Kostitsyn’s hat trick sealed the Penguins fate as they fell 3-2 to the Canadiens Saturday night at the Igloo.  Despite achieving 34 shots against Carey Price and the Penguins only allowing 19 shots on Fleury, Pittsburgh could not find a way to put the puck into the net more than the visiting squad despite seven or eight times when they had the Canadien netminder dead to rights.

The game was everything the Penguins needed it to be – except a win.  For a team that has been struggling to find the cage however, the match proved one thing that the Penguins have seemed to forgotten; shooting the puck more leads to chances.

While they failed to capitalize against Montreal Pens fans can only hope that they tasted what can happen when they push pucks towards the net and generate chances.  The Pens did however suffer from a lack of physicality.  Even when they did hit Montreal players for the most part the hits were weak and unimpressive.  Such weak play lead to the Canadiens scoring with just 1.6 seconds remaining in the first to put the Penguins in a 2-1 hole.

Pittsburgh is off until December 30th when they host the Boston Bruins who are the best in the East at 26-5-4 (56 pts).  By the looks of things the Penguins will have their work cut out for them as they hope to finish a dismal December on a positive note.

The story line out of the Friday’s game at New Jersey was all Marc-Andre Fleury as the struggling Penguins managed a pathetic 18 total shots on net for another poor offensive performance.  Fleury stopped all 37 shots he faced making the team’s lone marker by Fedotenko (9) at 12:51 in the second period hold up.

I guess I’ll risk repeating myself and say that the Penguins better find ways to get pucks on net because 18 shots will not cut it in the NHL night after night.  You cannot ride Fleury as hard as you rode him last night and expect to make the playoffs so it is high time someone on the team finds a way to generate some offense.

Sidney Crosby had no shots on net in the contest which seems to be a pattern of Sid not producing. Expect to hear lots of fans coaxing the team to, “SHOOOOOOOOOT!” a lot when they return home tonight to host the Montreal Candiens who are one spot ahead of them in the East.