Penguins' surge hits 9-0-2 with 4-1 win

Mark Recchi celebrates with Evgeni Malkin after Malkin scored the go-ahead goal In the second period against Nashville last night at Mellon Arena.


Tie Ottawa for 5th in East with win against No. 1 team in NHL

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

By Dave Molinari
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When 82 games are over and all the points have been accumulated and accounted for, these two won't look much different from any of the others earned by the Penguins.

They'll be no more -- and no less -- valuable than the ones they picked up for any other victory, against any other opponent.

But the payoff for their 4-1 victory against Nashville at Mellon Arena last night went beyond just a couple of points because the Predators are not just any team.

Nashville has piled up a league-high 77 points by virtue of outstanding speed and skill and depth and might be the finest team in the game. But, at least on this night, the best team in hockey was not good enough to defeat the Penguins.

"It was a good test for us, to see how good we really are," said Penguins defenseman Mark Eaton, a Nashville alum. "And we responded."

The victory ran the Penguins' current surge to 9-0-2, raised their record to 27-17-9 and lifted them into a tie with Ottawa for fifth place in the Eastern Conference. They have a game in hand on the Senators.

The Penguins didn't dominate, but they had an edge in nearly every pivotal aspect of play. While each team generated 26 shots, goalie Marc-Andre Fleury of the Penguins outplayed his Nashville counterpart, Chris Mason, and the Penguins won the special-teams battle, scoring on one of seven power plays while holding the Predators 0 for 4 with the extra man.

"We have to be happy with the way we played," Penguins center Sidney Crosby said. "It wasn't a conference game, but we were playing a tough team and we wanted to make sure we came out and really made it tough on them."

Which is pretty much what Nashville had anticipated.

"They're filling their team with stars, and surrounding them with workhorses," Predators center Jason Arnott said. "There's no surprise, though. They're a good team, a fast-skating team"

So are the Predators, who have come by their 37-15-3 record honestly. There's nothing fluky about a team that's on top of the overall standings in February, and no one argued when Penguins coach Michel Therrien characterized Nashville as "a team that would be a great contender to win the Stanley Cup this year."

"That's how I remember them," Eaton said. "They're a hard-forechecking team, they live off turnovers, they're a quick counter(-attacking) team and they have a lot of speed."

The Penguins, thanks in part to three tries with the man-advantage, ran up a 10-5 edge in shots during the opening period, but Nashville got the only goal.

Scott Nichol scored it at 17:53, when he deflected a shot by defenseman Sheldon Brookbank, playing in his first NHL game, past Fleury. That gave the Predators at least one first-period goal for the 18th game in a row -- and their only lead of the evening.

"They got that one, but we outplayed them," Eaton said. "We just needed to keep doing what we were doing."

Which is precisely what they did and, after nearly pulling even several times early in the second -- Mason denied Evgeni Malkin from the right side of the slot at 1:44 and a few minutes later, a Ronald Petrovicky shot from the left side hit Mason's glove and went off the right post -- the Penguins finally broke through on Jordan Staal's 19th goal.

Crosby rushed the puck from Penguins' zone into the Nashville end before sliding a pass to Staal, whose shot from the left side glanced off Brookbank's stick and sailed behind Mason at 5:46.

With that goal, Staal, 18, joined a select group of teammates whose goal output surpasses their age.

"He's gone beyond all of our expectations," right winger Mark Recchi said.

The Penguins went in front to stay during a power play at 8:05, when Malkin took a feed from Recchi and beat Mason from the bottom of the right circle for his 26th. Crosby picked up the second assist, pushing his league-leading points total to 86.

Recchi, who assisted on the Penguins' first two goals, expanded their comfort zone considerably at 3:10 of the third, when he threw a wrist shot past Mason from inside the right circle -- "That was a huge goal for us," Crosby said -- and Jarkko Ruutu closed out the scoring with an empty-netter at 18:36.

And, in the process, guaranteed that it would be a most satisfying evening for Eaton.

"I'm not going to lie to you," Eaton said. "I enjoyed that one more than a lot of other wins."

Just like a lot of his teammates.


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(Dave Molinari can be reached at DWMolinari@Yahoo.com. )