Despite not having Sid or Geno available for last night’s home opener, the Penguins still had a pulse.

Joe Vitale helped power the Penguins to a 4-2 win over the Florida Panthers last night notching a pair of assists, finishing the evening +1 an winning timely face-offs. He earned second star status for his first multiple point game of his career.

Vitale earned the primary assist on both Dupuis (1) goal that put the Penguins up 1-0 late in the first and Matt Cooke’s (3) team leading third goal of the season mid way through the second to extend the lead to 2-0.

Mark-Andre Fleury has the save of the game when he reached out with his glove to block a wide open net and then scrambled blindly to keep the puck from going over the goal line.

Florida would get goals from Goc (1) and Fleischmann (1) but the Penguins would add a short handed goal from Richard Park (1) an even strength marker from James Neal (2) to put the game away despite a late chance for the Panthers on the power play. The Panthers would pull their goal tender for the duration of the man advantage but depots playing 6 on 4 hockey, they could not cut into the Penguin’s two goal lead.

Fleury stopped 32 of 34 shots to earn his third win of the season and the Penguins improved to 3-0-1 on the season.

Notes:
- Joe Vitale has been proving his worth this year so far. He has been a headache for other teams to contend with in the face-off dot and now he is setting up his teammates to score.

- James Neal has now scored twice in the first four games of this year compared to just 2 goals last season after becoming a Penguin at the trade deadline. Last night he picked up a valuable garbage goal by heading the the front of the net, something he needs to keep doing.

- The penalty kill of the Penguins confined their impressive play shutting down the Panthers on all five opportunities they had in last night’s game.

It looks to be a stormy night in the ‘Burgh with thunderstorms rolling through the area.  And with the temperature dropping Pens fans are wondering if there will be a chance of Fleurys as in Marc-Andre Fleury playing they way all Pens fans know he can rather than the way he has been playing as of late.

In Wednesday’s night loss to the Senators Fleury was not on his game.  He let in four goals that he should have stopped or at least had a better chance of stopping than he did.  Without their star goal tender bringing his A-game the Penguins are going to be behind the eight ball and will have a good chance of falling behind 0-2 in the series.

Malkin and Crosby could not have been asked to do more in game one combining for several goals and assists.  Now with injuries mounting on the Senators bench and Ottawa’s third line not likely to produce at the same level again two nights in a row the Penguins will have to find a way to get a victory on home ice before heading north for the next game.

Mike Rupp will be in the lineup tonight after sitting out game one according to reports.  Rumors are that he will replace Ruslan Fedotenko in the lineup after Feds had a sub-par first game.  If you ask me he should probably be replacing Ponikarovsky who has not played at all up to expectations since joining the team at the trade deadline.

We will have to see how it all shakes out.