Despite squandering four power play chances in the first period and falling behind the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, the Penguins found a way to win on the West Coast. Something that has been more difficult for Pittsburgh than Eric Lindros taking to the ice and not getting a concussion. The underachieving Ducks (now just 4-7-2 this season) could not overcome the Penguins despite another pathetic performance with the man advantage that makes me wonder exactly what the coaching staff will have to do to wake up a bunch of guys who have plenty of talent but apparently not the desire to play on the ice when the other team is down a man.

The game seesawed back and forth with Anaheim’s Corey Perry (9) scoring early in the first, Pittsburgh’s Mike Rupp (4) scoring early in the second on a snap shot, the Kris Letang (1) finding the net midway through the period and finally Corey Perry (10) scoring again as the second period wound down.

Then in the third it was a fabulous flurry. That’s flurry, not Fleury, even though the Pen’s netminder performed well once again in the game stopping 26-29 shots he face. No, it was a flurry of goals that decided the game and then a save that sealed it.

At 7:55 of the third Alex Gologoski (6) put the Penguins up 3-2. Nineteen seconds later Saku Koivu (2) tied it up again. Fifty-nine seconds after that it was Pascal Dupuis (3) that put the Penguins up for good. With a few minutes remaining however it was Sidney Crosby who stacked his pads and stopped a Niedermayer shot that kept the Penguins on top.

The victory pushed the Penguins to a 7-0-0 road record this season and a 12-3-0 (24 pts) record overall at a time when they are missing key pieces to their lineup; Talbot Gonchar and Malkin. Tyler Kennedy returned to the lineup and tallied 2 assists.

The Penguins now have to travel to Los Angeles to battle the Kings and former Penguins Rob Scuderi on Thursday night.

The Penguins need to look into a good exterminator because their locker room is infested with injury bugs. So far every time a Pittsburgh Penguin has gone down, the team has kept right on winning. With Gonchar out the team has hardly looked like it missed a beat. With Mr. Hockeyburgh 2009, Tyler Kennedy, out and his goal production absent from the lineup on Wednesday night the team slaughtered the Candiens. But now with Evgeni Malkin out two, perhaps three weeks, with a sore shoulder the team must overcome another hurdle.

The Penguins are perhaps lucky to be be 10-2-0 and leading the Atlantic this season early on because the odds of them going 10-2-0 in their next twelve is going to be a tall order. Games against the Kings, Sharks and Devils will be certainly offset by games against the Ducks, Panthers and the Wild. But they still are going to have to have a lot of guys play above their level to be as impressive over that stretch. Most fans would probably be happy with a .500 record but be sure the Penguins players will not be.

Staal is getting a promotion, basically by default, to the second line because any line he centers in the absence of Malkin is the Pen’s #2 unit. Players like Rupp and Adams are going to be called upon to do even more.

And it all starts tonight as the Pens visit the so-so Columbus Bluejackets. A win tonight helps set them off the next part of this year’s journey on the right foot. A loss probably makes them wonder what they will need to do to succeed for a couple weeks until Malkin returns.

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.

The Ottawa Senators missed open nets and hit posts with regularity last night. And if they weren’t doing that, Marc-Andre Fleury was stoning their shooters. After falling behind 1-0 late in the first, Bill Guerin (2) responded a little more than half a minute later to tie the game up and the Penguins never trailed again against an improved Senators squad.

Guerin crashed towards Leclaire between the pipes for Ottawa and his shot careened off the boards and right back to the front of the net. Leclaire looked to his left as the puck squirted to his right and Guerin, falling down with a Senator draped on his shoulder, powered the puck into the net. Mr. Hockeyburgh 2009, Tyler Kennedy, added two goals (his third and fourth of the season) in the second and Jordan Staal added his third in the third to down the Senators.

Fleury stopped 30 of 31 shots he face and displayed his continuing to improve puck handling skills to backstop the Penguins to a 4-1 win. The Penguins improved to 5-1 and head to Carolina for their first meeting of the season with the Hurricanes and first meeting since the Penguins embarrassed the ‘Canes by sweeping them 4-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals last season.

Tonight is the final home preseason game for the Pittsburgh Penguins on account of the Columbus game which was moved up to avoid the lunacy that is about to descend upon the city with the protesters and the G-20. Yes, this one I am going to since my wife and her mother went to the Columbus game while I watched Charlotte.

Now that the field has been weeded out a little bit we will get to see Malkin and some of the other starters as well as a few of the higher skilled prospects and camp attendees. Mr. Hockeyburgh 2009, Misssssster Kennedyyyyyyyy, will also be in the lineup along with Caputi who is trying to make the club out of camp.

This will be my first live scouting mission this season as, on account of work, I have not been able to make any of the open practices. I am sure that I will have some things to sat afterwards.

In other news, I’ve been looking regularly at the pictures of the construction on the new arena. Looking pretty good. I’ll have my thoughts about that up this weekend.

After resolving some technical difficulties with the site that have prevented me from posting for the past week, counting up hundred of emails from visitors who could not get our poll software to work and sorting through and deleting some late votes that somehow snuck by when the poll failed to auto close on the 14th, the results the first annual Mr. Hockeyburgh award have been tabulated.

And the winner is … MISTERRRRRRRRRRR KENNEDY!

Tyler Kennedy received 29.3% of the vote and edged out playoff MVP Geno Malkin (23.6%) for this year’s award.

Coming in third was former Penguin Rob Scuderi (19.3%) and rounding out the voting was Marc-Andre Fleury (14.7%) and Bill Guerin (13.1%).

Tyler Kennedy has proven to be a fan favorite all year long with his high energy play and aggressive play in the offensive zone. There is no doubt in my mind that he is worthy of this award.

Congratulations Mr. Kennedy! And don’t let the award go to your head.