Penguins Winning Streak Stopped; Lose to Wild, 2-1 (SO)

I guess the Penguins can't win them all.

The offensive freight train that had been the Penguins ran headstrong into the brick wall that was Nicklas Backstrom and the Minnesota Wild last night, losing 2-1 in a shootout.

All of the regulation scoring took place in a 10 second span in the first period, and Minnesota's goal to kick things off was one Penguins goaltender Dany Sabourin -- starting for the injured Marc-Andre Fleury -- would surely love to have back.

Penguins center Mike Zigomanis won a faceoff to Sabourin's right, beating Wild center Mikko Koivu and backhanding the puck towards Sabu. The puck popped up in the air about 2 feet from the faceoff win, so it went right past defenseman Hal Gill and bounced in front of Sabourin. Unfortunately, the puck found the smallest of openings between his legs and trickled behind him just over the goal line without being touched for a 1-0 Wild lead.

I'd like to call it a bad bounce, but that puck has to be stopped.

10 seconds later, off the faceoff following Minnesota's goal, the Penguins broke into the Minnesota zone. Jordan Staal threw a puck to the net, and it hit his net-crashing LW, Matt Cooke, who promptly spun around and threw the puck past Backstrom, who was still a bit out of position expecting Staal's shot to go through.

The goal marked a point for Cooke in 5 straight games. His line with Staal and Kennedy looked good again last night.

Neither team scored again until the shootout. You had to feel good about the Penguins' chances. They have done well in such situations this year, and Sabourin had stopped 13 of the 14 career shootout attempts he had faced. Still, Marek Zidlicky scored for Minnesota on their first chance with a nice move on Sabourin, while Backstrom made it look easy against Petr Sykora, Alex Goligoski and Sidney Crosby.

I was hoping someone might go 5-hole on Backstrom because he's so good down low and side to side, like the Rangers' fellow swedish netminder, Henrik Lundqvist. The trick is to get him moving a bit and then try to tuck the puck quickly in between his legs on a deke.

It looked like Crosby may have tried to surprise Backstrom with a shot and go 5-hole, but he was off the mark and hit Backstrom's pad. He had the right spot, but should have made a move instead.

The Wild were good defensively in this one, picking off a lot of passes in the neutral zone, and Backstrom was good too, but the Penguins can't say they had their chances. The Penguins' power play -- struggling a bit of late -- had 4 opportunities, including a 4-3 for the last 90 seconds of overtime. That's a man-advantage they have to score on.

With the loss, the Penguins fell to 11-4-3 for 25 points. It was their first loss in their 3rd jerseys, which they were wearing for the 2nd consecutive home game this year. The Penguins' 6-game winning streak also ended, as I mentioned. Center Evgeni Malkin's 13 game point streak ended as well.

Newcomer Phillipe Boucher played in favor of Mark Eaton, who was a healthy scratch. Boucher got some action on the power play, but it's hard to say that his work was distinguishable either way -- good or bad. The same can be said of most of the other Penguins in this defensive struggle.

I'm sure Boucher will look more comfortable after he gets used to the Penguins' system.

The Penguins look to get back on the winning track tomorrow night on the road against Ilya Kovalchuk, former Penguins Colby Armstrong and Erik Christensen, and the Atlanta Thrashers.