Penguins Now Up Two

It's a Conference Final for the home teams, it seems, as the Penguins have now jumped out to a 2-0 series lead, much like the Red Wings in the West. The Penguins beat the Hurricanes, 7-4, in what was a back-and-forth battle for the better part of the hockey game. In the end, it was the Penguins' superstars that came out with all guns a blazin' and really lit the lamp in the third period to take the game over by force.

Not only did this game put the Hurricanes in a spot of trouble, it changed the complexion of the playoff pool as well, because the lead has now been dropped down to 6. Steve W. has made a huge run at Mike D. and we could see a new leader in the pool by the end of the week, if the points keep getting racked up the same way. Rounding out the top four, Benson and Dale C. #2 continue to round out the money spots, but Trevor B., has been coming up the rear quite quickly as well and only sits one point behind.

Right, well the Penguins scoring 7 goals in a game means that there should be a load of points to collect and you would be correct. Evgeni Malkin took the nod for the top player in the game, scoring a hat-trick, including the winner, and adding an assist for a 5-point night in the pool. Chris Kunitz was the next best pool player, scoring a goal and adding 2 assists for a 3-point night. Sidney Crosby, Bill Guerin and Marc-Andre Fleury round out the pool players for Pittsburgh, as they all had 2 points a piece.

Despite having four goals in the game, the Hurricanes did not have any multiple point players, as a number of them only had a single going forward.

Game-Winning Goals
Evgeni Malkin joined the group of players with a pair of game-winners now in the pool, with his third period winner on Thursday night. The bonus point also helped Malkin onto the top of the pool scoring heap, now with 25 points in scoring, plus 2 bonus points for 27 in total. Malkin has really taken the ball and ran with it in this series against the Hurricanes, already having 7 points in the first two games of the series.

It didn't seem to help too much, but Erik Cole did make it into Game 2. Cole's shifts were relatively short and he only figured into about 14 minutes of action throughout the game, registering 4 hits and 2 shots on goal.