The Penguins power play which has struggled away from Mellon Arena came through for the Penguins tonight as Petr Sykora and Sidney Crosby each scored power play goals to lead the Penguins to a 3-2 over the Atlanta Thrashers Thursday night. Petr Sykora started the season with just three points in his first eight games, but has nine points in his last 10 games, and scored the game winner on the power play with 2:40 remaining in the third period.
Sidney Crosby played very well and scored his seventh goal of the season to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead 12:24 into the second period. Crosby also had two assists on the night to give him 25 points on the season. Evgeni Malkin the NHL’s leading scorer had 1 assist to give him 31 points on the season.
Dany Sabourin, starting in place of Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 21 of 23 shots to improve to 4-1-1. Fleury did not make the trip and Michel Therrien sounded less optimistic that Fleury will return this weekend.
Miroslav Satan scored the Penguins first goal at 10:57 in the first period. Satan currently leads the Penguins with 9 goals on the season.
Sidney Crosby who is often criticized for being a pass first player, led the Penguins with 6 shots on goal tonight.
The Penguins won for the seventh game in their past eight games. Prior to this season, November hasn’t been a kind month to the Penguins. The past two seasons the Penguins only had 10 wins combined. Tonight was their seventh win in the month of November.
Full Analysis in the morning