The Confluence
Devils stonewall Penguins again, 4-1
by Tony on 11/12/09 at 10:52 PM ET
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Um, let’s see. Well, it doesn’t look like any Penguins were injured tonight !
Um, they scored for the first time in three games !
Other than that, it was more of the same for the depleted Penguins, losing to Marty Brodeur and the Devils 4-1, the identical score the last time the Penguins hosted the Devils on Oct. 24th.
It was the fourth straight loss for the Penguins.
The effort was certainly there for the Pens tonight. There were plenty of shifts where the Pens’ forechecking and cycling was quite good. However, as things usually go for teams struggling, they also hit about four goalposts, as well as allowing a goal off the skate of one of their defensemen.
And to top it off, they got the first goal of the night, which is usually a must against the trapping Devils. Midway through the first period, the Penguins’ latest first line of Sidney Crosby, Ruslan Fedotenko and Chris Bourque had a good forechecking shift that resulted in a wrister by Fedotenko from the right slot that Brodeur stopped. Crosby grabbed the rebound and backhanded a shot on net that bounced off Brodeur, causing a big scrum in front of the net. Fedotenko basically moved Brodeur’s legs out of the way and poked the puck into the net (calling it like I saw it, folks). The goal was good, over the objections of Brodeur, and the Pens had a 1-0 lead at the 11:32 mark of the first.
It remained that way until there were about six minutes left in the second period, when the Devils had an extended time in the Penguins zone of approximately 50 seconds. The Pens’ inability to get the puck out of their zone ultimately cost them, as Zach Parise fed a wide-open Niclas Bergfors in the slot for a hard wrister past Marc-Andre Fleury and a 1-1 tie.
The Devils had lady luck on their side late in the second period on the powerplay, as Andy Greene’s slapper from the point deflected off the skate of Pens’ defenseman Ben Lovejoy and into the net, making it 2-1 Devils at 18:50.
Four minutes into the third, the Pens’ Chris Conner had a bad turnover in the neutral zone, where Travis Zajac stole the puck and started a 2-on-1 break. Despite Alex Goligoski diving between Zajac and Parise, Zajac somehow got the puck underneath Goligoski, where Parise fired a one-timer to the top shelf past Fleury and a 3-1 lead.
The Devils’ final goal was an empty netter by David Clarkson with two seconds left.
Notes:
- Crosby had his five game scoreless streak snapped.
- Getting old stat: Pens’ powerplay was 0-for-3, now 0 for their last 26 powerplays.
- Bourque had a wide open net at point-blank range and missed, albeit at a tough angle.
- Here’s a stat you don’t see often: Devils had 23 blocked shots, compared to 13 for the Pens. Mark Eaton led the Pens with three.
- Crosby won 13-of-23 faceoffs.
- Four hits for both Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz led the Pens.
- Goligoski led in icetime with 25:11.
The Penguins will now host the Bruins on Saturday night.
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