Penguins/NHL
PITTSBURGH 3 – BUFFALO 0 Chris Kunitz (26) scored his 26th goal of the season and Marc Andre Fleury made 24 saves for his 27th career shutout, leading the Pittsburgh Penguins to 3-0 win over the lowly Buffalo Sabres on Monday night at the Consol Energy Center
Fleury improving to 29-12-1, was very good when he needed to be as the Penguins did not play a great defensive game in front of him. Pittsburgh had some breakdowns early in the second period and again early in the third. “Marc got stuck with two glorious chances against,” Dan Bylsma said of the Penguins breakdowns minutes into the third. “He picked us up there and you need that.”
Deryk Engelland (4) and Tanner Glass (3, empty net) also scored in the win. Glass was a physical presence once again with six hits and drew praise from his head coach who said Glass might have played his two best games as a Penguins over Pittsburgh’s last two games.
The Penguins improved to 22-4-0 on home ice.
THE STATS RUNDOWN
*Sidney Crosby had 2 assists for points 73 and 74 on the season. Crosby has points in 16 straight games (9G–17A-26Pts) vs the Sabres. The points streak vs Buffalo dates back to December 29, 2007
*Chris Kunitz has tied his career high in goals with 26. Kunitz is on pace for 40 goals
*Marc Andre Fleury is 19-3-0, 1.97 GAA, .932 sv% at home and 10-9-1, .258 GAA, .899 sv% on the road this season. Fleury has recorded 4 shutouts in a season for the first time since 2008-2009. Fleury’s career high in shutouts is 5, 2006-2007
*Deryk Engelland’s 4 even strength goals (at forward) tie him for 8th among forwards on the team.
*Craig Adams picked up 2 assists in the win for his first multi-point game in 62 games. Adams second period assist on Deryk Engelland’s goal at 12:05 of the period was his first point in 39 games.
*Brooks Orpik had a game high 9 hits and was a +2
*Tanner Glass has been credited with 19 hits in his last two games. Glass has 154 hits in 38 this season, averaging 4.05 hits per game. Glass had 125 hits in 48 games last season
*James Neal has gone six games without a goal.
*Brian Gibbons has points in four of his last six games with 1 goal and 4 assists during that span. Gibbons assisted on Chris Kunitz second period goal at 5:44 of the period.
*The Buffalo Sabres were shutout for the 7th time this season
*Pittsburgh outshot Buffalo 34-24
*The Penguins won 31 of 45 (68.8%) faceoffs. Evgeni Malkin was 11 of 13 (84.6%) and Brandon Sutter was 8 of 10 (80.0%)
*The Penguins were credited with 7 giveaways, Buffalo 2
*The Penguins were 3-for-3 on penalty kill and are 25-for-25 on the PK at home since playing the Minnesota Wild on 12/19/13.
