hockey: Shootout take two

"Ruutu, Ruutu, Rocks 'em like you do..." Sorry, I don't think I'll ever get that song out of my head now.

In Vancouver on the last of three straight games in Western Canada, the Pittsburgh Penguins went to the shootout once again, and beat the Canucks on, you guessed it, a Kris Letang goal.

Followed by a shot of coach Michel Therrien wondering why on earth he waited until the sixth shooter to give Letang a chance.

The game started out a little sloppy on both ends and was definitely a struggle for everyone but the goalies throughout. Penalty minutes totaled 38 minutes, and we saw a lot of four-on-four hockey (Sidney Crosby drew three penalties in the fist seven minutes). But the goalies were the stars tonight: both Roberto Luongo and former Canuck Dany Sabourin played great. Sabourin actually ended up making more saves than the man he backed up last season.

The Penguins lone goal cam from a sick pass by Evgeni Malkin to Petr Sykora he buried it behind Luongo. The Canucks' Ryan Kesler tied it in the third.

In overtime, Crosby had a chance to win on a penalty shot after being hauled to the ice on a breakaway. Personally, I'd rather see the two-minute power play (players have only scored on 18 percent of penalty shots in the league this year, and the last 15 attempts have missed). Plus, if Crosby has a weakness it's the penalty shot/shootout goal. Yes, he'll come through with a big one every once and again, but percentage-wise, he's not there. He missed both a penalty shot and shootout attempt last night.

The shootout went six rounds before Letang's goal won it by a score of 2-1. The other shootout goals came from the Penguins' own shootout specialist, Erik Christensen, and the Canucks' Trevor Linden.

Three road wins and four in a row overall--the Pens are on a roll. Let's hope they can bring it back east when they wrap up their road trip at Philadelphia on Tuesday.

Box score