Pens Own the West, Winning Streak at 6!

Main Storylines:

- The Pens have won 5 in a row coming into this game

- Kris Letang remains out indefinitely with a concussion, Deryk Engelland will sit out with a lower body injury, and Dustin Jeffrey is out with whatever illness has given him a 101 degree fever.  Brian Strait has been recalled and will join the defense tonight.  If you remember way back to the 1^st quarter of the season, Strait was called up and proceeded to injure his elbow half way into his season debut.

- Tyler Kennedy will also make his return to the lineup tonight after missing a month with a high ankle sprain.  Eric Tangradi takes a seat for him.

- Fleury gets the start tonight.  If he wins, he will become the 4^th goalie in NHL history to record at least 35 wins in 4 or more straight seasons.  The other 3:  Brodeur (11 seasons), Kiprusoff (6 seasons), Lundqvist (5 seasons)

Result:

Pens  2  Coyotes  1

Goals:  Michalek (2) from Staal

            Kunitz (19) from Malkin, Martin

Malkin managed to set up the GWG despite the awkwardness of this.

               

The Good:

- The Pens have won their 6^th in a row and continue to hold pace as the 2^nd best team in the East, though stuck at 4^th in the standings

- Tyler Kennedy looked very good in his return from injury, skating fluidly and shooting from all angles like his usual self

- I love watching Joe Vitale skate around like a nut case.  He went into that Cooke scrum with the intent of grabbing every Coyote.  He skates around at 120% at all times.  He really is just a great blue collar player.

Marc-Andre Fleury – The Pens have been allowing quite a few shots lately, but all that does is improve Fleury’s save percentage with the way he has been playing.  He finished with 36 saves and was named the #1 star, very deservedly so.  He made many purely instinctual pad saves and somehow kept the puck out of the net on quite a few crazy scrambles in front.  Also, no puck misplays = a solid game all around for flower.

Zbynek Michalek – Probably second to Fleury in the amount of times a player has appeared under this heading in the past month, Michalek put together another great game, even scoring a rare goal on his former team.  He finished with 3 blocked shots and played a team high 25+ minutes of strong defensive hockey. 

Brian Strait – Strait just proved how much of a luxury it is to have such a deep defensive core like the Penguins do.  He came into the lineup and led the team with 4 blocked shots and was 2^nd with 4 hits in 12 minutes of ice time.  The fact that the Pens can take their 8^th defenseman and give him a normal shift where he has an impact is a big key to this team’s future with Letang out.

The Bad:

- Mike Smith’s blocker side!  Both Michalek and Kunitz scored on Smith blocker side as he misplayed each and got a piece of both shots but could not stop them

Might wanna compensate to your right a little...

- The only Coyotes’ goal was due to a little bit of lazy backchecking by Malkin, who failed to cover a wide open Ray Whitney in the slot on the play.  Malkin did make the great play to get Kunitz the puck on his goal, but the lapse was definitely bad.

The Ugly:

- The scrum that started with Mike Smith and Matt Cooke was absurd.  Cooke later said that the ref told him that he got a penalty so the Coyotes wouldn’t go 2 men down.  Cooke literally did nothing but get his head shoved into the ice and received a roughing penalty for it.  Goalies apparently can take liberties with him and it will be an even-up at worst.

Maybe Cooke just wanted to grind?

Thoughts:

- As the Pens continue to firm up their grasp on the 4^th seed, start mentally preparing yourself for the Flyers or Devils.  It will almost certainly be an atlantic division foe for the Pens to start off round 1.

- Fleury did it, now only the 4^th goalie in NHL history to have at least 4 straight 35-win seasons.  Makes you wonder how anyone has complained about him EVER.

- The Pens now have 2 games against teams that are pretty much in playoff mode vs. Toronto and Florida.  They are beating teams pretty soundly right now, but the desperation that the next 2 teams show could go a long way in showing how strong the Pens really are.

Just a sweet pic of Neal's stick

Pens Record: 39-21-5, 83 pts, 2^nd in the Atlantic, 4^th in the East

Next Game:  3/7 vs Tor, 7pm