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Penguins / Colorado Recap: All hail Blake Comeau. Pens win

The Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Colorado Avalanche 1-0 in overtime with Blake Comeau scoring the only goal of the game and Marc-Andre Fleury recording the shutout.

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

It's rare in this day and age for an NHL game to go 0-0 into overtime. Rarer still for the usually high flying Pittsburgh Penguins to be involved in the game. But that was the situation they found themselves in tonight against the Colorado Avalanche.

In such a situation, you have to look at the goalies. Young Calvin Pickard , 22, stopped the first 47 shots he saw. Finally in over-time, a Rob Scuderi point shot got punched by Evgeni Malkin right to Blake Comeau . Comeau pickle-stabbed it in for the game's only goal.

At his own end, Marc-Andre Fleury was perfect, stopping all 29 shots he saw. Though he didn't have to make more than a few really good stops.

Other than that, it was a pretty even matchup. Both power play went 0 for 2. Both teams won about the same number of faceoffs (COL 32, PGH 29). Pittsburgh blocked 13 shots, Colorado 12. Pittsburgh had 30 hits, Colorado 28.

Even as she goes, except for shots on goal, where the Pens dominated, and goals, where Comeau got one, and white jerseys got none.

A few more thoughts on the game:

  • Christian Ehrhoff left the game with an injury and didn't play after the first period. With Scott Harrington making his NHL debut (and playing just 13:39) that left the Pens with 4 reasonable defensemen for the rest of the game. The ice time showed too with Scuderi logging 25:30, Paul Martin getting 25:58, Kris Letang, as usual, leading the way with 28:24 and Simon Despres playing 22:29.
  • Can't ask much more from Sidney Crosby in his first game back, 20 minutes, 6 shots on goal and a winner of 59% of his 22 faceoffs. No points, but that will come. Nice to see the captain back.
  • Patric Hornqvist looked like his old self playing on Crosby's line- 6 shots on goal and a few good chances. And even shrugged off a blocked shot off the foot that must have stung.
  • Craig Adams played his first full game as 4th line center....And lost all of his 5 faceoffs. Not a huge deal, but Adams doesn't have the legs or hands to be counted on to be a center anymore. Hopefully that gets recognized as such by the coaching staff.
  • Bobby Farnham only got 9 shifts and 4:14 total, but it felt more like 14:14. One shot on goal (which he actually almost scored on) and a fight against Cody McLeod were the highlights of the night. Any way you slice it, Farnham doesn't have many quiet nights, but if he's only playing 4 minutes, can he stay in the lineup when Chris Kunitz returns soon?
  • Speaking the most out of limited minutes, Bryan Rust only got 8:52 but put 6 shots on goal and had 2 hits. Best of all- it all came at even strength with an average shift time of 33 seconds. Lots of activity in a short amount of time. Rust hasn't looked like a first year pro in his limited time.
  • Jarome Iginla used to be a Penguin. Still doesn't seem like it even happened, sometimes.

Another win for the Pens, and now a home-and-home with Florida starting Friday before completing the Florida trip in Tampa prior to Christmas break. Go Pens.