Game number two is in the bag.  And the Penguins kept the good things going early in the season.

In beating the Calgary Flames 5-3 last night, the Penguins netted another two power play goals (Niskanen and Malkin) and held the Flames to just 20 shots on goal.  The Penguins added goals from Mr. Tyler Kennedy (1), Craig Adams (1) and Jordan Staal EN (1) to improve to 2-0 on the young season.  Fleury got his second win of the season.

The Penguins power play managed 10 shots on net.

James Neal added notched an assist.

Jordan Staal and Matt Niskanen where the only two Penguins to notch more than a point with a goal and an assist each to give the Penguins a well balance attack.

Tonight the Penguins head to Edmonton to face the Oilers who have not taken to the ice yet this season.

It is taking the Pittsburgh Penguins a lot of minutes to win games lately. But the good news is that they are winning. In back to back games against the Flyers and the Devils, as well on Monday night versus the Detroit Red Wings, the Penguins needed overtime to win. The Penguins needed not only overtime, but the shootout to beat each of those teams and keep up a pace that no one thought possible when both Sid and Geno went down with injuries.

Beating the Red Wings 5-4, the Flyers 2-1 and the Devils 1-0 is going a long way to keeping the Penguins not only in fourth place in the East, but in the hunt, barely, for the top slot in the Atlantic. While Brent Johnson and the Pens blew a 4-0 lead in Detroit requiring the win in the shoot out, it was Marc-Andre Fleury that kept the Penguins in the Flyers and Devils games. Fleury made 19 saves on a paltry 20 shots against Philly and 21 saves plus three more in the shoot out against New Jersey who, after a hot streak to try and make the playoffs, seem to be fading fast.

The problem though is that while the Penguins are winning, they are putting a lot of extra minutes on their bodies. Especially when you consider that these latest three overtime games are part of a disturbing trend where the Penguins just cannot seem to win in regulation. Face it, there are no shootouts in the playoffs and overtimes will go on as long as it takes to get a winner. The Penguins will not be able to rely on shutting down opponents and holding on and waiting for a chance to win it one on one in the shootout once the drive for Lord Stanley’s Cup begins in earnest in a couple weeks.

On the flip side however, the Penguins are proving that they can play with, and win, even the elite teams in the league while their own stars are hurt. That makes the Penguins dangerous as is. Perhaps the most dangerous team in the East and a team that only gets more dangerous when Sidney Crosby, now skating and practicing without ill effects, returns to the line-up. The Penguins are playing playoff hockey already and they are winning doing it.

The only real concern is how much the extra miles on their legs will catch up with them come the official start of the playoffs.

Without Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Mark Letestu, the Penguins limped into New York way underpowered and depleted at center.  By all rights the Rangers, 29-20-4, should have had at least an fairly easy time against the gimpy Penguins.  And after jumping out to a 2-0 lead on goals by Prust (8) and Anisimov (11) things were looking that way early in the second period.

Then came a spurt.  Pittsburgh scored on goals by Dustin Jeffrey (3) at 5:30 of the second, Mike Rupp (5) at 10:36 of the second and Chris Kunitz (17) at 14:12 of the second.  They were up 3-2 when they lost another center, Jordan Staal, to a match penalty and when he was ejected for throwing a gloved punch.  The Penguins almost escaped the second period without that hurting them.  But at 19:47 of the frame Callahan (11) scored to tie up the game on the power play that the Staal penalty afforded the Rangers.

The Penguins dug in in the third period and held off the Rangers through overtime.  Then came the shootout.  Marc-Andre Fuery, who made 26 saves in regulation and OT, stopped shots by Wolski, Zuccarello, Callahan, Anisimov, Stepan and Dubinsky.  Lundqvist stopped Letang, Dupuis, Kunitz, Goligoski, Kennedy and Conner.

Then came Dustin Jeffrey, the man who scored the first goal of the game for Pittsburgh and who by all rights would be playing daily for the big club on a lesser team not chocked full of talent.  He scored in round seven of the shootout.  Fluery then proceeded to stop Marian Gaborik to end the game.

The Penguins were undoubtedly happy to come out of it all with two points considering their situation.  But surprisingly the Penguins have been playing well without their superstars lately.  They are proving that they can stay competitive, adapt and even win when temporarily missing pieces to the puzzle.

Had I known that prior to last night’s game at the Consol Energy Center that Tampa Bay had apparently been telling off-color “Yo Mamma” Jokes about the Penguins player mothers, insulted their wives and girl friends and, just for good measure, pissed in their Cheerios I probably could have predicted the ass whooping delivered by the Penguins unto the Lightning last night.  After all, who wouldn’t be upset after all that and take it out on the ice?

Ok, so none of that really happened, but believe me you, the thought about what the Lightning had done to cause the Penguins to show them no mercy last night crossed my mind just ten minutes into the first period with the score already 4-0.  In the end the Penguins would win 8-1 after a dominating performance against a team that is no slouch and leading the South East Division of the Eastern Conference.

Evgeni Malkin had a chance to do something very spectacular last evening as he scored right off the opening faceoff after intercepting an errant pass.  Tampa Bay won the draw but Malkin pushed forward and went in on goal uncontested.  He bobbled the puck and instead of scoring in an amazing five seconds had to settle for the ever so less amazing feat of scoring with just seven ticks of the clock gone.

It was an omen of bad things to come for Tampa Bay.

What followed was a clinic of scoring prowess even as the Penguins gave up a few chances in their own end.  After about eight shots on net or so the Penguins had galloped to a 4-0 lead with just 7:42 gone. Malkin (15), Conner (5), Kennedy (6) and Kunitz (11) lead that flurry but the team was not done.  To add insult to injury, Tampa Bay took a late penalty and Kunitz (12) added his second goal of the evening on the power play to set the score at 5-0 at the end of the period.

Letestu (9) added goal number six half way through the second and Kunitz (13) got his second career hat trick (his first with the Pens) with time running out and another power play being had for the Penguins.

Adam Hall (5) scored early in the third for the Lightning but Alex Goligoski (7) answered right back just a shade over a minute later to stretch the score to 8-1.  Pittsburgh tallied 41 shots on the night.  Tampa Bay had 32.

It wasn’t an easy time in net for Marc-Andre Fleury however as he needed to time and again make big and spectacular stops as the Lightning fought tooth and nail for a goal.  Meanwhile the Lightning played musical net minders all night.  Roloson started the game.  Then he was chased in favor of Ellis.  Then he was chased in favor of Roloson.  Then Roloson was again chased in favor of Ellis.

The win comes just days after the Penguins lost in the Winter Classic to the Washington Capitol on a rainy New Years Day night here in Pittsburgh.  And the Penguins looked like they wanted to reestablish themselves early in this matchup and show that that loss was more of a hiccup than anything else.

Today the Lightning are tending to their sores.  Hey, when you get screwed like the Penguins screwed them last night you are bound to have some sore spots.

Tonight the Penguins take on the Montreal Canadiens who are 21-16-3 and no slouch themselves.

It is January 1st. And while we are in the middle of a fluke warm snap and it is raining, that means the day of the Winter Classic is also upon us. Although the start time has been moved to 8 PM, to avoid the rain, the game will apparently still go on at Heinz Field here in Pittsburgh.

It will be the second game of the season between the Washington Capitals and the Penguins when the puck drops this evening. It will be the second meeting of the season between His Sidness and Ovechkin once the blades of the skates dig in and players start to grind for the puck.

Sidney Crosby leads the league in goals (32) and points (65) and unlike previous years, Ovechin is not right there with him. Ovechkin has just 14 goals and 42 points this so far this season and although the Capitals are 22-12-5 and 5th in the East, they are getting it done without riding Ovechkin as hard as in the past.

This Winter Classic, unlike those in the past, will not feature snow which will undoubtedly have some crying foul. Some people have thought, and complained loudly, that Pittsburgh was too far south to hold this event. This was mostly because they wanted to keep it in their own cities almost exclusively (such as Boston, Buffalo, Detroit, etc.) But the fact is that according to weather forecasts for today many northern hockey cities would be in the same predicament.

Buffalo – 51 and rainy
Boston – 49 with rain moving into the evening
Detroit – 49 and rainy
New York – 44 with rain later in the day

Yeah, none of these cities would have been better so unless you want to keep the game in Canada where you will be pretty much guaranteed snow every New Year’s Day, complaining about the weather is just bad sport.

None-the-less the game will go on. And most of the complainers will go away at 8 PM as we watch two of the league’s best teams take to the ice.

Following a tough loss last week to Philadelphia followed by a complete collapse in the third period the next night against the New York Rangers, some Penguins fans were worried that not only was the streak over but that things were going to get bad fast. After rattling off wins like a hoarder collects junk, two losses in a row looked like a bad sign especially when that second one was the result of four goals not just in the last period but in the last ten minutes!

Pish posh! Some time to clear their heads and the Penguins have bounced right back rattling off back to back wins. First it was the Phoenix Coyotes who were … well … let’s just say the Penguins had their way with them darting out to a 5-0 lead by the end of the second period. The ‘Yotes didn’t even show up on the scoresheet until the last period when they finally found the next but that game was 6-1 when it ended.

After weathering a 16 shot storm in the first, Marc-Andre Fleury backstopped the Penguins effort and got goals from Kris Letang (6), Evgeni Malkin (12, 13), Sidney Crosby (27), Matt Cooke (6) and Chris Conner (3). That is a pretty good bit of spreading the puck around and Geno had three assists to goal with his two goals. Heck, with production like he has been having I say give him a week break to start every month!

Ok, sure Phoenix is in last place in the Pacific Division but they are a respectably above .500 team at 15-10-7.

Then there was last night against Florida. Florida is, unlike Phoenix, a lower tier team at 15-17-0 and the Penguins made sure to play like they are capable of rather than down to Florida’s level. Despite Florida scoring on their first shot to tie the game at 1-1, it never was close after that. The game ended 5-2 with the Penguins coasting thanks to goals by Letestu (7), Crosby (28), Cooke (7), Lovejoy (1) and the empty netter by Dupuis (8).

The game was so out of hand by the start of the third period that the Penguins decided to give Fleury, who had the night off up until that point, a period in net to get warmed up for today’s match against the Capitals. And that game is a real test. Washington is 20-12-4 and once again leading the pathetically weak Southeast Division. And nothing sets up the Winter Classic better than today’s game and the outcome of it.

Can the Penguins keep their new winning streak rolling? Sure they can. But they have to go through Ovechkin to do it which is never a small task.