Penguins Burned By Panthers, 4-2

The Penguins had a chance to clinch a playoff spot to defend their Eastern Conference championship on the road against the Florida Panthers last night.

To squash any bad karma from their previous, emotional loss the night before in their showdown against the Carolina Hurricanes.

To keep the playoff race from getting too interesting for their taste during the final week of the season.

Instead, all they got for their efforts in a 4-2 loss to the Panthers was more suspense about how all three of those things will bear out.

With last night's defeat, the Penguins remain stuck in 6th place in the East. The 7th place Montreal Canadiens have one game in hand, and host the Ottawa Senators tonight with a chance to leapfrog the Penguins.

The New York Rangers hold onto the 8th spot, 4 points behind Pittsburgh and now tied with Florida but above them in the standings because they have one more victory.

The Penguins also are still 2 points behind the Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes for 4th and 5th place.

Yesterday's game started ominously for Pittsburgh when Rotislav Olesz managed to corral a puck in the high slot that Penguins' defenseman Hal Gill could not, slip behind him, and then beat Penguins' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury -- starting again on back-to-back days -- high to the glove side to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead.

LW Pascal Dupuis tied the game for Pittsburgh later in the period, whacking a puck right off the stick of a Panthers' defenseman in the slot and past Florida goalie Thomas Vokoun to tie the score.

Unfortunately, the Panthers got a break when defenseman Bryan McCabe shot one from the point that caromed past Fleury 20 seconds before the intermission to give Florida a 2-1 lead.

Despite their deficit, the Penguins played well for most of the entire first period, outshooting Florida 19-7 in that frame and making Vokoun work for nearly every save.

The most notable sequence of the game also occurred late in the first period when Panthers' defenseman Keith Ballard flipped Evgeni Malkin with a borderline dangerous hip check on the near boards with about 2 minutes left in the frame.

Penguins' Captain Sidney Crosby, out on the ice with Malkin at the time, immediately came to Malkin's aid and dropped the gloves with Ballard.

The two exchanged a few brief punches, but mostly wrestled before Crosby took Ballard down.

In my opinion, the hit was borderline. Ballard did get a little low on Malkin with the hip -- catching him near the knees. You do see plays like that, though. Former Penguin defenseman Darius Kasparaitis was famous for them. Fortunately, Malkin was okay, and Ballard was not given a penalty for the hit.

In the 2nd period, the Penguins had deja vu. It was at the near the end of the frame when, already on a power play and then also another delayed penalty on Pittsburgh, the Panthers managed to get the puck to a wide-open David Booth to Fleury's left, who buried the puck into an empty cage to up Florida's lead to 3-1.

The Penguins were upset on the play beacuse they felt they had sufficient possession of the biscuit to get a whistle after defenseman Rob Scuderi blocked a shot. Unfortunately, though, play wasn't stopped and the Panthers managed to get the puck to Booth right after that.

The Penguins may have had a point, but that's a judgment call for the officials. 50% of the time there, play will probably stop, while the other 50% of the time, it's going to continue. Either way, you have to play until you hear the beep.

The Penguins didn't wilt in the 3rd period, however. Mark Eaton got a power play goal on the 2nd minor of a 4 minute penalty assessed to Radek Devorak for high-sticking defenseman Kris Letang. That made the game 3-2 with about 6 minutes to go.

Any momentum the Penguins got from that goal, however, evaporated when Panthers' LW Ville Peltonen scored about 2 minutes later, somehow coming out from behind the goal directly into the slot, and stuffing the puck by Fleury low on the ice far side.

That's one Fleury has to stop in that situation.

With that, the Penguins lost 2 games in a row for just the 2nd time under interim head coach Dan Bylsma. They don't want to make it 3 when they finish their road trip on Tuesday night in what is now just a huge game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Even though the Penguins still control their own destiny and can still clinch a playoff berth with a win in that game, they need to be sure they stop any minor bleeding from the last 2 losses as much as anything else. They don't want to go into the postseason on a down note.

NOTES:

With yesterday's loss, the Penguins will not be able to reach a 3rd straight 100 point season. They have 93 points with 3 games to go. The most points they can get is 99, if they win out.

Malkin went scoreless yesterday for the 2nd straight game. Meanwhile, with 2 points yesterday and now 15 in his last 7 games, Alexander Ovechkin is now only 2 points behind Malkin for the league-lead in points. Malkin has 108. Ovechkin has 106, and also holds the tie-breaker -- goals -- in the event the two finish with the same number of points when the season is over.

Bylsma reconfigured all of his lines almost all-game long yesterday, either in an effort to keep the Penguins sharp or get more scoring out of everyone, or both. That was the first time we've seen anything like that from Bylsma since he went behind the bench.

RW Petr Sykora went scoreless again yesterday for the 8th straight game.