It was a night of back and forth hockey as the Penguins finally found ways to score goals, partially thanks to the return of Evgeni Malkin who had missed two weeks resting and injury. But as the Penguins scored so did the Boston Bruins. Until late it was the Penguins that would go up on the scoreboard and then force the Bruins to answer. At 17:31 of the third it was Marco Sturm that gave Boston their first lead of the night 5-4.

Brent Johnson started in net for the Penguins. Why, I don’t really know. Perhaps it was just to shake up the team which had struggled mightily the past few games with large portions of its Stanley Cup championship team out of the lineup with a variety of injuries. While he has played well this season, it still baffles me.  But the start of Johnson proved a mix blessing at best for every time the Penguins scored he seemed to allow a soft goal or a goal that was a result of him misreading a pretty obvious play. On Boston’s first goal, for example, with a Bruin (Krejci) set up behind the net, both defensemen moved to take the man with the puck. Numbers has been something that the Penguins have lacked when going for pucks and on this play they decided to overwhelm, and neutralize the puck carrier. Johnson saw this, yet he still seemed more concerned with the man behind the net rather than Blake Wheeler moving to the opposite post. Johnson looked like he was expecting a wrap around out to his right from the man behind the net (who was completely neutralized) and he got beat by the man coming to his left. It was a pretty bad play.

However, Johnson also made some spectacular, if not frantic saves throughout the game. It was a love hate relationship I had with him all night long as I sat in my seats in section D-7 and watched.  He finished with 28 saves on 33 shots.

Yes, all looked lost as the clock ran down in the third as the Penguins, with their goal tender pulled and down a goal could not seem to get anything going and were trapped in their own end. Then with the clock at 0:10 there was signs of life. A stick broke on the Bruins side and Sidney Crosby passed up to Malkin who gained the Bruins zone. The clock ticked to 0:04. Then Malkin found Billy Guerin racing down the far side of the ice and as the clock wound to 0:02, Guerin let loose a shot that beat Tim Thomas with just 0:00.4 left on the clock.

The crowd errupted in cheers thankful that the Bruins had missed several shots at the open net. Malkin and Crosby played side by side most of the night and while they had been productive from the opening puck drop, there was no doubt as the clock wound to 0:00 and the third period came to a close tied at 5-5 that the two headed monster was indeed alive, well and very, very hungry.

Malkin in his return finished with 3 assists and a +3. Crosby finished with 1 goal, 2 assists and a +3. But the hero of the game? That would be Pascal Dupuis who, in overtime, took a feed from behind the Bruins net from Jordan Staal who raced for a loose puck and caught Tim Thomas flat footed at the side of the cage. The puck squirted free to Dupuis who shuffled the puck into the empty net for the 6-5 win.

The Penguins spread the love last night getting goals from five different players including two defensively minded defensement. The goal scorers for Pittsburgh were Jay McKee (1), Pascal Dupuis (4, 5), Sidney Crosby (10), Mark Eaton (2) and Bill Guerin (4).

The win stops the Penguins four game skid and boosts their record to 13-7-0 (26 pts) ahead of Monday nights game against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.

It is funny to listen to some pundits who think they know so much. If I hear one more of these folks talking about how this team lacks “chemistry” and that is why they are not winning games right now I have a question. Where were you complaining about “chemistry” when the team was 5-4-2 in October or 9-2-1 in November with basically the same lineup minus their best face off man in Zigomanis and the spark plug that is Tyler Kennedy?

Lack of “chemistry”? Don’t make me laugh! That is a cop out excuse and everyone making it knows it. “Chemistry” is like that catch all category of everything you cannot explain but try to explain.

No, the problem with the Penguins is clear and has been clear all year – they lack the desire to play a team game for 60 full minutes every night. Last night against Boston was another prime example of this. You had players like Orpik, Dupuis, Jeffrey and Wallace grinding out every shift. You had people like Malkin also playing hard, but playing what amounted to a singular style without a focus on where his teammates are and what they could do for him. You had defensemen watch pucks dangle in front of them, just feet away, but that they would not dare do fight for because they knew there was no one rotating over to cover up for them.

I don’t think the problems could have been any more clear than they were last night or any other night during their December slump. The team doesn’t need a trade, it needs those players on the ice to play hockey and play it with a focus on playing as a team.

What Therrien needs to do, and I have already said this, is to sit some of the players who are not playing hard for 60 minutes. Satan comes to mind. So does Staal. Maybe it is wrong to say that players like Satan and Staal are not playing hard for 60 full minutes. Perhaps it is more correct to say that they are playing hard, but not playing smart enough to make that hard work pay off. They are not thinking five seconds ahead and finding that open ice where someone can feed them the puck. They are not making smart decisions with their passes.

Other players are dumping pucks without a purpose into the offensive zone. They are putting pucks where no one from the Penguins has a chance to get to them. Other players are not even trying to get into the corners and hunt for pucks and going back on their heals.

It’s not that hard. It’s just hockey. And it is something, I remind you all, that these guys are paid good money to do because they are some of the best in the world. It is high time they start acting like it.