Make it Four in a Row: Pens Beat Canes 4-2

This game started off looking like the sort of outing where no matter what the Pens did it just wasn't going to amount to a 'W.' With Carolina's Jason Peters in goal, Pittsburgh launched 16 first-period shots on goal to see exactly zero find the back of the net. Admittedly that first period didn't sit well with me for that reason alone, more so because Carolina managed to escape it with a 1-0 lead.

Before night's end the Penguins would not only pelt Peters with a season-high 52 shots, but they'd light the lamp four times to beat Carolina 4-2 and extend their win streak to four straight games.

Hell, even the second period had the makings of a disappointing night. By the end of the first 40 minutes, Peters had faced 37 shots and stopped all but one. The only saving grace was seeing James Neal pot his 21st goal of the year and even it up for Pittsburgh heading into the third. Then, it was either a matter of figuring Peters out or wearing him down - whatever reason you want to find, but finally Pittsburgh managed to pick up some points on the scoreboard to go along with their shot total to finish the night off with the win.

The scoring came quickly too, with Steve Sullivan first burying an Evgeni Malkin one-timer while on the power play, followed shortly after by Tyler Kennedy hooking up Pascal Dupuis on a two-on-one break to pad the lead to 3-1. Six minutes later Jordan Staal, playing in his 400th career game, opened it up to 4-1 before Tuomo Ruutu slipped a Marc-Andre Fleury mishap into the Pens' goal for the final notch of the night.

Pittsburgh will look to ride this streak into Thursday's game when they host Jaromir Jagr and Max Talbot at Consol Energy Center for the first time this season. The atmosphere of that game is going to be incredible. Puck drops at 7pm.