By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Paul Chiasson/Associated Press
Evgeni Malkin celebrates his first-period goal that proves to be the icing on his first scoring title.
MONTREAL -- The Penguins have made a habit of winning NHL scoring championships during the past couple of decades.
Facing Philadelphia in the Stanley Cup playoffs is starting to become part of their routine, too.
Evgeni Malkin scored their first goal in a 3-1 victory against Montreal at the Bell Centre to secure his first Art Ross Trophy and the franchise's 13th in the past 21 years as the Penguins assured themselves of a first-round matchup with the Flyers, one of their most fierce rivals.
"Two teams that know each other pretty well," Penguins center Sidney Crosby said.
Yeah, and that don't care for each other even a little bit.
Which team will have home-ice advantage in the opening round will be determined by the outcome of Philadelphia's game against the New York Rangers at the Wachovia Center today.
If the Flyers win -- or simply take the game past regulation -- they will have home ice against the Penguins. If not, the Penguins will get it by virtue of going 4-2 against the Flyers during the regular season.
Should Philadelphia end up with home ice, Game 1 at the Wachovia Center likely will be Thursday, because a Fleetwood Mac concert is scheduled there Wednesday night.
The Penguins defeated Philadelphia in five games in the Eastern Conference final last spring.
That series wasn't nearly as competitive as the NHL scoring race, which Malkin finally won with 113 points, three more than Washington left winger Alex Ovechkin.
"It feels great," Malkin said.
Crosby has all but formally clinched third in the scoring race.
He finished with 103 points, while Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk, who is fourth, has 97 going into the Red Wings' final game today in Chicago.
Los Angeles, with three scoring titles by Wayne Gretzky, is the only franchise with more than one during the 21 seasons when the Penguins have won 13. Their domination includes six by Mario Lemieux, five by Jaromir Jagr and one each by Malkin and Crosby.
Graham Hughes/Associated Press
Maxime Talbot beats Montreal goalie Carey Price for the go-ahead goal in the third period last night in Montreal.
The Penguins (45-28-9) finished with 99 points, the sixth-highest total in franchise history.
This was, not surprisingly, the only one of those 45 victories they earned by virtue of scoring two short-handed goals during the same penalty.
What made that feat all the more remarkable was that until Max Talbot and Kris Letang scored during a 55-second span while Brooks Orpik was serving a cross-checking minor midway through the third period, Canadiens goalie Carey Price had been almost unbeatable.
Aside from a rebound that Malkin backhanded between his legs 69 seconds into the game, Price had turned aside everything the Penguins threw at him.
That included a sensational glove save on Matt Cooke at 18:02 of the second period and a superb stop on Bill Guerin from inside the right circle 17.4 seconds before the second intermission.
"He played well," Cooke said. "It certainly wasn't his fault [that Montreal lost]."
Price's counterpart, Marc-Andre Fleury, had a pretty decent night of his own, rejecting 29 of 30 shots. The only one to elude him was a screen shot from the left point by Roman Hamrlik at 17:29 of the opening period.
That was the last goal by either team until 9:46 of the third, when Talbot -- who had a short-handed goal in the first period disallowed because he knocked it in with a high stick -- converted a Pascal Dupuis set up on what amounted to a two-on-zero break.
Talbot's goal was the last one the Penguins would need, but Letang removed any doubt about the outcome by beating Price from the outer edge of the left circle at 10:41, one second before Orpik was to return.
"We've been doing great killing penalties with the new system," Letang said. "When you see an opportunity, you jump into the play, and that's what happened."
There's something else of note that happened over the past eight weeks: The Penguins went 18-4-3 in the 25 games since Dan Bylsma replaced Michel Therrien as coach.
"They responded and came back from a desperate situation, a dire situation," Bylsma said.
And, in the process, earned the right to start the playoffs with a best-of-seven series that figures to fairly crackle with passion and intensity.
"It's a good rivalry," Talbot said. "And it's going to be a great series."
Dave Molinari can be reached at dmolinari@post-gazette.com.
First published on April 12, 2009 at 12:00 am
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