Penguins/NHL
Pittsburgh has lost four of five games
Tim Thomas made 27 saves, recording his second shutout of the season as the Boston Bruins defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 Tuesday night.
The Bruins handed the Penguins their second straight shutout loss and held Sidney Crosby pointless for the fifth straight game, the longest drought of his career.
Pittsburgh is in the midst of their longest losing streak since Dan Bylsma took over as head coach on Feb. 15, 2009. Bylsma looked to jumpstart the Penguins struggling offense by switching up his top two lines but the moves had little impact.
The Bruins kept Crosby (2 shots on goal) and his new linemates Ruslan Fedotenko and Matt Cooke in check. Cooke and Fedotenko combined for only 3 shots on goal.
Pittsburgh has allowed 11 straight goals to their opponents and the Penguins have not scored in 149 minutes, 9 seconds.
Pittsburgh failed to generate much offense or even test Tim Thomas who recorded his 14th career shutout. Pittsburgh was 0-for-2 on the power play and are now 0-for-23 on the man advantage without star center Evgeni Malkin.
The Penguins started the game with a No. 1 unit of Kunitz – Crosby – Staal with Ruslan Fedotenko and Alex Goligoski at the points.
Already without the services of Evgeni Malkin, Sergei Gonchar, Kris Letang and Tyler Kennedy, Pittsburgh spent much of the game playing with 5 defensemen.
Defenseman Brooks Orpik left the game about seven minutes into the first period after taking a hard hit by Bruins defenseman Marc Stuart.
Orpik will be re-evaluated by team doctors tomorrow morning in Pittsburgh. Orpik is believed to have suffered a upper body injury.
Alex Goligoski led all players with 28:25 of ice time. The coaching staff also leaned heavily on Martin Skoula who nearly 25 minutes of ice time.
Defenseman Deryk Engelland made his NHL debut and led the Penguins with 5 hits.
A bright spot for Pittsburgh on the night was the play of Marc Andre Fleury who made 27 saves on 29 shots. Fleury made a number of key saves to keep the Penguins in the game.
Pittsburgh finished their four game road trip 1-3. The team returns home Thursday night against the New Jersey Devils who will be looking to improve to 9-0 on the road.
