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Pens win convincingly, lose Gonchar
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Matt Cooke and Kris Letang (AP Photo)
The good news: The Penguins won their sixth straight game. The bad news: They could potentially lose defenseman Sergei Gonchar for an unknown period of time.
“I don’t have an update,” said Head Coach Dan Bylsma. “We’re going to evaluate again tomorrow morning, but I saw when he got hit. It’s at the corner of the edge of a camera when it turns away, so we don’t have a good look, but it looks more of an awkward thing than it was a big or hard hit. We are going to see tomorrow afternoon what he’s got.”
As for the game, Matt Cooke had a goal and an assist and Kris Letang had two assists as the Penguins rolled over the St. Louis Blues, 5-1, at Mellon Arena.
There have been times this season when the Penguins totally dominate, both offensively and defensively, and that was the story of the first period tonight.
The Blues didn’t get a shot on goal until 10:38 into the first period and they were outshot by the Penguins 9-0 up to that point.
“We knew that they were going to come out and play hard,” said LW Matt Cooke. “It was a focus of ours to get into the offensive zone and staying there and we did a good job at that in the first period.”
Then the scoring began.
The Penguins scored goals just 1:09 apart with Tyler Kennedy scoring his fifth goal of the season at 11:19 and Evgeni Malkin firing a shot past goaltender Chris Mason to give the Pens a 2-0 lead after the first period.
The Pens ended up outshooting the Blues 20-3 in the first period.
“The first 30 minutes were the way that we wanted to approach the game and that’s a great way to come out and start a game for sure getting 20 shots in the first period,” said Cooke.
The second period was pretty much the same story.
Ruslan Fedotenko scored a power play goal on a hard shot from the right circle and then just 36 seconds later, Matt Cooke tipped in a shot by Kris Letang to put the Penguins up 4-0.
But with 7:06 left in the second period, the Blues bounced back with a goal by Paul Kariya on just the Blues 10th shot on goal of the game.
In the third period, the Blues changed goaltenders, but Ty Conklin didn’t fare much better as Alex Goligoski slapped a Sidney Crosby pass by Conklin for his second goal of the season.
Marc-Andre Fleury was yet again spectacular in goal. On a few occasions, including on the Blues power play, he made multiple big saves to improve his record in goal to 8-0 on the season.
“Every night it seems like we are pretty constant since the beginning of the year,” said Fleury. “When the team is able to get 3, 4, 5 games a night, it’s always a big help for me and easier to win games that way.”
Photo Slideshow:
Click the slideshow link below for game photos.
Game Lines:
Forwards
Chris Kunitz – Sidney Crosby – Bill Guerin
Ruslan Fedotenko – Evgeni Malkin – Pascal Dupuis
Matt Cooke – Jordan Staal – Tyler Kennedy
Mike Rupp– Craig Adams – Eric Godard
Defensemen
Brooks Orpik - Sergei Gonchar
Mark Eaton - Kris Letang
Jay McKee - Alex Goligoski
Goaltenders
Marc-Andre Fleury - starter
Brent Johnson
Scratches
Christopher Borque
Martin Skoula
Three Stars:
1st Star – Matt Cooke (PIT) – 1 goal, 1 assist
2nd Star – Evgeni Malkin (PIT) – 1 goal
3rd Star – Kris Letang (PIT) – 2 assists
Shots On Goal:
Evgeni Malkin – 12
Ruslan Fedotenko – 5
Jordan Staal – 4
Jay McKee – 4
Time On Ice:
Brooks Orpik – 22:30
Kris Letang – 21:50
Alex Goligoski – 21:44
Next Game:
Friday, October 23rd at 7:30pm vs. the Florida Panthers at Mellon Arena (televised on FSN Pittsburgh)
Notes:
The Penguins outshot the Blues 43-23… Evgeni Malkin had 12 shots on goal… The Penguins had 20 shot on goal in the first period, but the record for the most in a period by a Penguins team is 27 on 3/15/75 against Washington at Mellon Arena… Thirteen different Penguins had at least a point in tonight’s game
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