Brent Johnson to the rescue.
Again.
After returning home from a road trip that finished with a lackluster come-from-ahead loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday, the Penguins returned home to The Bird House and played a carbon-copy of that contest in falling to the hated Philadelphia Flyers Friday, before having a ten-minute, closed-door, players-only post-game meeting, then traveling to Carolina and watching goaltender Brent Johnson slam the door and save his teammates again, shutting out the Hurricanes, 3-zip.
The Flyers' game Friday night was a miserable one for the Penguins after the first 20 minutes.
Sure, at the drop of the puck they were great. The bell rang and the fisticuffs came, and the Penguins came out on the winning end of each bout, with LW Matt Cooke getting the better of Philadelphia Captain Mike Richards at the opening faceoff and defenseman Deryk Engelland severely bloodying the eye of Flyers' heavyweight Jody Shelly.
Not long after, defenseman Kris Letang finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play beautifully to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead.
But like in Tampa on Wednesday night, things unraveled in the final 40 minutes, and it started with a shorthanded goal to Flyers' forward Claude Giroux in the second -- the 2nd time he's scored a man down for Philadelphia in 3 games against the Pens' this year.
Daniel Carillo then tipped a seeing eye shot that somehow found its way through the pads of Pens' netminder Marc-Andre Fleury -- starting for the 2nd consecutive game, despite the miserable defeat to the Lighning the other night -- later that period, and then Giroux scored again in the final frame to really put Pittsburgh behind the 8-ball.
A late goal by RW Tyler Kennedy only changed the Flyers' margin of victory, which finished at 3-2.
For the 4th straight game, the Penguins power-play failed them, going 0-6 in the defeat.
Apparently, the closed-door meeting helped, because Pittsburgh came out flying earlier tonight against the Hurricanes, looking to shelve the inconsistency that's been plaguing them and establish their identity.
They played a full 60-minutes with heart and energy. And they did it without C/RW Evgeni Malkin, who suffered a bruised knee in the game against the Flyers and wasn't able to go against Carolina after testing it in the pre-game skate.
No matter. Pascal Dupuis scored twice for the Penguins (he now has 4 on the year), and those tallies sandwiched one by Maxime Talbot.
That was 2 more than Johnson needed in stopping 33 shots -- and looking good doing it -- to record his 14th career shutout, and first in nearly 5 seasons.
BJ is now 5-0-1 on the year and second in both goals againts average and save %-age league-wide.
Crosby had 2 helpers tonight as well, and while the power play came up empty again, Pittsburgh only had 2 opportunities to break their bad run on the man-advantage.
They'll have to wait until Wednesday night to try again, though, when they continue their road trip in Dallas against the Stars, before going on to play the Anaheim Ducks on Friday night, and then the Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday night.
I bet we'll see Johnson between the pipes again in the next one, and really -- how could Head Coach Dan Bylsma not play him??? He's just too hot. Give him the nod that night, let Fleury try his luck against an underachieving Ducks' squad Friday, and then go back to Johnson against a stingy Phoenix team at the end of the trip when you might need him most.
Fleury is going to need a lot of games to get him back in the groove, but now just isn't time to give the action to #29. Pittsburgh needs wins.
I'll have an update on Geno's injury next time., as well as a status check on defenseman Kris Letang, who suffered a hand injury against Carolina and didn't finish the game.
Finally, I'll get everyone up to speed on where Michalek and Staal are, too.
More soon.
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