Penguins/NHL
MORNING PENS BUZZPlaying without Evgeni Malkin, Paul Martin, Rob Scuderi, among others, the Pittsburgh Penguins put together an impressive 5-1 win over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night, but it wasn’t a game where some Sharks players afterwards wanted to give the Penguins much credit for their performance.
“It was more of our mistakes than what they did right,” Sharks forward Logan Couture said. “We weren’t ourselves. We weren’t moving pucks. We were turning it over. In the neutral zone we weren’t good. I think it was more us than them.”
Marc Andre Fleury made 44 saves on 45 shots in the win but he shouldn’t expect Couture to be calling up Team Canada GM Steve Yzerman and giving Fleury a ringing endorsement for Team Canada.
“Stats aside, I don’t think Fleury was that good tonight,” Couture said. “He gave up a lot of rebounds and a lot of shots he looked shaky.”
San Jose had a number of second and third chance opportunities right around the crease but couldn’t convert. Some Shark players strongly felt that Fleury was fighting the puck all night and I don’t disagree with the notion that he was fighting the puck and had some luck on his side, but 44 saves on 45 shots is still 44 saves on 45 shots.
“He was fighting it all night,” Sharks center Joe Pavelski said of Fleury…. “At times we didn’t know how {puck} didn’t go in.”
The Sharks outshot the Penguins 45-30 and had 75 shot attempts to the Penguins 52 but Sharks coach Todd McLellan said it best that the shot totals that count were the 5 goals the Penguins scored and 1 that San Jose scored. “Let’s not get tricked by that number there. Their 28 or 30 they had, they made them count,” McLellan said. “The shot totals that counted at the end of the night were the five and the one, and we weren’t even close.”
— I’m sure some frowned on the Penguins doing a scoreboard tribute to Tyler Kennedy, a marginal bottom-6 player, and maybe they go overboard with them, but the Penguins do make it a point to come off as a first class organization and something like that looks good to players around the league. Can’t discount those little things come free agency time with a veteran player looking for a comfortable place to play. The next scoreboard tribute will be for Matt Cooke on December 19th. No confirmation if the Penguins have one in the works for January when Matt D’Agostini comes to town with the Sabres.
— Sidney Crosby played in his 500th career game last night, and according to Elias Sports Bureau, Crosby career total of 706 points is the sixth-highest by any player in NHL history through his first 500 games. “The five players with higher point totals are Wayne Gretzky (1,186), Mario Lemieux (971), Peter Stastny (759), Mike Bossy (757) and Jari Kurri (730).”
