Pittsburgh Sports

Last February, the Pittsburgh Penguins found themselves in a predicament. With a new head coach, they faced a five game road trip that would essentially make-or-break their season. That road trip began at the United Center in Chicago.

With the help of new addition Chris Kunitz, the Penguins overcame Jonathan Toews' first career helmet trick (and quite possibly last) to defeat the Blackhawks in overtime. Evgeni Malkin's power play goal in extra time gave the Penguins a rocket boost before going 5-0-0 on the road trip.

Last night, the Pittsburgh Penguins demolished the New York Rangers 8-3 at the Mellon Arena. It was the largest goal total the Penguins had put on the board since a 9-2 obliteration of the other New York-based team that dated back to nearly a year ago.

Although, through the first two periods, the game was very tight. The Rangers had even made it a 4-3 hockey game early in the third period, thanks to a goal by defenseman Michal Rozsival.

But that spun out of control quickly for John Tortorella's men.

Take it to headquarters - "Air Raid, Mellon Arena."

This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. We need your undivided attention.

For the first six weeks of the season, the names Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have gone missing at the top of the NHL's point leaders, for various reasons. Crosby's wingers have been disappointing to say the least, with Chris Kunitz on the Injured Reserve and Bill Guerin only bothering to show up to the rink once every fortnight.

Posted by Rocket All Habs .

"...Gonchar lugs the puck out of the Penguins' end, tries to run the gauntlet through center ice. He dumps the puck in around the wall for Sidney Crosby, Crosby to Malkin. Malkin works his way up the half wall, back to Gonchar. Sergei Gonchar steps in, fires wide.

A few hours before Saturday night's game with the Boston Bruins, Dan Bylsma and the Pittsburgh Penguins announced that top-line left wing Chris Kunitz would miss two weeks with an always ridiculously specific "lower body injury."

Bylsma calmly explained to the media, "Chris [Kunitz] has been dealing with a lower-body injury for a while now. At this point in time, we're going to take two weeks off for a rest period to try and get him healthy."

The Penguins casualty list isn't pretty. Reading off the names, it almost becomes painful.

Heading into a building where they historically haven't had a whole lot of success, the table was set perfectly for their unblemished road record to receive its first black mark of the season.

Think about it.

How productive could the Blackhawks be without Toews, Seabrook, Byfuglien and Sharp? Or how about the Red Wings without Zetterberg, Lidstrom, Cleary and Helm? Maybe they could still win, but it would be much more difficult.

On Jan. 18, 2008, Penguins captain Sidney Crosby slammed feet-first into the boards after a collision with Paul Ranger of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The injury kept Crosby out for two months, but all was not lost.

Evgeni Malkin was ready to carry the load, and he proceeded to record 54 points in the time that Crosby was out of the lineup. His performance not only kept the Penguins in the playoff hunt, but led the team to an Atlantic Division title.

This time, it will be the other way around.

Montreal 1 Pittsburgh 6 (Mellon Arena)

posted by Rocket

In the NHL, a defining point of any team is how well they rebound from a poor performance.

The Penguins had a dreadful performance on home ice on Saturday against the New Jersey Devils. They never got to their game and simply never challenged Martin Brodeur enough. But that was then, and is in the past.

But getting a response against the Canadiens was absolutely necessary.