Bounceback Kids Do It Again: Pens Thrash Atlanta, 6-3

It's goes without saying that a good team wins 12 games in a row.

The sign of a team better than just good, however, is the ability to bounce back after a loss and keep yourselves from spiriling into something like an 8-game losing streak.

It's just another lesson for the Capitals to take from the Penguins, so I hope they were paying attention last night when Pittsburgh pulled up their bootstraps and ran their record against the Southeast Division to 9-1 this year with a 6-3 beating of the Atlanta Thrashers at CONSOL Energy Center.

Pittsburgh was hoping to get a much better start last night than it did against the Ottawa Senators on Sunday, but the players instead found themselves behind the 8 ball less than a minute into the game when Atlanta forward Evander Kane snuck in on a rush, got behind the Pens' "D", took a pass and buried it behind a sprawling Marc-Andre Fleury for a 1-0 Thrasher lead.

Pens' Captain Sidney Crosby didn't wait long after that to run his scoring streak to 25 games, taking a pass from defenseman Kris Letang to the left of Atlanta netminder Ondrej Pavelec and easily whipping it into the open cage on the power play to tie the score about 6-7 minutes later.

When Thrashers' star blueliner Dustin Byfuglien then capitalized on the Penguins leaving him alone at the point by drilling a bullet by Fleury to make it 2-1 Atlanta later that period, Crosby took his cue again, this time taking a nice pass from Alex Goligoski on the move at the Thrashers' blueline, deftly splitting Atlanta defensemen Brent Sopel and Ron Hainsey in Lemieux-like fashion, then going top corner, glove side on Pavelec to tie the score at 2 before the first intermission.

In case anyone hadn't noticed, Crosby is just dangerously wicked right now.

The game started to turn in the Pens' favor in the second period, as they outshot Atlanta 10-1 to start the frame, then were rewarded when LW Matt Cooke made a nice play to steal the puck on the forecheck behind the Atlanta goal and quickly feed an oncoming Craig Adams, who scored his first goal in 28 games by flicking a wrister off the crossbar and past Pavelec for a shorthanded tally and a 3-2 Pittsburgh advantage about 11 minutes in.

The score remained that way heading to the third period, but it didn't stay that way for long.

9 seconds into the final frame, off the opening face-off, Crosby bowled into the Atlanta zone from left to right and fed the puck in to an oncoming Chris Kunitz, who easily tapped it in virtually uncontested on the doorstep for a 4-2 Pens lead. 

Putting the pedal down, Mark Letestu scored at the 13 minute mark after making a nice play to pressure an Atlanta defender (I can't recall who), then steal the puck from him, then stickhandle around him, then show the patience of Job before sliding the puck around Pavelec for a 5-2 Pens' lead.

Everyone in attendance thought Sid got the HT a few minutes later when he took a point shot that went in, but it turned out that Cooke deflected the puck past Pavelec on the way in, so he got the tally at around the 16 minute mark, and Crosby got the assist -- his 4th point of the night.

Eric Boulton scored for Atlanta less than a minute later, but all that did was dent Fleury's personal statistics and put another notch -- one of the few lately -- on the board where the Pens' allowed an opponent to score more than two goals. 

The final was 6-3.

Kudos to the Pittsburgh PK in this one, for killing off 7 of 8 Atlanta man-advantage opportunities in the game.  That group was sharp all night long, even faacing another 5-on-3, which has been a bit of a disturbing trend lately.

With the win, the Pens are now 25-11-2 for 52 points.  That continues to leave them as the top dog in the NHL, 2 up on the Detroit Red Wings, 3 up on the Philadelphia Flyers -- who took a bath at the hands of the Canucks in Vancouver last night, 6-2 -- and 3 up on the Capitals in the Eastern Conference standings.

Both Washington and Philadelphia have 49 points, by the way. 

With no rest for the weary, the Penguins hit the road immediately after last night's game  and went to long island, where they will match up with the Islanders tonight in the 2nd half of back-to-back games -- a scenario that Pittsburgh has been very good with this season, but remains something they have to be careful about because, a 7-2 shellacking by the New York Rangers on Monday night aside, the Isles' have been playing well on the 4-0-1 run they put together prior to that.  Let's hope the Islanders are done with their credible play and are instead ready to crash back down to earth.

Let's also hope that Pittsburgh doesn't get caught looking ahead to the Winter Classic showdown this weekend with Washington.  With so much hype surrounding that event, and only one more game against a bottom-feeder team on consecutive nights in the way, it's unfortunately easy to envision a scenario where the Penguins might stumble tonight.

Pittsburgh has been focused for the better part of the last two months, though, so I'll be looking for more of that from them this evening.

I'll also be anxious to see who starts in goal.  I'm not sure if Brent Johnson is healthy enough to play.  We'll see.

I'll have a recap tomorrow.

Let's Go Pens!