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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pittsburgh also got another goal from Tyler Kennedy (2) and the empty net icing goal from Max Talbot (1) en route to taking a 3-1 series lead thanks to the Flower who was in full bloom last night staying square to the shooter and making big saves when he had to. His 45 saves on 46 shots have the Flyers befuddled and wondering how on earth they are going to win three games to take the series with the matchup returning to Pittsburgh for a 7:00 PM showdown Thursday night.

The Penguins however cannot ride Fleury like they have ridden him so far. After a complete team effort in Game 1 of the series the Penguins have put forth three either average or subpar efforts since and still managed to climb to a dominating lead in the series. Too many penalties have plagued the Pens as they have tried to match the Flyers physical play which has gotten overly aggressive at times. Penalty killing has kept them in the games as well while the power play continues to struggle.

Then Penguins want to close out the series Thursday night. They don’t want to give the Flyers and hope in their minds that they could win this series which returning to Philadelphia only down 3-2 certainly would do.

Boucher was obviously overwhelmed in his first shift starting the game and quickly was replaced on the ice after several fumbles and missteps. The Penguins as a team played sloppy as well and took two penalties in the first five minutes which lead to an early 0-1 deficit for Pittsburgh. But Boucher and the Penguins stormed back. Boucher (3) scored off a rebound and, crashing the net late in the first to tie the game and the team never looked back as they rattled off five more unanswered goals from Dupuis (12), Cooke (13), Guerin (21), Crosby (33) and lastly Misterrrrrrrrrrr Kennnnneddyyyyyyyyyyy (15) to end the scoring.

The win keeps the Penguins with an outside chance at home ice advantage in the playoffs however, for that to happen Carolina must lose their final game against New Jersey (a possibility) and Philadelphia must do no better than split their remaining games against the Islanders and Rangers (also possible). But the Penguins must also win Saturday against the Canadiens which would give them, if this scenario plays out, two more points than Carolina, and the either the same or two more points than Philadelphia with the Penguins holding the head to head tie-breaker.

Regardless, the Penguins have the 6th seed locked up and can drop no further. All that is left to be determined is who they will face in round one and where.

Pittsburgh is now 4-4 in their last eight but 3-1 in their last four and scratching their way back into the playoff hunt.

Marc-Andre Fleury earned a shutout stopping all 33 shots the Rangers got on net and Crosby returned to the lineup after sitting out one game with an injury. With goals from role-players like Minard (1) and Kennedy (8) and also a marker from Sykora (17) the Penguins earned, truly earned, a victory. The players called up from Wilkes-Barres Scranton filled their rolls well and if they can keep playing with the intensity of Sunday’s game, it will lead to some tough decisions to be made as injured players become healthy over the next couple weeks.

The win moves their record to 23-20-4 (50 points) and leapfrogs them over Florida for the 8th playoff spot in the East. To hold onto that spot they will likely need to win against Carolina (21-20-5, 47 pts) on Tuesday. The game against the Hurricanes will be the last before the All-Star Break.