Penguins' Goaltending Meltdown Results In First Loss Of Season To Flyers, 7-4

Last night's game against their arch division rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers, presented the Pittsburgh Penguins with every opportunity to begin to build back momentum after their 5-2 win against the Atlanta Thrashers on Tuesday broke a slide that saw them lose 6 of 7.

But when they needed it most, Marc-Andre Fleury gave them some of the worst goaltending of the season to-date.

Fleury has been the reason why the Penguins have won a lot of games this year, but last night's 7-4 defeat at the hands of the Flyers left him 1-6 with a 4.48 GAA and .870 sv % in his last 7 starts.

Alarming numbers to be sure.

He wasn't the only reason why the Penguins faltered last night -- his teammates also continued to show breakdowns at key times in the game and played with a lack of focus at certain points -- but he was the biggest.

Pittsburgh again fell behind the 8-ball early in the contest, when Fleury allowed Philadelphia forward Jeff Carter to beat him to the far post from the right circle about 7 minutes into that game.

They followed that up by allowing Carter's teammate, James Van Riemsdyk to sneak behind the defense, open up Fleury's legs and easily beat him 5-hole less than a minute later.

Sidney Crosby scored on a rebound, burying a wicked slapshot past Flyers' netminder Michael Leighton -- starting for the second straight night -- to get the Penguins back into it a little over a minute later, but in a sign of the way things were going to go for Pittsburgh all night, Matt Carle was able to beat Fleury cleanly at the 17-minute mark to restore Philadelphia's 2-goal lead.

Matt Cooke beat Leighton from about 35 feet through a crowd to get the Penguins back within 1 before the first period ended, but rather than compose themselves to start the second, Pittsburgh allowed a quick goal from defenseman Chris Pronger.

Pronger's goal was another soft shot that Fleury just wasn't seeing, and while Bylsma promptly replaced Fleury with Brent Johnson at that point, #1 didn't hold the fort well when he allowed Van Riemsdyk to beat him a little more than a minute later with another breakaawy goal to allow Philadelphia to race to a 5-2 advantage.

The Pens' looked to get back in the game when Crosby scored his second goal -- and 26th of the season -- by throwing a centering pass in front of Leighton from behind the net that went off a Flyer player and in, but Pittsburgh then allowed another easy one by Carter, who finished a 3-on-2 rush after a turnover by Evgeni Malkin.

Mike Rupp kept a lot of the crowd in the Igloo by making it 6-4 with about 8 minutes left when he beat Leighton from the slot for his 11th of the year with a nice shot to the far post, but the Penguins got no closer, and Mike Richards closed the scoring with an empty net goal at the 19:28 mark of the final frame.

Pittsburgh is getting to more of its game in the offensive zone -- they threw 39 shots at Leighton last night, after tossing 37 at Ondrej Pavelec of the Thrashers on Tuesday -- but their defensive play continues to be lacking. While the Penguins haven't been focused enough in their own zone lately, they also had trouble in the neutral zone against the Flyers' counterattack last night.

Special teams also hurt them, as they allowed Philadelphia to convert at 100% on their 2 man-advantage chances, while failing to score on all 3 of their own power plays.

In a back and forth game like last night, special teams could have made the difference -- despite the sub-par goaltending the Penguins received.

So now, as the Penguins look up at the New Jersey Devils in the Atlantic Division 6 points back, they also are only 8 points back of the team sitting in the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, the Montreal Canadiens.

On top of those quickly changing circumstances, Pittsburgh faces a tough 5-game, 8-day road trip beginning Saturday that will take them to Toronto, Minnesota, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, and have many pressing questions to face.

Time will tell if their players-only, closed-door meeting after the loss last night will give them answers, but unless the Penguins want to find themselves in a position where they have to make another late-season run just to qualify for post-season play, they need to start turning around their game quickly. They need more focus, better decision-making, and improved goaltending, for starters.

We'll see how they fare starting Saturday.

More over the weekend.


NOTES:

Defenseman Sergei Gonchar did NOT play last night after all, as Head Coach Dan Bylmsa opted to sit him and his bruised foot for one more game. He should return on Saturday against the Maple Leafs.

Joining him in the press-box last night was LW Ruslan Fedotenko, who took the morning skate yesterday, but whose injured ankle from Tuesday night's game remained tender enough to keep him out of the lineup.

Defenseman Martin Skoula was benched for a good part of the game after being chewed out by Assistant Coach Tony Granato following a Philadelphia goal. He only saw a little over 4 minutes of ice time in the contest.