The Pittsburgh Penguins began a fairly lengthy home stand Saturday afternoon with a 3-0 victory over the Atlantic division foe, the New York Rangers. The Penguins got some help from secondary scorers Beau Bennett and Tyler Kennedy, and got a brick wall performance from Marc-Andre Fleury to widen their Atlantic division lead to ten points.
It only took the Penguins ninety seconds to put one on the scoreboard when Beau Bennett blasted a puck, which was pushed forward by Dustin Jeffrey, past Henrik Lundqvist for his second goal of the season. Both the Penguins and Rangers saw power play chances, but neither capitalized. Throughout the period it appeared that the Rangers were out of it, only putting up four shots to Pittsburgh’s twelve going into the break.
There was no scoring in the second period, but New York seemed to liven up a bit, putting ten shots on net. Even though there was no scoring, Pittsburgh continued to get scoring chances that were shut down by Lundqvist. It could be said that this game could have been a lot worse for New York if it wasn’t for the play of their goaltender. At the second intermission, it remained 1-0 with Pittsburgh holding the advantage.
The third period had the feeling that this game could still go either way, but the Penguins made sure that it would go in their direction within the first seven minutes. An Anton Stralman tripping penalty put Pittsburgh on the power play. When you think Penguins power play, you think Crosby, Malkin, Neal, and Kunitz. However, this time it was the second unit cashing in with the ever-popular Tyler Kennedy taking a pass from Kris Letang and beating Lundqvist on the stick side to give Pittsburgh the 2-0 lead. Less than a minute later, Pascal Dupuis would score a nifty backhand goal that would be all the Penguins would need. Marc-Andre Fleury would shut the Rangers down the rest of the way to give the Penguins the 3-0 victory and give him win number fifteen.
There is no rest for the Penguins as they turn right around and welcome the Boston Bruins into town Sunday afternoon (12:30 pm/est; NBC).
Notes:
-With the shutout, Marc-Andre Fleury now becomes the franchise leader in shutouts with twenty-three, breaking the tie with Tom Barrasso.
-Ryan Callahan is a blocking machine.
-Dustin Jeffrey was everywhere this afternoon.
1. Marc-Andre Fleury (23 saves, 1.000 Save %)
2. Tyler Kennedy (1 goal, 1 assist)
3. Dustin Jeffrey (2 assists)
Comments