The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the New Jersey Devils last night.  It took a third period explosion of three goals and overcoming a short handed goal by the Devils to tie the game at 1-1 at the very beginning of the period, but they won.  And while Marty Brodeur did not play, still recovering from a bruised right shoulder, the Devils had Ilya Kovalchuk in their line-up and are always dangerous.  The Devils were 3-1-1 heading into last night’s game.

It was Marc-Andre Fleury who stole the show early and often throughout the game.  Whether it was by using the tip of his toe or his leather of his glove, Fleury kept shot after shot out of the net.

At 6:07 of the first, Jordan Staal (4) put the Penguins up 1-0 and Matt Cooke got an assist on the goal proving something I said last year.  In my post Lemieux Is Right, League Is Disgraceful – Gillies And Islanders Got Off Easy I said of Cookie:

But here is something else that Matt Cooke does.  He plays offense.  He plays hockey with the puck as well.  Matt Cooke this season has 10 goals and 13 assists and is a plus 9.  He is not a goon no matter how badly you want him to be one.  Last year he scored 15 goals and 15 assists and was a plus 17.  In 2008-09 he had 13 goals and 18 assists and was  even one the score sheet.  He is also one of the league’s premier penalty killers and has 2 short handed goals this season.  He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, some no talent hack like so many of those employed by other teams for the same purposes.

Through 10 games this year, Cooke has 3 goals and 4 assists, 7 points and is a +3. He is on pace for 25 goals, 33 assists and +25. Now, he probably will not finish with those numbers since when Sid and Geno return he will get less playing time, but he appears ready to prove the naysayers wrong.

Back to the game …

The game remained 1-0 until Patrick Elias (3) scored short handed with Petr Sykora in the box on a high sticking double minor.

The Penguins responded however. On the second of the two PPs Chris Kunitz (2) scored to put the Penguins up 2-1. Jordan Staal (5) added his second goal of the night just over a minute later to make it 3-1. Then it was James Neal (8) who scored yet again to make it 4-1.

Fleury stopped 23 shots on the evening.

The Penguins are proving right now, just like last year, that even without Sid and Geno, they can play hockey. They are a good hockey team right now. And they can be an instant contender for the cup. The superstars just need to be added.

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.

Following a tough loss last week to Philadelphia followed by a complete collapse in the third period the next night against the New York Rangers, some Penguins fans were worried that not only was the streak over but that things were going to get bad fast. After rattling off wins like a hoarder collects junk, two losses in a row looked like a bad sign especially when that second one was the result of four goals not just in the last period but in the last ten minutes!

Pish posh! Some time to clear their heads and the Penguins have bounced right back rattling off back to back wins. First it was the Phoenix Coyotes who were … well … let’s just say the Penguins had their way with them darting out to a 5-0 lead by the end of the second period. The ‘Yotes didn’t even show up on the scoresheet until the last period when they finally found the next but that game was 6-1 when it ended.

After weathering a 16 shot storm in the first, Marc-Andre Fleury backstopped the Penguins effort and got goals from Kris Letang (6), Evgeni Malkin (12, 13), Sidney Crosby (27), Matt Cooke (6) and Chris Conner (3). That is a pretty good bit of spreading the puck around and Geno had three assists to goal with his two goals. Heck, with production like he has been having I say give him a week break to start every month!

Ok, sure Phoenix is in last place in the Pacific Division but they are a respectably above .500 team at 15-10-7.

Then there was last night against Florida. Florida is, unlike Phoenix, a lower tier team at 15-17-0 and the Penguins made sure to play like they are capable of rather than down to Florida’s level. Despite Florida scoring on their first shot to tie the game at 1-1, it never was close after that. The game ended 5-2 with the Penguins coasting thanks to goals by Letestu (7), Crosby (28), Cooke (7), Lovejoy (1) and the empty netter by Dupuis (8).

The game was so out of hand by the start of the third period that the Penguins decided to give Fleury, who had the night off up until that point, a period in net to get warmed up for today’s match against the Capitals. And that game is a real test. Washington is 20-12-4 and once again leading the pathetically weak Southeast Division. And nothing sets up the Winter Classic better than today’s game and the outcome of it.

Can the Penguins keep their new winning streak rolling? Sure they can. But they have to go through Ovechkin to do it which is never a small task.

Admit it. You Fleury bashers out there were all shaking your heads when just 2:41 into the game last night against Atlanta Brent Sopel (1) tipped in a shot to put Atlanta up 1-0. It is ok, you can admit that your heart sank because you believe so little in the man that lead the Penguins to two Stanley Cup Finals and one Stanley Cup in the past three years. The rest of us know that you have no faith in Marc-Andre Fleury so it is not like it is a big secret or anything.

But even you Fleury haters have to admit that it was the goal tending that prevented it from getting much worse until the Penguins got their game going. Sure it wasn’t until half way through the second period that Evgeni Malkin (5) scored to tie up the game after a legitimate goal for the Penguins had been waved off for goal tender interference, but after that it was all Penguins. Sidney Crosby (12) tipped in a Deryk Engelland shot from the point early in the third to put the Pens up 2-1. Then Evgeni Malkin (6) scored again on the power play to make it 3-1. Malkin took a rebound off the end board and tucked it behind Pavelek who was leaning the other way looking for the puck to come out to his left.

Niclas Bergfors (5) scored for the Thrashers to cut the game to 3 to 2 but the Penguins buckled down, Fleury made the saves and Malkin (7) got the hat trick on the empty netter to ice the game with 1:02 remaining.

It is not often you will ever see Marc-Andre Fleury play in back to back games especially with the usually capable Brent Johnson backing him up. But apparently Johnson’s third period collapse against Boston (partially due to poor defense in front of him but not completely) along with Fleury’s stunning play the previous night against Tampa Bay earned the Penguins number one goal tender a chance to prove that his performance was not a fluke.

And boy did he ever prove it. Fleury made a plethora of nifty saves with every part of his equipment and body stopping 31 of 33 shots. If you thought that the only reason Fleury looked good against Tampa Bay was the limited number of shot he saw, the Atlanta game puts that theory to rest. Two solid performances in a row is a good start on the road to recovery for the star net minder of the Penguins. But he still must do more and prove his consistency is back.

The win moves Pittsburgh to 9-8-1 on the season and they return home on Monday to host the New York Rangers (8-7-1). Whether or not Fleury will start his third game in a row remains to be seen. But so far it looks like he has earned that opportunity.

One game does not a trend make, but last night the Penguins looked like they finally understood what they needed to do to win a game and do so convincingly. While it took a while for any scoring to occur, once the Penguins found the net they kept finding it. The team also played solid defensively, for once, in front of Marc-Andre Fleury.

Fleury was only called on to make fifteen saves on sixteen shots but many of those saves were class Fleury where he flopped, threw out a glove or kicked out a leg with reflexes that few goalies in the league posses. In short, two nights after Brent Johnson and the Penguins collapsed in the third period against Boston, giving up five goals and loosing, the Penguins rebounded and got a solid performance in net that kept a feisty Tampa Bay squad at bay.

In the second period it was Pascal Dupuis (5) who opened up the scoring at 8:01 of the second period tipping in a shot from Kris Letang. Twenty-seven seconds later it was Alex Goligoski (4) who upped the score to 2-0 with a wrist shot into a wide open net.

In the third period the Penguins got into early penalty trouble and Steve Stamkos (15) buried a slap shot past Fleury on a 5-on-3 power play. The Penguins had to kill off another two man advantage before they were able to get rolling again. Mad Max Talbot (3), Sidney Crosby (11) and Deryk Engelland (1) all added scores to extend the lead to 5 to 1 where it remained when the final horn sounded.

Pittsburgh’s five goals came on just 20 shots while the game was marked with distinctly better and more sound defensive play than in previous games.

Engelland with his goal bounced back from some previous bad games. He finished a +3 on the evening. On a night where everyone seemed to be in on the act, Evgeni Malkin had no assists and no goals.

To find out if this will be a trend the 8-8-1 Penguins will take to the ice again tonight to take on the Atlanta Thrashers. Atlanta is 7-6-3 on the season.

There is no denying it; the Penguins have problems. Despite loads of talent, the forwards are not playing up to snuff (Malkin has been downright horrid), the defense since the return of Brooks Orpik and Michalek has been porous and Marc-Andre Fleury, despite his earlier troubles being related to the problems on the rest of the team, has been getting worse in net. The team had been just 1-4-1 in their last six heading into Pheonix. And after Fleury looked like he had forgotten everything there is to know about playing between the pipes the Coyotes mounted a 2-0 lead over the Penguins on just five shots.

Fleury, not looking like he had a clue in net, was pulled in favor of Brent Johnson who backstopped the Penguins the rest of the way. Pittsburgh came back with two goals in the second, one of which was score by Malkin (4) to tie the game in the second. Pheonix went back on top 3-2 and then with the period winding down the anemic Penguins power play finally found the net as Kunitz (3) netted the game tying goal.

The third period wound away, then overtime passed. It wasn’t until the final shooter of the shootout that the Penguins sealed the deal. And that final shooter was not Crosby or Malkin but rookie Mark Letestu. Puck in net. Pens win 4-3 in the shoot out.

Now the Penguins (7-7-1) have a few days off before returning home to host the Boston Bruins on Wednesday, November 10th at 7:00PM. I don’t know what they will do with that time off. But hopefully they will realize, finally, how bad they are as a team right now and take no solace that they escaped Pheonix with a win.