Jordan Staal celebrates his third period goal against the Devils last night.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Back-to-back games can be tiring. And inspiring.
The Penguins found that out by beating the top two teams in the Eastern Conference in a 27-hour span.
They got a shutout from backup goaltender Jocelyn Thibault to beat the New Jersey Devils, 3-0, last night at Continental Airlines Arena in a tight, defensive game.
Tuesday, the Penguins survived a third-period comeback by Buffalo for a 5-4 shootout win in an open, speed-driven contest.
"These are important games," center Sidney Crosby said. "They were two totally different hockey games."
With one large upside.
The Penguins, with 88 points, moved ahead of Ottawa into fourth place in the conference, four points behind the Devils, who sit atop the Atlantic Division, and six points behind the conference-leading Sabres.
"It's awesome," Thibault said in a postgame locker room that had a party atmosphere, complete with blaring music and whooping players.
"The reason I'm very happy about this game is we played [Tuesday] night, then we came in here, playing in Jersey, and we played a very tight-checking game, a grinding game, it was bad ice, it was warm. It was a character win tonight, it really was."
Jarkko Ruutu, Erik Christensen and Jordan Staal scored for the Penguins.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle was the ice, which had been made less than 24 hours earlier and made skating treacherous.
"There were chunks out of it," Crosby said. "It's not fun to play on that."
The feeling afterward wasn't bad.
"It's like I told the team [Tuesday] -- we need to start to get in the playoff mood," Penguins coach Michel Therrien said. "Again [last night] we had the right attitude to approach that game.
"Those young guys, they keep surprising a lot of people."
Thibault, playing in his 19th game of the season and making his sixth appearance in the past 13 games, picked up the 37th shutout of his career, his first since 2003-04 when he was with Chicago.
"He had a great effort, and everyone kind of followed his lead," defenseman Ryan Whitney said.
The win halted a Penguins streak of five games that were decided in overtime or a shootout. Five of their previous seven games had been decided by shootout.
The Penguins, who finished 3-4-1 in their season series with New Jersey, picked up where they left off Tuesday night, playing a strong first period. They couldn't beat goaltender Martin Brodeur, who, as usual, got plenty of help from teammates clearing the front of his net. But neither could the Devils get a puck past Thibault as each team collected 11 shots.
The shots evaporated for most of the second period.
The Penguins got the first power play of the game when defenseman Brad Lukowich was called for holding at 11:49. It was eventful, if not fruitful.
Early in the power play, point man Sergei Gonchar had the puck at the blue line but lost his balance and landed on the ice. New Jersey center John Madden scooped up the puck for a long breakaway, but his shot from the slot sailed wide to Thibault's left.
Later on the same power play, Crosby took a clearing attempt by Devils winger Jay Pandolfo in the face. Crosby was bloodied on the right side of his mouth, but he remained in the game.
The game's first goal came on the Penguins' third shot of the second period and on an unlikely play.
Crosby got the puck to Ruutu in the right corner. Ruutu one-timed it toward the net. It clipped the stick of New Jersey center Travis Zajac, changed directions and wobbled over Brodeur's glove at 17:18.
It was Ruutu's seventh goal and his first since he had a two-goal game Feb. 16, the Penguins' previous game at New Jersey, a 5-4 win.
The assist was Crosby's 75th of the season and his 104th point.
Christensen increased the lead to 2-0 at 9:31 of the third period when his shot from the left point, a one-timer from Ruutu, rocketed over Brodeur's shoulder.
New Jersey got a prime opportunity with a power play at 14:35 of the third.
Just after a faceoff in the Devils' end, Crosby got clipped in the face by linemate Mark Recchi's stick. He spit out his mouthpiece and skated to the bench. When the puck found its way to Crosby's skates, he kicked it, drawing a penalty for too many men on the ice because another forward had left the bench to replace him.
"My head was down and the puck came right into my skates, so I just kicked it," Crosby said.
The Devils, though, could not score, and Crosby was off the hook.
"It was good we were able to kill that off," he said. "That was a big kill."
The Penguins put it away at 17:24 when Staal got his 28th goal by converting a backhand pass from Evgeni Malkin to make it 3-0.
"It's good to see the team play games like that because we're going to play a lot of those games in the playoffs," Thibault said.
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(Shelly Anderson can be reached at shanderson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1721. )
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