One game does not a trend make, but last night the Penguins looked like they finally understood what they needed to do to win a game and do so convincingly. While it took a while for any scoring to occur, once the Penguins found the net they kept finding it. The team also played solid defensively, for once, in front of Marc-Andre Fleury.
Fleury was only called on to make fifteen saves on sixteen shots but many of those saves were class Fleury where he flopped, threw out a glove or kicked out a leg with reflexes that few goalies in the league posses. In short, two nights after Brent Johnson and the Penguins collapsed in the third period against Boston, giving up five goals and loosing, the Penguins rebounded and got a solid performance in net that kept a feisty Tampa Bay squad at bay.
In the second period it was Pascal Dupuis (5) who opened up the scoring at 8:01 of the second period tipping in a shot from Kris Letang. Twenty-seven seconds later it was Alex Goligoski (4) who upped the score to 2-0 with a wrist shot into a wide open net.
In the third period the Penguins got into early penalty trouble and Steve Stamkos (15) buried a slap shot past Fleury on a 5-on-3 power play. The Penguins had to kill off another two man advantage before they were able to get rolling again. Mad Max Talbot (3), Sidney Crosby (11) and Deryk Engelland (1) all added scores to extend the lead to 5 to 1 where it remained when the final horn sounded.
Pittsburgh’s five goals came on just 20 shots while the game was marked with distinctly better and more sound defensive play than in previous games.
Engelland with his goal bounced back from some previous bad games. He finished a +3 on the evening. On a night where everyone seemed to be in on the act, Evgeni Malkin had no assists and no goals.
To find out if this will be a trend the 8-8-1 Penguins will take to the ice again tonight to take on the Atlanta Thrashers. Atlanta is 7-6-3 on the season.
