Ottawa Senators goaltender Pascal LeClaire returned to the lineup last night against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Mellon Arena after missing 16 games with a fractured cheekbone thanks to a puck he took in the face while sitting on the Senators' bench about 6 weeks ago.
And he thought his luck was bad then.
The Penguins peppered him for 6 goals on 24 shots in 2 periods before chasing him to the bench on their way to an 8-2 defeat of the Senators that was as abusive on the scoreboard as it looked on the ice.
Evgeni Malkin led the way for the Penguins with his 4th career hat trick. His new linemates, Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz, also had strong games.
Guerin had 2 goals and 2 assists, and Kunitz scored once while adding three helpers.
Sidney Crosby also had 3 assists in the win, while goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury played a game as good as any Penguin, stopping 45 of a whopping 47 shots, including 23 of 24 in the first period.
Think head coach Dan Blysma is going to stay with the new lines (at least for now) when the Penguins next play on Sunday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs?
Uh, yeah.
Malkin opened the scoring last night and -- get this -- did it on a power play just about 5 minutes in, finishing a cross-ice feed from Crosby to give Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead.
Defenseman Anton Volchenkov blistered a point shot by a screened Fleury to tie the score later in the period, but that was as close as they would get to the Penguins thereafter, as Pittsburgh scored 5 times in the second period to run away with the game.
Guerin got the first of those 5, going to the net and banging in his own rebound. Like Malkin's goal, Guerin's also was on the power play.
With the Penguins tallying twice on the man-advantage already, everyone should have known it was going to be a good night at that point.
Ruslan Fedotenko upped the lead to 3-1 by finishing off a play that was made possible by an outstanding individual effort by Jordan Staal.
Staal laid a hard bodycheck on Senators' forward and former Penguin Alexei Kovalev in Pittsburgh's zone, stealing the puck and immediately skating up the ice. Staal found Talbot at the blueline and continued driving to the net before getting the puck back, drawing the last Senators' defender toward him, then sliding the puck to Feds, who was wide open at the right hash.
Rusty made no mistake and buried it. LeClaire had no chance.
Kunitz made the score 4-1 with a power play goal about 4 minutes later deflecting in a Bill Guerin shot past LeClaire, then Guerin followed that up by finishing off a 3-on-1 when Crosby -- making more moves than May West with the puck and looking like he was going to shoot -- dished it to him for, basically, an open netter.
Malkin finished the Pens' 2nd period barrage by blowing the puck by a beleaguered LeClaire after Kunitz stole the puck at the Senators' blueline and quickly found Malkin to LeClair's left for the goal.
Sergei Gonchar made it 7-1 in the 3rd period by taking a nice pass from LW Matt Cooke low in the cornrer and one-timing it from the slot past Brian Elliott -- LeClair's replacement in goal for the Senators.
Malkin finished off the Penguins' signature offensive game of the season with the hat trick on a play that would have left any goaltender quivering in his wake:
A 2-on-0 with Malkin and Crosby.
Shorthanded, no less.
Elliott should have just left the crease when he saw those two coming down on him uncontested.
Chris Kelly scored late for Ottawa to make it 8-2, but all that goal did was dent Fleury's personal statistics a little.
The Penguins obviously bounced back nicely after their disappointing performance 2 nights before against New Jersey and, with the win, moved back into a tie with them atop the Atlantic Division and overall NHL standings going into their 3-day Christmas break.
What a way to celebrate this holiday season.
Merry Christmas.
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