hockey: Penguins dominate the Thrashers for an important win

Wow. I'm out of town right now, so I could only listen to tonight's game over the Internet, but it certainly sounded like the Pittsburgh Penguins played 60 minutes of solid hockey to beat the Thrashers 5-0 at Mellon Arena. The score matches the best margin of victory this year for the Penguins, who beat New Jersey 5-0 on Nov. 5.

This was a big win for the Penguins, who earned back-to-back wins for the first time in more than a month (they won three in a row Oct. 19-23), and did it against a team that won 11 of its last 15 games.

The Penguins came out strong and leaped to a 3-0 lead at the end of the first period. It looks like Jordan Staal and Colby Armstrong may finally break out of their slumps, as each scored a goal tonight (in both cases, their second of the season). Ryan Malone was the other first period scorer, and Sidney Crosby and Ryan Whitney added a goal each during the second and third periods to round out the scoring.

It didn't sound to me like Marc-Andre Fleury was challenged in net too much tonight, but still an important milestone for him, as he has, to put it mildly, struggled this season. Let's hope he can string together several solid performances in a row now.

With such an impressive performance, it's hard to believe that Evgeni Malkin didn't earn a goal or an assist tonight. His 15-game point streak came to end; although Mike Lange mentioned tonight that it was the longest point streak for a Russian player.

Of course, I think it's important that the Penguins learn to score when Crosby and Malkin aren't involved. . .or maybe even on the ice. In the last two games, they have finally started to do just that, and have earned wins for their troubles.

The Penguins don't play again until Friday, Nov. 30, against the Dallas Stars. That gives them five days off, which hopefully will be a good opportunity to build on what they did tonight and be prepared for the next 3/4 of the season.

If we had lost these last two games, it wouldn't have surprised me if the Penguins would have fired head coach Michel Therrien during the time off. But now that they enter this break with two consecutive victories, I don't see them pulling the trigger.

Box Score