Wing'n It: Pens Notch 5 From The Sides In Win
Matt Bodenschatz | Pittsburgh Penguins
Dec 4, 11:00 PM | Hype this story!
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| Summary |
| The Pittsburgh Penguins got five goals from wingers
tonight, including two from the much maligned left side, as they skated
to a 5-2 victory over the struggling Carolina Hurricanes. Petr Sykora opened the scoring at 10:53 of the first period with the first of his two power play goals, and Pascal Dupuis buried his third of the season just minutes later, giving the Penguins a 2-0 lead heading into the second. Again, Sykora opened the frame with a power play goal, helping his team go two for three with the man advantage. But Tuomo Ruutu, who was in the box during Sykora’s second goal, had a point to prove and hammered home a beauty just 19 seconds later. From that point, the Penguins and Hurricanes exchanged goals, with Miroslav Satan and Ruslan Fedotenko adding the insurance. Evgeni Malkin finished the night with two assists, to bring his league-leading total to 31, but the star of the evening was Sidney Crosby, who tallied the primary assist on each of the Penguins’ first four goals. His four point night brought Cosby (39) to within two points of league-leader Evgeni Malkin (41). Dany Sabourin came up big for the Penguins, stopping 34 of the 36 shots he faced, including six from Eric Staal. The Penguins will have a day to rest and heal before their next game, yet another on the road, this time in Ottawa, against a Senators team that is in shambles. |
| Three Stars | ||||
| # | Player | Team | Pos. | Stats |
| 1 | Crosby | Pit | C | 4 assists |
| 2 | Sykora | Pit | RW | 2 goals (GWG) |
| 3 | Sabourin | Pit | G | 34 saves, .944 sv% |
| Stat Line | |||||||||
| Shots | Faceoffs | Power Plays | |||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | OT | Total | Won | Lost | Convert | Total | |
| Penguins | 5 | 9 | 8 | X | 22 | 26 | 38 | 2 | 3 |
| Hurricanes | 11 | 11 | 14 | X | 36 | 38 | 26 | 1 | 5 |
| Scoring Summary | |||||
| Per. | Time | Team | Goal | Assist 1 | Assist 2 |
| 1 | 10:53 12:30 |
Pit Pit |
Sykora, 6 (PP) Dupuis, 3 |
Crosby Crosby |
Goligoski |
| 2 | 1:53 2:12 6:51 15:54 18:27 |
Pit Car Pit Car Pit |
Sykora, 7 (PP) Ruutu, 9 Satan, 10 Cullen, 7 (PP) Fedotenko, 5 |
Crosby Samsonov Crosby Whitney Malkin |
Malkin Melichar Letang Brind’Amour |
| 3 | |||||
| OT | - | - | - | - | - |
| Penalty Summary | ||||
| Per. | Time | Team | Player | Penalty |
| 1 | 4:53 7:34 9:34 |
Pit Car Car |
Crosby Ruutu Wallin |
Tripping – 2:00 Boarding – 2:00 Hooking – 2:00 |
| 2 | 0:33 10:48 14:15 |
Car Pit Pit |
Ruutu Eaton Godard |
High sticking – 2:00 Holding – 2:00 Hooking – 2:00 |
| 3 | 4:43 17:54 |
Pit Pit |
Malkin Talbot |
Tripping – 2:00 High sticking – 2:00 |
| OT | - | - | - | - |
Comments
KG
Dec 4, 11:49 PM
Wow goals by our wingers? Sykora (2), Satan, Fedotenko, Dupuis…I can’t complain about lack of production tonight. Great performance all the way around.
Thanks to former pen Melichar on the give away that directly led to Dupuis goal!
TheOneAndOnlySurge
Dec 5, 12:26 AM
Yes, great job by the guys.
Can’t blame Melichar too much as it was his partner that hung him out to dry.
Lots of positives in this one so I will only mention the two negatives that I saw….they are kinda of related. They are the partnership that is Scuderi and Gill. Again these where the main two on the ice when we got trapped in our own end, on a couple of occasions. Second one is Gill alone. Even when out there with Gologoski, he was like a boat anchor, frozen in place on the ice. Gill is slow yes, and he does do what he does because he is good at getting in the correct position. However, when you are on a skating team you need to do some skating. Other than that which is easily fixed, once Gill sees what he is doing, the Pens should be unstopable.
The desire out of the wingers tonight was amazing. Dupuis, Satan, Fedotenko, Cooke, Minard and Sykora played exceptionally well. I said to my girlfried after the first I thought this was the game for Sykora. He came up short again but he had one or two good chances to wrap it up. All well, if its gonna happen its gonna happen.
Pesonen: well I noticed him a little but its almost like Mike doesn’t want to use him. He plays very little and although he does some good things, he never gets rewarded with more time. No big deal I guess, just let him continue to develop and eventually he will have to get his chance.
Minard: played really well and should stay up until all forwards are healthy. He gives us another scoring winger, which of course is something we need some consistency at.
DaBich
Dec 5, 06:06 AM
Surge, you’re right on Pesonen. I can’t understand why he isn’t given a bit more ice time to see what he can do.
I was thrilled with Minard, that guy can skate!
DaBich
Dec 5, 06:08 AM
Oh and one more thing. Sabourin’s style kills me, but it worked for him last night. He had a great game in goal.
Brandon
Dec 5, 09:16 AM
Surge, couldn’t agree with you more. Since about the last home game I have really been focused on watching the Gill/Scuderi pairing, and I must say that they need to be broken up. They cannot get the puck out by simply trying to rim it around the boards and when it is out of the zone the forwards are back so deep to help out and late in a shift that the only offensive pressure we get is a dump in and one man on the puck. On the PK they work out ok together, but somethings got to change 5 on 5.
Shlim
Dec 5, 09:22 AM
Sabourin, I think, sometimes comes out too far to challenge shooters while their whole team is in our zone. But man, he makes some amazing saves to make up for the big open net that’s there on rebounds!
DigitalGypsy66
Dec 5, 10:01 AM
Pesonen needs more than 5-6 minutes a night to find his NHL game. I think Godard had more icetime than Pesonen had last night — not a good thing.
He didn’t look too bad out there, a good zone clear or two and SOG/scoring chance.
Ben Schmidt
Dec 5, 12:30 PM
The one thing that has been disappointing me with Pesonen so far is that he isn’t skating hard. He just doesn’t seem to have any speed out there. I noticed it the most when I went to the game against the Devils last Saturday. Pesonen was always getting beat to every loose puck. He did a little better job on that score last night, but Minard was skating like a madman, and it really helped his game.
If Pesonen wants to stick in the NHL, he really needs to learn from Minard’s example, and just get his feet moving. Until he does that, I don’t think he’s ever going to be able to impress Therrien.
KG
Dec 5, 12:32 PM
The Gill/Scuderi pairing should only be together on the PK imo…5 on 5 they are both a little slow to be playing together effectively…
Matt Bodenschatz
Dec 5, 01:38 PM
On Pesonen, he is doing something we are not privy to that is leading to his limited icetime. As Ben Schmidt said, he doesn’t skate hard on a regular basis, and this apparent lack of drive could have caught the coaching staff’s attention. It’s frustrating seeing him called up and not given much of a chance, but if the coaching staff had any reason to believe he could help, he would be given expanded roles and additional ice time. He’s not, so they’re underwhelmed with something about him.
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