Missing their second best offensive player, Evgeni Malkin, with a sore knee for tonight's game against the Penguins' nearest geographic rival in the Columbus Blue Jackets, logic would have it that Pittsburgh would play a traditional, close-to-the-vest road game and hope to win a tight one against a team that has played well this year and is a challenge to defeat in their own barn.
Instead, the Penguins took the Blue Jackets behind that barn and slaughtered them to the tune of 7-2.
They chased Columbus goaltender Steve Mason after about 15 minutes once they already had 3 power play goals in the bag and the Blue Jackets in a 4-zip hole on 13 total shots.
Paul Martin got two of those three power play goals -- both unassisted, to boot. The first one was a centering pass that went off Blue Jackets' rearguard Mike Commodore and squeezed through Mason's legs just enough to go over the goal line.
After an even strength goal by Mike Rupp -- who nudged the puck fully over the goal line after an Eric Godard shot just got through Mason's legs enough to sit there -- Martin took a loose puck on the move in Columbus' zone, skated about 30 feet ridiculously unabated from just inside the blue line into the slot, then drilled a wrister between Mason's 5-hole (again) for a second power play marker and a 3-0 lead.
When Sidney Crosby raised his scoring streak to 15 games with another wicked deflection on the power play just after the 15-minute mark, Mason got an early shower, and former Penguin Mathieu Garon -- who was undressed to the tune of 5-0 the night before in Buffalo against the Sabres -- came in to take his abuse.
And that misery began only 3 minutes into the second period when the Pens' third line of Chris Conner, Tyler Kennedy and Mark Letestu finished off a strong shift by having TK get to a loose rebound in front and bang it by Garon off the far post and in.
Pittsburgh's 5-0 lead at that point actually only lasted a few minutes, but Columbus had to break the rules to get on the board.
Blue Jackets' forward Sami Pahlsson cross-checked Pens' defenseman Zbynek Michalek to the ice to the left of Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury without it being called, and right after that -- before Michalek could get up and back in the play -- Pahlsson deflected a point shot past Fleury for Columbus' first goal of the night.
Any momentum boost the Blue Jackets were hoping for after that tally was promptly squashed by the Pens' Captain when he finished a 2-on-1 by taking a beautiful saucer pass across his body from linemate Chris Kunitz and beat the sprawling Garon easily to raise Pittsburgh's lead back up to 6-1.
When defenseman Deryk Engelland wired a top-corner, seeing-eye slapshot in past Garon from the blueline at the near boards with less than 2 minutes left in the second period to make it 7-1, it was all over but the cryin for about the 5,000 Blue Jackets fans in attendance.
And it was nothing but cheers for just about the equal number of loud and vocal Penguin fans who made the trip to Columbus to root on the Boys of Winter.
The Pens' actually had the temerity to let up another power play goal -- their second in two straight games after killing off 32 in a row prior to Thursday's win over the Atlanta Thrashers -- but all that did was serve to dent the team's PK statistics and Fleury's goals against average.
Pittsburgh outshot Columbus 35-23 on the night and, plain and simple, dominated them in every facet of the game.
At one point, I actually thought the Penguins were going to score the same number of goals as they were going for games on their winning streak, which is now up to 9 in a row and counting.
Crosby had a chance for his third hat trick in the last 4 games in the third period, but by that time, the Penguins had understandably let up off the accelerator.
With the victory, the Penguins raised their record to 18-8-2, good for 38 points and continued possession of first place in the Atlantic Division, 2 points ahead of the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Pens also have now moved into a tie with the Washington Captials for the top overall spot in the Eastern Conferene and entire league. That was possible when the Caps' lost 3-1 to the Thrashers tonight.
Pittsburgh returns home to The Bird House on Monday night to go for ten straight against the second worst team in the NHL, division rival New Jersey.
Let's hope Malkin is back for that one, and that the Penguins don't take the Devils lightly. For as terrible as they have been playing, they're still a team that owned the Penguins last season.
Way to go boys.
More soon.
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