Pens' Finish 2009 Pre-Season With 5 Straight Defeats After Falling To Red Wings, 4-1

This will be a short post.

The Pittsburgh Penguins put an exclamation point on a pre-season to forget last night at the same site of their final game last season.

You all may remember that contest.

It was arguably the greatest game in the franchise's history.

Well, it's a far cry from Kansas Dorothy, because in Pittsburgh's 4-1 loss to Detroit last night at Joe Louis Arena, the Penguins finished their 2009 pre-season with five consecutive losses, looking little like the hockey team that captured its third Stanley Cup in the place they call "hockeytown" last June 12.

Sure, the Penguins played without Sidney Crosby, who as most people know is nursing a groin problem, and Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar, who were both healthy scratches, but regardless of who was in or out of the lineup this pre-season, the Penguins seem to be lacking some killer instinct.

Obviously, they deserve some degree of a pass with their play the lats few weeks. These games are pre-season contests after all.

But there's no doubting that the Boys of Winter are going to have to dial up the intensity when the regular season begins starting Friday at home against the New York Rangers if they want better results.

Once the team gets their championship rings this week and sees that Stanley Cup banner go up prior to the opening faceoff against the blueshirts, the Penguins need to step on the gas pedal and put last year completely and entirely in their collective rear view mirrors.

And one thing in particular they need to do after that is shore up their penalty kililng because, right now, that unit is obviously feeling the loss of defensemen Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill to free agency.

Detroit scored several power play markers last night, causing the Pens' to finish the season with a PK percentage around a putrid 73%.

That needs to improve in a hurry.

In the next few days, the Penguins will finalize their roster. They already took the first step towards that by sending goaltender John Curry to Wilkes-Barre Scranton of the AHL yesterday, leaving them with 28 roster players. They must be down to 23 (or less) by Wednesday, 9-30.

Once that is settled, perhaps they can start to actually go about their business on the ice properly.

More soon.