Dan Bylsma coached his 200th game tonight and Marc-Andre Fleury picked up his 20th career shutout. If you only read one sentence in this recap, let that be it. Of course if you only read one sentence, you likely didn't read the sentence after that...
Anyway...
The Pens picked up their fourth straight win in shutout fashion Tuesday night on the road in Long Island. With the recent news of Zbynek Michalek's injury, you had to wonder how the defense would respond. I think a clean sheet on 33 shots faced is a pretty good indication of how they'll look to adapt why Big Z is out of the lineup.
Pascal Dupuis kicked off the scoring late in the first period on a great breakout pass from Brooks Orpik that led to a breakaway goal that slipped right past Evgeni Nabokov. Great play by Orpik, who notched his first point of the season, and an even better finish from the speedy Dupuis.
Former Pen turned Islander turned Pen again Richard Park continues to be a spark for Pittsburgh as he took only 21 seconds into the second period to register his second of the year. Great example of how a strong back check, a little toe-drag action and a shot high on the glove side can lead to good things.
Weird moment of the night came when the Islanders decided to pull Nabokov with about three minutes remaining in the game. Nothing was a foregone conclusion at that point, but it looked like New York was mustering up a decent buzz around Fleury at the time when they elected to go with the extra attacker. The Pens did a good job of holding off the attack before Staal was able to bury the empty-net goal. Not a bad way to justify having his nose hacked up from earlier in the period when Marty Reasoner got a little stick happy and received a double minor.
Pens return for the second half of the home-and-home series against the Isles Thursday night. Puck drops at 7pm.