Crosby and Malkin star as Pens beat Leafs

In front of a standing room only sellout crowd of 17,132 at Mellon Arena tonight, the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs by a score of 4-1. Sidney Crosby reached 100 goals on his career, 200 assists, and 300 points, while Evgeni Malkin reached 200 points. Miroslav Satan, Pascal Dupuis, and Petr Sykora scored goals to compliment Crosby's first of the season. Marc-Andre Fleury turned in another fantastic peformance between the pipes for Pittsburgh.

The Penguins came out flying, but did not in fact get the game's first goal. The Pens played shorthanded for almost eight consecutive minutes due to a high sticking double minor to Alex Goligoski and a too many men on the ice call. During their fourth powerplay in the first period, Nik Antropov banged home a Jason Blake rebound and the Leafs were ahead 1-0.

Less than a minute later, however, the Penguins bounced back. Malkin worked the puck down low to Crosby, who banked the puck off of Maple Leaf defender Luke Schenn, and Dupuis was there to pick up the trash, backhanding one through the wickets of Maple Leaf netminder Curtis Joseph. The score was 1-1 as the first period came to a close.

A short while into the second period, with the Penguins on the powerplay, Crosby and Malkin worked their magic on the points. They played catch for a moment before Crosby threaded the needle through three Leafs penalty killers onto the tape of Satan, who had an easy finish for his third goal of the season, all on the powerplay.

Fleury had several outsanding sequences of saves in this period. The best, perhaps, came when Fleury stopped Mikhail Grabovski's backhander, then Nik Hagman hit the post past Fleury on the rebound, all before Fleury sprawled in his crease to somehow keep the rubber out.

In the third period, the Leafs pressured on an early powerplay, but could not beat Fleury.

Midway through the frame, Crosby got his first goal of the season, and 100th of his career. Malkin, Satan, and Kris Letang made several nice passes before dishing to Crosby, who drew Joseph out of his net. With Joseph scrambling to get back to the net, Sid shot one off of Grabovksi into the twine for the insurance marker.

On another late powerplay, Crosby made a cross-zone shot-pass to Sykora, who scored his first goal of the year. That goal closed the scoring.

Notes-
-Ruslan Fedotenko had 6 hits. His best game as a Penguin.
-Brooks Orpik was a monster. 7 hits for him.
-Crosby and Malkin combined for 8 points.
-Malkin is tied with Alex Semin for the NHL points lead with 10.
-Fleury is an elite NHL goaltender.
-Zigomania has hit Pittsburgh. Mike was sick tonight on the fourth line.

GO PENS!

1967!