Malkin's 5 Points Lead Penguins Past Thrashers

Welcome to my first installment -- ever -- of "You Know It's Going To Be A Good Night At Mellon Arena When".

You know it's going to be a good night at Mellon Arena when:

1) Your previously stagnant power play goes 3-for-7 with the man advantage

2) You destroy a non-playoff team like you should, even though you usually play down to your opposition and even though that team came into your building having won every one of their games for the last 2 weeks

3) The only disappointment in the Arena is when the league's leading scorer fails to rack up his 6th point of the night -- and a hat trick -- after missing a penalty shot late in the 3rd period

4) You score a goal off a 2-on-1 rush that was led by 2 defenseman and finished by Mark Eaton.

I said it before and I'll say it again --- PUT THAT MAN ON THE POWER PLAY!!

Yes, I'm still joking.

The Penguins definitely had the MoJo going last night at the Igloo, where they thrashed Atlanta, 6-2, to move into a 4th place tie with the Philadelphia Flyers (who lost, 3-2 to the Detroit Red Wings) in the Eastern Conference.

Although Atlanta opened the scoring about a minute into the game on a goal by Bryan Little, his 30th -- yes, his 30th -- that was about the high point for them.

Sergei Gonchar got the Penguins off and rolling with a power play goal at the 9 minute mark, ripping a shot top corner from about 45 feet just as a two-man advantage was ending.

LW Chris Kunitz scored another power play goal before the end of the period capitalizing on a rebound right in front of Thrashers' goaltender and former Penguin Johan Hedberg to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead going to the intermission.

The Penguins poured it on in the 2nd. Jordan Staal notched his 20th, beating Hedberg far side from about 20 feet, then Malkin scored 2 goals in 40 seconds, first capitalizing on a rebound in front of Hedberg during a 4-on-4, then scoring on a slapper on the power play from the right boards that went over Hedberg's shoulder off an Atlanta defenseman to up Pittsburgh's advantage to 5-1.

Eaton scored the capper, as described above, on a 2-on-1 rush with Gonchar, who made a nice backhand dish to Eaton. #7 made no mistake depositing the pass into an empty cage behind Hedberg.

Malkin missed a chance to get the HT and add his 103rd point of the season when he failed to capitalize on a penalty shot with about 3 minutes to go. The fans were in a frenzy over Geno's performance to that point. If he scored there to set a career high for points in a game with 6, the roof might have come off. Alas, he tried to make to many dekes on Hedberg, who stayed with the play well, and forced Malkin to push the shot wide.

Penguins' goaltender Marc Andre Fleury stopped 18 of the whopping 20 shots Atlanta threw at him for his 29th win.

The Penguins are now 9-0-2 in their last 11 and 13-1-5 in their last 19.

Let's face it ... the Penguins deserve credit. They could have taken Atlanta lightly. Clearly, they didn't. They put forth a good effort, which was nice to see since they can play down to the competition sometimes. Sure, Atlanta was missing Ilya Kovalchuk. But he missed the prior 2 games, too, and they didn't have a problem winning those, including the spanking they gave the Southeast Division leading Washington Capitals the night before. Atlanta was playing well and the Penguins deserve some credit for whipping them.

The Penguins host the Los Angeles Kings on Friday in their next game. Hopefully they'll keep things rolling. If they hadn't slumped for so long and the season was a little longer, they might be able to make a run up to the 3rd place Capitals and 2nd place New Jersey Devils, who now are only about 10 points above them in the standings. As it is, that's probably too much to ask of them to overcome in the last 11 games. But right now, things are looking good. They are beginning to separate themselves from the teams out of playoff position -- namely the Florida Panthers, who are now 6 points back of them in 9th place.

The Devils, by the way, played in a pretty big game last night. Their goaltender, Martin Brodeur, set the all-time NHL record for most victories in a career by a netminder, with 552, breaking the record set by Patrick Roy 6 years ago.

Let's Go Pens.