Penguins' 55 Shots Gives Them Comeback Victory Over Rangers, 5-4 (OT), Division Lead

Coming out of the Olympic break, the focus of the Penguins' coaching staff was to get the team playing its game, and getting them to play it consistently.

That means controlling the puck, keeping it in the other team's zone, and launching a lot of shots on the net.

That's certainly what they did in Tuesday's night's victory over the Buffalo Sabres, but it will be understood if Blymsa gives them the day off today after their performance last night.

The Pens' bombarded the New York Rangers and their all-world netminder Henrik Lundqvist with 55 shots last night -- including the final one from Evgeni Malkin in overtime that Jordan Staal deflected in for the game winner, as Pittsburgh game back from 2 goals down in the third period to beat New York, 5-4.

The 55 shots the Penguins put up last night were more shots than they had ever launched in a road game in the history of their franchise.

And they needed every one, not only because Lundqvist was rejecting most of them left and right, but because their starting goaltender, Marc-Andre Fleury, was pulled after about 33 minutes when he allowed 4 goals on 12 shots and looked like he hasn't seen game action in almost 3 weeks in the process.

Which, not surprisingly, was exactly the case, thanks to the Olympic hiatus where he served only as the 3rd string goaltender for Team Canada and didn't see a single second of game action during that time.

While Fleury was noticably ticked off at being pulled (he could be seen throwing his stick down the hall after reaching the bench), he certainly had nothing to gripe about. He was going down to the butterfly early, found himself out of position several times, and generally looked out of rhythm for all of the time he was in the net last night.

So, down 4-2 with a little more than 25 minutes to do, all the Penguins needed from backup Brent Johnson in order to try to get back into the game was to have him reject every single piece of vulcanized rubber the Rangers through at him the rest of the way.

And he did.

All 4 of them.

In a sign of how much the Penguins' truly dominated the game in every facet other than on the scoreboard, the Rangers only put up 16 shots TOTAL in the game, and Johnson could be excused if he found himself napping for the final 27 minutes when he was at least dressed as the goaltender out there.

The Rangers had 8 shots in the first period, 7 total in the second (3 on Johnson), 1 in the third, and zero in the OT.

The Penguins, by contrast, tossed almost that many (15) on Lundqvist in the first period alone, but that wasn't good enough, so they threw 17 at him in the 2nd frame.

Top that? Sure. How about 19 in the third, including goals by Mike Rupp, his first in 19 games, and Alex Goligoski, his first in 36 games, to tie the score and send it into overtime.

They had more than 3X the number of shots the Rangers had overall.

The final one -- Staal's 2nd marker, a 4-on-3 power play tally after he had already scored in regulation -- won it in OT for PIttsburgh.

Malkin's assist on that OT goal quietly gave him points in 15 consecutive games, tying a career high.

Chris Kunitz scored the other goal for the Penguins -- also a power play goal -- and added 2 assists. He had a real strong game last night.

Pascal Dupuis had a strong game, too. He had 10 shots all by himself.

With the victory, the Penguins finally recaptured the Atlantic Division lead from the New Jersey Devils. Pittsburgh now has 80 points; New Jersey has 79. We'll see if that stays that way tonight, as the Devils square off against the Calgary Flames.

For one night, though, the Penguins got a win and division lead they deserved.

More over the weekend.


NOTES:

RW Bill Guerin missed the game last night because of back spasms. In part because of that, and in part because of some back spasms that Mark Eaton also was experiencing, the Penguins inserted Jay McKee in the lineup and dressed 7 defensemen as a result. Eaton played with no apparently problem, and McKee saw only about 5 or so minutes of ice time.

Newly acquired LW Alexei Ponikarovsky has obtained his work visa and should be in the lineup this weekend. He'll probably even be available for practice today, but after last night's strenuous performance, and back-to-back contests scheduled for the weekend, I expect Bylsma will give the team the day off.