The Penguins had already proven that they could get by without Stanley Cup Final Game 7 MVP Max Talbot as they roared out to a 10-2-0 record to start the season. They even proved that they could win without Sergei Gonchar on the blueline. Then they proved they could win without Mister (Tyler) Kennedy who has provided a lot of offense on the young season. But what about a win without Evgeni Malkin? Yep, they did that too beating the Blue Jackets in Columbus last night.

It was what people in sports call a character win, when a team that is beat up and missing key components still finds a way to muck it out and get the victory. Yeah, Columbus is struggling after a decent start but they still found a way to win even after falling behind first 2-0 and then 3-1. Oh, and I don’t want to overlook the contribution of thousands of Pittsburgh fans that made the trek to Columbus and repeatedly roared to life to drown out the hometown fans either.

After Rick Nash (7, scored twice, Chris Kunitz (2) scored his second goal in two nights (after a long drought) and short handed to cut the Penguins deficit in half. But when Derek Dorsett (1) scored late in the second to make it 3-1 it would have been easy for the Penguins to mail it in and start thinking about a Halloween night showdown against Minnesota.

In the third the Blue Jackets played conservative and Brent Johnson stopped all six shots he faced. Meanwhile the Penguins, especially late, put their noses down and played hard. With the clock winding inside three minutes to play it was Ruslan Fedotenko (3) who found a rebound and buried it.

3-2 Columbus.

Just 39 seconds later it was Alex Goligoski (5) who wristed a shot past Mason.

3-3 and a tie hockey game.

Columbus held Pittsburgh off in the overtime and then the cardiac kids took the game into a shootout. In the end the winning shot was not that glorious or awe inspiring. But it did come off of the stick of Sidney Crosby. In the shootout Crosby wound his way down the ice and flipped a puck at Mason who looked to stop the puck in his chest. But as the play continued, Mason drifted, could not find the puck, it dropped to the ice and momentum carried it between his stick and his pads.

Victory to the Penguins.

At 11-2-0 the Penguins own the best record in the league and kept pace with Colorodo (10-2-2) who also has 22 pts. Their opponent tonight is one of the worst teams in the league as Minnesota (4-9-0, 8 pts)comes to the Igloo. It’s Halloween and hopefully the injury riddled Penguins won’t play too scary and notch a win against a team that is just two for their last five and three of their last seven.

Last night’s game at the Igloo against the St. Louis Blues was brutal. It was a slaughter. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Whether the St. Louis Blues were flat or the Penguins were just motivated will be much the topic of conversation today and perhaps it was a little bit of both spurred on by the later. Because one thing is clear and that is that the Penguins throttled the Blues from the opening face off.

When the first period ended, even if the Penguins would have played with six skaters and no goalie the worst the sore could have been was 3-2 Blues. That’s because the Blues managed only three shots in the first twenty minutes of play. The Penguins? Well they peppered Mason with 20 shots and had it not been for some fantastic saves they would have scored much more than just two goals. The period was well half over before the Blues even registered a shot on net. Yeah, it was that bad.

Mr. Hockeyburgh 2009, Tyler (Mister) Kennedy, scored his fifth goal of the season at 11:19 from McKee and Cooke to put the Penguins up 1-0. Then Evgeni (MVP) Malkin scored just over a minute later on the power play to push the lead to 2-0.

In the second the bloodbath continued as the Penguins outshot the stunned Blues 15-8 adding a powerplay tally from Ruslan Fedotenko (2) at 7:29 and then a quick strike half a minute later from Kris Letang (2). Paul Kariya, yes he is still playing hockey, gave the Blues their only goal of the game almost five minutes after that for his fourth goal of the season.

Alex Goligoski (2) dashed all hopes of a comeback midway through the third as he moved the lead to four goals and a score of 5-1.

Fleury stopped, once the night was through, 22 of 23 shots.

Defenseman Sergei Gonchar left the game with what is reported to be a broken bone in his hand possibly sidelining him for a month and opening a spot on the active roster for Martin Skoula who has been waiting in the wings for a chance to play.

The win gave the Penguins their eighth victory in nine games (8-1-0, 16pts) and are atop the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference. Their only loss was the shutout suffered at the hands of the Phoenix Coyotes with Johnson in net. Fleury has remained perfect however to help the Penguins to their impressive start. He is 8-0-0 with a .926 Sv% and a 1.96 GAA. The next game is Friday night against the Florida Panthers (2-4-0) and with a game the next night against the New Jersey Devils (4-3-0) it looks likely that Fluery will get a rest and Johnson will have a chance to redeem himself against another sub-par team.

Knowing how good Alex Goligoski (AKA Go-Go) is the Penguins this week resigned the defenseman who has split time over the past two seasons between the NHL Penguins and the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Penguins. The deals is for three years and $5.5 million and comes just prior to this season’s free agency free for all where the Penguins may loose key blue liner Rob Scuderi as teams are often want to throw large sums of money at players coming off a championship.

Goligoski is a fine young blue liner with some offensive talent but is very good at moving the puck and running the offense akin to a Sergei Gonchar. He has proven he can play at the NHL level and Goligoski has had nothing but good things to say about the Penguins and his desire to stay with the Penguins. “The way they treat you here and with this group of guys here, I think we can be a contender every year. I want to be a winner so it was an easy decision. I’m glad we were able to get (the contract) done early. It’s just really exciting right now,” Goligoski said.

With Sergei Gonchar out of the lineup for Game 5 against the Capitals, the Penguins opted to recall Alex Goligoski from Wilkes-Barre and play with seven defensemen. The reasoning for this was clear. First, the Penguins needed someone to help run the power play with Gonchar out and currently the Pens do not have anyone on the roster with Goligoski’s skills with regard to that. Second, the Penguins played most of game four with five defensemen and everyone had extra minutes added to their menu. So seven D made sense for game five and to be perfectly honest the team played just as well one forward short as they had all series.

The Capitals played a much more disciplined game than any previous one of the series. They allowed the Penguins only 3:59 of power play time and took only two non-coincidental penalties all game. Of that 3:59 of PP time, Goligoski skated for 3:14 of it (81%). He also skated for 6:18 at even strength where as Boucher played for 12:05 at even strength and just 0:46 on the power play.

Boucher can certainly play with the man advantage but it seems clear that in Gonchar’s absence it will be Goligoski helping to run the offense.

Ryan Whitney will be in the lineup tonight when the Pittsburgh Penguins face off against the Tampa Bay Lightning.  Whitney returns from foot surgery that has kept him from playing this season and he returns to a defensive group that, when healthy, is probably the deepest and most skilled in the game boasting scoring threats like Gonchar (out), Whitney, Boucher, Goligoski and Letang along with grinders like Gill (out), Orpik, Eaton and Scuderi.

Where exactly Whitney will fit in is still a little bit of a mystery and who will sit to make room for his return is a question.  I would say Eaton would be the odd man out but that might give the Penguins a little too much offense on the blue line so it is possible Letang (who I think has been slumping a little as of late defensively) or Goligoski (how can you sit a man who scored two goals last night?) may be warming pine tonight.  Maybe Boucher?  It is a tough choice and one that Therrien is probably glad to have.