Penguins Stormed By Hurricanes In 3-2 Defeat

The Carolina Hurricanes went into the game last night against The Boys Of Winter as winners of only 6 of their 28 games this season all year long and by far and away the worst record in the National Hockey League.

Worse still, none of their whopping 6 wins had come on the road.

So, of course, they walked right into Mellon Arena, ran up an early 3-0 lead on sloppy and sluggish Pittsburgh and ultimately turned that into a 3-2 victory over a team that all too often plays down to its opposition.

Something about the Penguins coming down from their intense game Saturday night against the Chicago Blackhawks?

Yeah.

Defenseman Andrew Alberts of all people got Carolina going last night with his first goal in 67 regular season games by finishing a 3-on-2 after he walked mostly uncontested towards the net (hard to blame Pittsburgh for choosing to leave him alone) before dangling the biscuit and tossing a backhander past Pens' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury at nearly the 5-minute mark of the first.

'Canes winger Jussi Jokinen somehow managed to split the Pittsburgh defense -- barely -- on a play later that period before tossing a wrister over Fleury's shoulder to up the Hurricanes lead to 2-0.

When Carolina winger Ray Whitney scored to make it 3-zip early in the 2nd period, you could hear the groans throughout Mellon Arena.

Those groans changed to cheers about 5 minutes later though, as Sidney Crosby -- who returned somewhat unexpectedly last night after missing only one game with his groin problem -- and Mike Rupp scored about 50 seconds apart to make it a hockey game again, both throwing wrist shots underneath and between the legs of Carolina goaltender Manny Legace.

Legace probably wished he had both goals back at first, but that was before he remembered he was undefeated in his career against Pittsburgh. After there was no scoring in the 3rd period and that 3-2 score became final, Legace raised that mark to 4-0.

Fleury only stopped 18 of 21 Carolina shots for the Pens, while Legace rejected 30 of the 32 Pittsburgh put on the board.

The loss left Pittsburgh again now tied with the New Jersey Devils for the top spot in the Atlantic, after the Devils' 3-0 shutout win against the Sabres -- a record tying 103rd career whitewashing for New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur.

Hey, at least the Philadelphia Flyers continue to sputter. After unceremoniously firing head coach John Stevens last week after 6 losses in 7 games (including 2 straight shutouts) and hiring Peter Laviolette to replace him, they've promptly gone out and lost their next two, including last night's 3-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens where their supposed high-octane offense only put up 13 shots all game.

I actually like Laviolette as a coach and thought he may get a call from Pittsburgh when former coach Michel Therrein was on the hot seat last year, so it's probably only a matter of time before he rights the ship there in Philadelphia.

In Pittsburgh, righting the ship is what the Penguins need to do. With 2 straight losses going into Thursday night's game against the Habs, they want to stop that trend before it becomes somethign like what the Flyers are dealing with.

Pittsburgh will probably have defenseman Alex Goligoski back for that game Thursday night. GoGo began practicing with the team full tilt again yesterday.

More later this week.