James Neal (3, 4) scored two goals, one with time running down in he third to tie the game, but in the end the Penguins lost last nights match against the Washington Capitals 3-2 in overtime.  Neal has been proving that last year’s poor numbers after being obtained by the Penguins in a trade were perhaps just a fluke.  Neal had been a 20 goal scorer for Dallas but put up only 2 goal in over 20 games for the Penguins last year.  He has four goals in five games to start the 2011-12 campaign.

The Penguins avoided taking a penalty that lead to a Capital’s power play until the overtime frame.  At that time it was Jordan Staal who got caught for tripping which lead to the winning goal for Washington.  The Penguins with 41 shots on net for the game could not get any more than two pucks behind Vokoun.  Then Penguins held the Capitals to just 19 shots and Brent Johnson made 16 saves.

The OT loss pushes the Penguins to 3-0-2 on the season headed into Saturday’s matchup with Buffalo.

Game number two is in the bag.  And the Penguins kept the good things going early in the season.

In beating the Calgary Flames 5-3 last night, the Penguins netted another two power play goals (Niskanen and Malkin) and held the Flames to just 20 shots on goal.  The Penguins added goals from Mr. Tyler Kennedy (1), Craig Adams (1) and Jordan Staal EN (1) to improve to 2-0 on the young season.  Fleury got his second win of the season.

The Penguins power play managed 10 shots on net.

James Neal added notched an assist.

Jordan Staal and Matt Niskanen where the only two Penguins to notch more than a point with a goal and an assist each to give the Penguins a well balance attack.

Tonight the Penguins head to Edmonton to face the Oilers who have not taken to the ice yet this season.

It has been just one game. But it was against the defending Western Division champs. It was just one game. But the Penguins scored twice on the power play. It was just one game. But the Penguins got a short handed goal. It was just one game. But Fleury made 33 saves on 36 shots. It was just one game. But James Neal scored a timely first goal after producing anything at all last year. It was just one game. Matt Cooke, the much maligned Matt Cooke mind you, showed what he could do and notched two goals (PPG & SHG). It was just one game. But when it counted Evgeni Maklin scored in the shootout.

That’s not bad for an opening night’s work three hours out of phase on the West Coast. Lots of positives. But it was still just one game.

Without Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Mark Letestu, the Penguins limped into New York way underpowered and depleted at center.  By all rights the Rangers, 29-20-4, should have had at least an fairly easy time against the gimpy Penguins.  And after jumping out to a 2-0 lead on goals by Prust (8) and Anisimov (11) things were looking that way early in the second period.

Then came a spurt.  Pittsburgh scored on goals by Dustin Jeffrey (3) at 5:30 of the second, Mike Rupp (5) at 10:36 of the second and Chris Kunitz (17) at 14:12 of the second.  They were up 3-2 when they lost another center, Jordan Staal, to a match penalty and when he was ejected for throwing a gloved punch.  The Penguins almost escaped the second period without that hurting them.  But at 19:47 of the frame Callahan (11) scored to tie up the game on the power play that the Staal penalty afforded the Rangers.

The Penguins dug in in the third period and held off the Rangers through overtime.  Then came the shootout.  Marc-Andre Fuery, who made 26 saves in regulation and OT, stopped shots by Wolski, Zuccarello, Callahan, Anisimov, Stepan and Dubinsky.  Lundqvist stopped Letang, Dupuis, Kunitz, Goligoski, Kennedy and Conner.

Then came Dustin Jeffrey, the man who scored the first goal of the game for Pittsburgh and who by all rights would be playing daily for the big club on a lesser team not chocked full of talent.  He scored in round seven of the shootout.  Fluery then proceeded to stop Marian Gaborik to end the game.

The Penguins were undoubtedly happy to come out of it all with two points considering their situation.  But surprisingly the Penguins have been playing well without their superstars lately.  They are proving that they can stay competitive, adapt and even win when temporarily missing pieces to the puzzle.

No Sid.  No Geno.  How well can the Penguins fare?

Thursday night they put up a spirited effort against a Devils team that seems to have finally figured out how to win.  But they came up short and shut down by the one thing that hasn’t changed in New Jersey this year.  That would be Martin Brodeur.  Oh, they had their chances.  They just could not finish.

Last night the Hurricanes came to town.  A mediocre team this year, the Penguins built a 3-0 lead on an even strength goal by Dustin Jeffrey (2), a power play goal by Mark Letestu (10) and a short handed goal by Pascal Dupuis (10).  Good thing too because Carolina scored twice in the final five minutes to make the game look respectable.

This may be the way the Penguins have to cope until the two headed monster returns.  Without those two they are as good, still, as your average team sitting at 8th or 9th in the Eastern Conference and they are better than teams like the Islanders who they will play to end things out before the All Star Break and to start things up afterwards.

Win the games against the bottom feeders.  Pull out a couple among the better teams.  Then when the team gets healthy make the final run for the playoffs.

Marc-Andre Fleury has allowed just seven goals in the past four games. His teammates in front of him seem to have realized the value of playing strong defense in front of him. And the Penguins are jumping on opportunities in the offensive zone.

With a 3-0-1 record since Fleury got a chance to start following the collapse against the Boston Bruins, Carolina gives a chance to see if the Penguins have finally turned the corner this season. Sure the Penguins beat the stacked Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday but fans want to see if it was luck or skill. The Hurricanes are 9-9-0 this season and another legitimate test for the Penguins.

Despite some important improvements to the play of the team lately, there is still one glaring problem. That problem is the power play. Goligoski has recently been replaced by Paul Martin but I think the problems still run deeper than that. Martin has experience commanding the power play from his days in New Jersey. But we are still talking about a unit clicking at just 12.8% on the season. They look unsure about how to play with the man advantage and how many games they could have won if only they would have scored a goal or two on the power play still is haunting.

The Pens are 10-8-2. They could be much better if someone, anyone, would figure out that the PP needs some serious adjustment. I doubt that Martin is the solution that turns it into the unit it should be.