

The troubles started just 1 minute into the game as Paille (4) scored to put the Sabres up 1-0. It stayed that way until 5:23 of the second when Kotalik (8) extended that lead to 2-0. The Penguins answered however just 55 seconds later as Orpik found Satan breaking into the Buffalo zone. He then fed Dupuis charging the net and he buried the puck for his 7th goal of the season. Alex Goligoski then tied the game with his 5th at 12:23 but Buffalo scored on the power play about three and a half minutes later to regain the lead. Fleury was forced to face 15 shots in the second and stood tall against the barrage despite the two goals allowed.

At the half way mark of the third period, Buffalo gave the Penguins their only power play of the game and they responded. Goligoski (6) let fly a horrific wrister that went in under the crossbar to tie the game.

Then in overtime the Penguins took the play to Sabres. In the Sabres end, Goligoski fed Malkin who threw a puck high and wide. Crosby lifted his stick and batted the puck down and into the cage. Despite a review and protests from the Sabres that the puck was hit by a high stick, replays clearly showed that Crosby’s lumber was at the height of the crossbar and the goal was allowed after a discussion.

Fleury held the Penguins in the game in the third facing another 13 shots and ended up stopping 32-35 while the Penguins need to give their net minders a little more support. In the game the Penguins managed only 22 total shots including a pathetic 6 in the second period and anemic 3 in the third.

The win moved the Penguins to 18-11-4 (40 pts) on the season heading into tonight’s contest against the Tampa Bay Lightning (7-16-9).

When one team decides not to show up you get a blowout. But even though the Penguins decided to not play against the Maple Leafs last night there were still a couple highlights and here they are …

There you have it Pens fans! Every highlight of a pathetically played game!

After four days off to think about their recent troubles, the Penguins decided to take their frustrations out on the Atlanta Thrashers much like they did against the New York Islanders a week before. The problem is that beating up on teams that are as bad as the Thrashers and the Islanders are means nothing if you turn in uninspired performances against better teams like the Flyers who pounded the Penguins two days after the Pens pounded the Islanders.

The final score of 6-3 may make many think that the Penguins have emerged from their recent slump but such may not be the case. Even though the Penguins got offensive contributions up and down their line-up with goals from Cooke (4), Malkin (13, 14), Staal (11), Satan (12) and Boucher (2) I must reiterate that the Thrashers, now at 10-17-4, are not a good yard stick to use to measure the Penguins current state.

This month Pittsburgh has lost to the Rangers(22-11-2), Ottawa (11-13-5), Buffalo (15-13-3), New Jersey (17-9-3) and the Flyers (17-8-6) while beating the Hurricanes (15-12-5), Islanders (10-18-3) and Thrashers (10-17-4). And while the Penguins are dealing with injuries, that excuse did not keep them from having a spectacular November.

It is going to take some time to see if the Penguins have turned the corner on this mini slump they have been in. But Saturday’s game against the Maple Leafs will not be one that we can use to judge. The Leafs are 12-13-6 on the season and another team the Penguins should be able to beat, especially with Fleury back in net. If they don’t win it will raise questions but if they do win any proclamation that the Penguins are back in stride will have to wait until a few victories against more formidable foes.

The cure for the Penguins and their recent slump was clear – the New York Islanders. Behind a pair of hat tricks, one from Petr Sykora and one from Pascal Dupuis, the Penguins annihilated the Islanders in front of a capacity crowd one night after hitting post after post against the Devils. The hat tricks were the first of both players career.

It did not take long for Pittsburgh to let New York know that they were looking for a whipping boy to take their recent frustrations out on. Dupuis (4) scored at 6:41 of the first to bring the crowd to its feet and at 13:49 Satan (11) scored on the power play to make it a 2-0 game. The Streit (7) scored late in the period for the Islanders to make the score 2-1 on the power play. But it was a short lived victory as the Penguins stormed in to the New York zone and Petr Sykora (8) found the back of the twine from Malkin (36) and Fedotenko (6) 0:11 later.

But the Penguins were not done. Thirty-nine seconds later Boucher (1) scored his first to make the score 4-1 going into the locker room. Joey MacDonald allowed 4 goals on 19 shots and was chased from the net to start the second in favor of Yann Danis. He fared no better allowing four more Penguin goals in the second on fourteen shots. Malkin (12) scored at even strength just 2:12 in, Petr Sykora (9, 10) scored at 7:53 and 15:42 on two power plays for his first ever hat trick despite lots of two goal games and Dupuis (5) scored his second of the game with just 0:31 left in the period to make the game an 8-1 affair and the Islanders without another option in goal to stop the bleeding.

The third period began and dragged on with the Penguins managing just five shots. But it was clear that Coach Therrien wanted to try to get Dupuis a hat trick and I was constantly yelling “Dupuis!” every time he hit the ice or touched the puck which certainly got a rise out of the crowd as the call apparently echoed around the quickly emptying seats. Some other fans soon got into the act doing a chant of “Du (doo)!” and then “Puis (pwee)!” several times in the final frame. Even though the Penguins looked content to milk the 8-1 lead to a victory and even though Sutton (1) scored at 13:06 to cut that lead to a paltry six, those of us constantly cheering for a second hat trick were not disappointed when Dupuis (6) did indeed find the net again on a feed from Cooke (10) at 16:48 to make the score 9-2.

It was about this time that I started yelling for the team to start working on a hat trick for Tim Wallace too which drew a few chuckles.

Dan Curry performed solidly in net to spell Dany Sabourin stopping 24 of 26 shots on the night including some impressive saves from time to time against an anemic Islanders attack. The win was only the Penguins second in the month (2-3-1) and helped them improve to 16-9-4 (36 pts) heading into the weekend and a match up Saturday against Philadelphia who are ahead of the Penguins in Atlantic and the East.