Penguins Not as Good as it Seems
The Pittsburgh Penguins are off to a very good start on paper. Stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are at or near the top of the scoring list and they are in good shape in the standings. However, their 4-1 win against New Jersey Saturday night was a performance that has become a rarity for the Penguins this year. Many times they have had to come from behind to win or have built big leads and struggled to hold on to them if they were able to hold on at all. Also, the Power Play has not been as good to them this year as in the past, in fact it has been very average overall thus far. The power play has resulted in one too many short-handed goals and their five-on-five defense has failed them on many occasions which is part of the reason they have such a hard time keeping big leads. The return of Ryan Whitney and Sergei Gonchar will no doubt improve the defense as well as the power play when Gonchar fulfills his role at the point which has been lacking to date. However, with both men returning from a serious injury there is no guarantee they will be able to play at a high level right away if at all this season. Bottom line, if the Penguins want to return to the finals and ultimately win the Stanley Cup they will have to play more consistently on the power play and defensively 5-on-5, otherwise it will be a long off-season of “what ifs” in Pittsburgh.
Penguins Making up for lack of Defense with two Straight Eleventh Hour Victories
The Pittsburgh Penguins are certainly on an emotional high with their two late comeback wins this week.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have been a fun team to watch through their past two games. In the two contests, the Penguins have put up seven and five goals respectively and both games have been hotly contested and right down to the wire against two rivals.
On Tuesday night, November 11th it was Pittsburgh skating at the home of the team that knocked them out in last year’s Stanley Cup Finals… the Detroit Red Wings in which they overcame a 6-4 deficit with just under five minutes left in the third period. After forcing overtime with the help of center Jordan Staal’s hat trick, it was an assist by Staal to Ruslan Fedotenko that set up the game-winning goal in OT.
Then, on Thursday night on the 13th the Pens overcame yet another late deficit when they were down 4-3 in the waning minutes of the third period at home to divisional opponent, the Philadelphia Flyers. This game would not be settled in overtime however, as the two teams battled it out in a five shot per team shootout, with the lone goal being scored by a defenseman in Alex Goligoski on Pittsburgh’s final attempt.
Now with these two momentum charged high-scoring wins, the Penguins have some self-belief that they can weather the storm before their arguably two top defenseman return to the lineup; Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney.
However, no team can expect to keep winning games like this so they’ll have to definitely step up their game plan on the defensive side and start taking charge in the earlier parts of games by getting their goals sooner. But with that being said, these are still two solid wins for a still young team to build off of that has suffered many losses through free agency and injury in this past off season.
