Lightning Beat Adams And His Uninspired Teammates, 5-3

When defensive forward Craig Adams scores 3 points in a game -- let alone 3 in one period -- as he did last night in Pittsburgh's final game of a 3-game road trip against the Tampa Bay Lightning, one has to like the Penguins' chances of winning.

That is, unless your starting goaltender lets up a few more soft ones, your power play goes 0-for in the third straight game, and most of the rest of the cast look more uninspiring than Rosie O'Donnell coming out of the shower.

And so it went for the Penguins last night, racing out to a 3-1 lead on the strength of Adams' contributions and chasing a Lightning goaltender -- Mike Smith -- who has always given them trouble, then blowing that lead and falling 5-3 to Tampa Bay.

The Penguins finished their road trip a disappointing 1-1-1.

Pens' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury took the loss last night.  He's now 1-4 on the season, and his goals against average and save percentage are even less unappealing than his record.

Worse, Fleury's uneven and disappointing play this year continued last night, letting up a soft early goal to a no-name Lightning forward, Dana Tyrell, on the first shot he faced.

The second goal Fleury allowed to Teddy Purcell was no gem either, coming on an straightforward 2-on-2 rush where Purcell just beat Fleury with an average wrist shot to the glove side from the left circle.

Sure, Fleury came up with some big stops in the 2nd period, including on a penalty shot to Tampa Bay forward Sean Bergenheim, but those stops do nothing to wipe away his continued penchant for allowing easy goals.

Undoubtedly, Brent Johnson will be back in the net tomorrow night as the Penguins' return home to The Bird House to play the Philadelphia Flyers.

Meanwhile, most of the rest of the Penguins looked like they were more interested in being at Mons Venus than they did on the ice last night.

Captain Sidney Crosby and RW Evegni Malkin were mostly non-factors, finishing a combined -3.  It's no conicidence that the Penguins lost last night and on Saturday night against St. Louis without real contributions from those guys.

Disappointing forward Mike Comrie also continued to be a non-factor, and even was benched for periods of time in the 2nd and 3rd frame last night.  (Hilary has to be distracting him too much at home).

Even star rookie Mark Letestu hasn't made the same impact the last few games.

It's good at least a few of the Penguins role players showed up last night, though, or it might have been ugly.  Adams scored a nice shorthanded goal for his first tally in the equivalent of almost 1 and 1/2 regular seasons, finishing off a 2-on-1 rush with Matt Cooke and tying the game at 1 after Tyrell's opening goal for the Lightning. 

Cooke then finished off a 3-on-2 rush Adams' started by beating his man to the net and depositing a rebound over Smith, before Adams fed Pascal Dupuis for the 3rd tally to make it 3-1.

The Penguins were off and running at that point but simply couldn't sustain their momentum. 

After Purcell made it 3-2 before the first period ended, Tampa forward Vincent LeCavalier tied the game in the 2nd on a 5-on-3 power play goal.

In the 3rd period, when the moment was there for the Penguins to seize and perhaps take 5 out of 6 points on this trip with a strong 20 minutes, Martin St. Louis stole the show for Tampa Bay, beating defenseman Ben Lovejoy to break in on Fleury and avoid his pokecheck by chipping the puck over him for a 4-3 lead, then outracing Alex Goligoski in the final minute to seal things with an empty net goal.

And so, the Penguins returned home last night with a sour taste in their mouth after the way their road trip ended.

Let's hope they don't have a spooky Halloween weekend against the Flyers and, on Saturday night, in Carolina.

More soon.


NOTES:

Forward Aaron Asham suited up for the Pens for the first time this year last night and didn't look like he missed a beat.  He'll surely be amped up to face his former team on Friday night.

The Penguins will reveal their Winter Classic jerseys later today.   I'll have a report on that later this afternoon or tomorrow.