Penguins' Penalty Killers, Defense, and Fleury Snuff Out Flames, 2-0

When the Calgary Flames learned that the Penguins were going to start Marc-Andre Fleury in goal last night, they should have just packed their bags and moved on to the next stop on their road trip without even taking the ice.

Why, you say?

In one of the most interesting statistics I've heard in a while, Fleury has pitched shutouts on March 25 in each of the last 2 years, one against the New Jersey Devils and one against the Boston Bruins.

True to form, Fleury made it 3 years running with a 2-0 whitewashing of Calgary last night.

It was Fleury's 4th shutout of the season.

While Fleury stopped 31 shots, the Penguins as a whole played an extremely strong game. Much like Sunday afternoon's game against the Flyers, this one had a playoff feel, and Pittsburgh came ready to play.

Calgary is a team who plays physically and the Penguins matched, if not exceeded, the Flames in that category last night. The Penguins had over 40 hits, and defenseman Brooks' Orpik had 10 of them.

While the Penguins continue to take way too many penalties (they took 5 last night and now have taken 45 in their last 7 games), their penalty killers did an outstanding job again, shutting down every man-advantage the Flames had, including a 4-minute penalty to Penguins' center Evgeni Malkin late in the 2nd period when the game was still in the balance.

Kris Letang scored what ended up being the game winner about 8 minutes into the game on the Penguins' first power play of their own. After Sidney Crosby picked a rebound up off his skates to the right of sprawling Flames' netminder Mikko Kiprusoff, he tossed the puck across the crease -- and between Kiprusoff's legs -- to the other side where Letang was staring at an empty net and made no mistake.

That lead held up even though the Flames had some decent chances later in that period and in the 2nd frame. Flames' RW David Moss hit the crossbar on a turnaround wrister from 15 feet later in the first, while Curtis Glencross was robbed by Fleury in the 2nd as he extended across the crease to just get a piece of a one-timer from Glencross that went off his body and wide back to the far side.

In the 3rd, the Penguins' capitalized on a counterattack to give themselves some breathing room.

Defenseman Rob Scuderi broke up a Flames' rush with a pokecheck while Calgary was changing its defensmen. Scuderi's partner, Hal Gill, swooped in to pick up the puck and fed it to a quick-charging Malkin.

Gill decided to join Malkin as a trailer while Malkin swept down the right boards. The play looked inoccuous at the time because the Flames were able to get their 2 defensemen on; however, because of the line change, they weren't able to step up or otherwise challenge Malkin at their blue line. Instead, they tried to push him wide positionally.

Malkin dropped the puck to Gill, the non-scoring machine who, surprisingly, whipped a quick wrister through the defenseman's screen and past Kiprusoff high on the far side from the top of the right circle for his 31st career goal to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead.

It's funny --- a lot was made after the game about the blue full-body "snuggy" with a Penguins' logo that Gill was wearing in the locker room after the morning skate.

For those that haven't seen these contraptions advertised on TV, it's a full body blanket with holes for your arms.

Surely, his teammates will now make certain Gill tosses that thing on again Saturday morning before the Pens' next tilt against the New York Rangers that afetrnoon.

Of course, anyone who's expecting Gill to score again shouldn't get too far ahead of themselves, but his play last night was huge.

In the end, Fleury made the lead hold up and ensured the Penguins got 2 big points.

With the victory, the Penguins moved back into 6th place in the East, with 88 points, one behind the Carolina Hurricanes, who won their 5th straight last night, 2-1, over the red-hot Ottawa Senators. The Penguins do have one game in hand on Carolina, and that figure is likely to go up as the Penguins only have 2 games in the next 9 days. The Penguins and Hurricanes also still have a head-to-head matchup on the slate.

The 10th place Buffalo Sabres beating the 9th place Florida Panthers, 5-3, last night also was big, because it keeps the Panthers 7 points back from the Penguins.

I can't say enough about how well the Penguins' played last night. It was important for them to come out strong after Sunday's loss to Philadelphia and get back on the winning track. They had to do it against a good team who just came off a win over the Western Conference-leading Detroit Red Wings. They met the challenge, and look well positioned to both secure a playoff berth and, as I said yesterday, be a team nobody at the top of the East is eager to face.

Lets Go Pens.