New York, New York: Penguins Smother Rangers For Seventh Straight Win

Yawn.

This is what it has come to for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Be opportunistic offensively.  Play stifiling defense.  Don't allow a power play goal.   Get the usual effort from your #1 goaltender.

And so it was last night, as the Pens broke out the same blueprint to beat the blueshirts at Madison Square Garden, 3-1, for their seventh straight victory, and 10th in their last 12 games.

Pittsburgh got an early goal from forward Max Talbot 5 minutes into the game when he came from the blindside to steal a puck from a Ranger player (I forget who) that gloved the biscuit out of the air in his own zone and put it down to play it, only to find that Fu-Man-Chu swooped in, got to it first, and quickly snapped a puck to the far side past surprised New York netminder Henrik Lundqvist.

When Defenseman Kris Letang and forward Chris Conner then scored goals about a minute apart just beyond the halfway mark of the second period, the game might as well have been all over but the cryin.

Sidney Crosby was the primary assist on Letang's marker, by the way, dishing him a beautiful pass in the slot to finish a 3-on-2 rush, and in the process, upping his scoring streak to 13 games.

Marion Gaborik scored in the third period for New York, but all that did was nick The Flower's quest to lower his personal statistics some more, which he otherwise did in stopping all 25 of the other Ranger shots in the game.

As he has over the last three weeks, Fleury once more looked tall, confident and controlled between the pipes.

The Pens' PK unit also came up big again, killing off all 3 man-advantages the Rangers had in the contest, including two in the third period when New York was desperately trying to get back in the game.

Let me tell you folks --- Brooks Orpik, Zybnek Michalek, Paul Martin, Matt Cooke, Pascal Dupuis, Craig Adams and Talbot are not just killing off every penalty against, they are making it look easy.  They jump over the boards with confidence killing penalties, and it's simple to see why.  They cut off passing lanes well, show tenacity down low, demonstrate intelligence around the net, and transition off each other so well when the opposition has the puck around the outside. 

And when pucks get through, Fleury slams the door.

One thing that all the players on the team haven't gotten enough credit for -- and which, I think, is an important ingredient to the unit's success -- is the fact that they simply don't take very many penalties against in the first place.

It's one thing if a PK unit has to knock off 5 or 6 power plays a game.  When that happens, the odds of your opponents breaking through eventually are fairly good. 

But the Penguins are only taking 2 or 3 or, at most, 4 penalties against per contest.  They've done that consistently over the last few weeks, and that little foundational element to success of the PK when they do have to go over the boards shouldn't be overlooked.

It's funny --- I'm acutally highly anxious each time Pittsburgh has to kill a penalty now because I want to see how many straight they can kill.  They're up to 32 and counting.

Now 16-8-2 and tied atop the Atlantic Division with the Philadelphia Flyers with 34 points, Pittsburgh is off until Thursday when they visit a hot Thrashers team in Atlanta that has won 5 straight games behind the hot goaltending of Ondrej Pavelec and strong play of defenseman-convert Dustin Byfuglien.

More soon.