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So much for meetings: Bruins down Penguins again, 4-2

by Tony on 01/01/09 at 10:35 PM ET
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So what’s next boys, Rob Scuderi on Sid’s wing ??

Despite the Penguins’ best effort in several weeks, they couldn’t muster up the mojo to defeat the Bruins again, this time in Boston, in a 4-2 loss.

The loss was the Pens’ third straight, and they are now periously close to dropping out of a playoff spot.

Tonight was much different than the poor showing on home ice on Tuesday night. The Penguins had several extended cycling shifts, although none of them resulted in a goal.

The Achilles heal, once again, was the powerplay, which went 0 for 5 tonight. The powerplay is now 0 for 21 in the last 5 games.

The Penguins actually held the lead with the opening goal about three minutes into the game when Dustin Jeffrey grabbed the rebound of a Alex Goligoski wrister from the right point and fired a shot from the slot that Bruins’ goalie Manny Fernandez didn’t see until it was too late and behind him for Jeffrey’s 1st NHL goal and a 1-0 Penguins lead.

However, as the Bruins did on Tuesday night, they quickly struck back, as David Krejci tipped a Blake Wheeler centering pass past Pens goalie Dany Sabourin to knot the game up at one apiece about a minute after Jeffrey’s goal.

The Bruins took the lead about five minutes later off a fortunate bounce of the puck, as good teams find a way to do. On the powerplay, P.J. Axelsson tipped a rebound from a Dennis Wideman shot that hit Sabourin’s shoulder, then the crossbar, then Sabourin again and into the net to make it 2-1 Bruins.

They widened their lead with about eight minutes left in the second period when the Bruins charged the net, got a bouncing puck corralled by Milan Lucic, who fired it into the net making it 3-1 Bruins.

The Penguins stepped up the pressure in the third period and it paid dividends about six minutes into the third period when Miro Satan made a nice centering feed to Ruslan Fedotenko, who deflected the puck to Fernandez but made the stop. Fedotenko then stabbed the loose puck past Fernandez to cut the Bruins lead to 3-2.

However, despite more pressure from the Penguins they couldn’t get any more pucks past Fernandez. Marc Savard closed out the scoring in the final minute with an empty netter.

Other notes:
- Not bitching, but there were a lot of ticky-tac penalties called tonight.
- Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Petr Sykora all finished with a -2.
- Ryan Whitney had 30:07 of ice time tonight. Conversely, Matt Cooke only got 7:19 after two penalties were called on him.

The Pens now return home for another Saturday afternoon game vs. the Florida Panthers.

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Tags: Boston+Bruins, NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins,

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About The Confluence

Welcome to The Confluence, a Pittsburgh Penguins blog since 2006. Originally at Blogspot, then at MVN, The Confluence has over 1000 articles reporting Penguins news as well as jumping on my soapbox to opine constructive Penguins criticism. My posts are regularly linked by hockey websites such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Empty Netters and Yahoo!’s Puck Daddy, and I’ve done guest blogger spots on such websites as the New York Times. I invite you to spend a little time and peruse the archives at all of the sites for some of my better work. I am a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer, but don’t confuse me with my fellow Chief at A2Y.

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