Pens Double A Unit Comes Up Empty In Shutout Loss To New Jersey

Going into last night's game with the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center somewhere in the swampland, the Pittsburgh Penguins had 62 points in the standings.

That was about a country mile ahead of New Jersey, who had only TWENTY NINE.

But without three of their best players, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Marc-Andre Fleury -- the first two of which sat out with injury, and the latter of which got the night off -- the Penguins mustered little in a 2-0 shutout defeat the Devils earned on the strength of first period goals by Brian Rolston and Nick Palmieri.

That was about as interesting as this game got.

The Penguins were pretty physical in this one, but put up only 23 shots against Devils' netminder Martin Brodeur, and few of them represented good scoring chances.

Even hot forwards Jordan Staal and Chris Kunitz weren't able to get on the board in this one.

Brent Johnson, making his first start since a 2-1 shootout loss to the Montreal Canadiens on January 6, stopped 18 of the 20 pucks New Jersey through at him.

While it was no surprise that Crosby missed the game, and understandable to give Fleury a rest, missing Malkin was somewhat of a surprise for Pittsburgh.

Malkin has battled a knee injury at various points this season, and he tweaked it again when he went down awkwardly in lats Saturday's 3-2 win over the Boston Bruins in Beantown.

While Geno suited up and played in Tuesday's 4-1 home win over the Detroit Red Wings, he didn't have nearly the ice time he's accustomed to, logging only about 15 minutes in that game, as opposed to the 20 he usually gets.

At this point, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect Malkin to be shut down until after the All-Star game next weekend.  He may even have to miss that contest.  Either way, he probably requires some dedicated rest time to be healthy.  His play has continued to suffer and, while that can't solely be accountable to his injury, it certainly hasn't helped, either.

The Boys of Winter return home to face off against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night.

More soon.