Evgeni Malkin scores against Bruins goalie Tim Thomas in the third period last night in Boston.
Friday, March 30, 2007
By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
BOSTON -- The Penguins might want to hold off ordering the banner just yet. It's a bit early to start mass-producing T-shirts, too.
After all, much can change in the NHL over the next 10 days. And a lot probably will.
Nonetheless, the plain truth is that with little more than a week left in the 2006-07 regular season, the Penguins are in first place in the Atlantic Division.
And they're alone.
Their 4-2 victory against Boston at the TD Banknorth Garden last night raised the Penguins' record to 45-23-10 and made them the fourth 100-point team in franchise history. More important, it lifted them two points ahead of New Jersey in the race to finish atop the Atlantic.
Sidney Crosby and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury celebrate their 4-2 victory against Bruins last night.
The Devils, it should be noted, have a game in hand, are even with the Penguins in the first tiebreaker (victories) and have the edge in the second (head-to-head competition), so the Penguins hardly have a chokehold on the division lead.
"We just have to keep going," right winger Colby Armstrong said. "Make that final push."
Center Sidney Crosby is making one of those in his bid for the NHL scoring title. He assisted on the Penguins' final three goals to run his league-high points total to 116, 12 more than San Jose's Joe Thornton.
The Penguins -- especially Armstrong -- got a serious scare at 13:45 of the opening period, when his left eyelid was gashed by a high stick from Bruins center Petr Kalus.
The blow was inadvertent, but the Penguins' displeasure that Kalus wasn't penalized was obvious.
Coach Michel Therrien said "we were all surprised" there wasn't a call, and that includes Armstrong.
The difference is, Armstrong didn't waste much energy thinking about it until he was certain he hadn't suffered serious damage to his eye.
"It was pretty scary," he said. "I've never had that close of a call."
Armstrong spent the balance of the first period receiving medical treatment but returned for the second wearing a visor.
The Penguins played without left winger Gary Roberts, who has a bruised right knee. His spot in the lineup was taken by Nils Ekman, who logged 11 minutes, 33 seconds of ice time and recorded one shot.
The Bruins were looking to atone for their miserable showing in a 5-0 loss Sunday at Mellon Arena -- "They dominated the game because of our lack of effort," defenseman Zdeno Chara said -- and grabbed a 1-0 lead 45 seconds after the opening faceoff, when Brandon Bochenski threw an Andrew Ference rebound past goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
Erik Christensen got that back for the Penguins during a power play at 3:20, as he cashed in a Michel Ouellet rebound from the slot, and Armstrong put them in front at 9:18.
He got a pass from Christensen before sticking a backhander under the cross bar behind Bruins goalie Tim Thomas.
"It was just the right distance away from the net to get the angle to go in," Armstrong said.
Phil Kessel countered for Boston at 10:56, swatting the puck out of the air and past Fleury after Evgeni Malkin broke up his attempt to feed it into the crease, but Christensen countered 31 seconds later, putting a shot between Thomas' legs from above the left dot for what proved to be the winning goal.
"I told Max [Talbot] on the bench that I felt like I could get four or five," Christensen said. "That's the way it was going.
"I didn't really think of it like I was playing better than I had been. It was just one of those games where you find yourself in the right spots."
Christensen's second goal, however, was the last by either team until 11:30 of the third, when Malkin capitalized on a Crosby set-up for his 33rd of the season, and fifth in four games against Boston.
While no one will mistake this game for a 60-minute masterpiece -- "It wasn't as intense as probably what we're going to face in the next four games," Crosby said -- the two points count the same as any other pair.
And if the Penguins, who finished with 58 points in 2005-06, win one of their remaining four games, they will match the second-highest point total in franchise history.
But it says something about the maturity of this team -- never mind what so many of the birth certificates say -- that they are not fixated on that. Or even on the battle for first in the Atlantic.
"Our focus just has to be on the next game," Christensen said.
"We can't control what other teams do.
"It's great that we might have a chance to win the division, maybe get home-ice advantage, but that only comes if we're working hard and playing consistently."
(Dave Molinari can be reached at DWMolinari@Yahoo.com.)
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