Dupuis and Guerin Play Big Roles in Thrilling OT Victory...Pens 6-5 over the Bruins

If you thought hockey couldn't get anymore exciting, well it just gosh darn did. Thanks to a little birdy named Geno Malkin the Pens were an offensive machine in this crazy win over the injury ridden Bruins. The Pens without Gonch, Orpik, Letang, Talbot, TK, and Kunitz were in for a long night, especially on the defensive side. Minor leaguers Engelland and Lovejoy looked better than they did in the Devils game but they still have much to learn. How about that Pascal Dupuis character? He had 2 goals in this contest including the game winner.

Dupuis is getting more ice time and is scoring clutch goals from different parts of the ice. What a difference Geno makes to the Pens lineup. He swifts so gingerly with the puck even at 80% health. And we can all thank Patrice Bergeron for breaking his stick with 5 seconds left, Geno steals it on a 3 on 2 with Sid and Guerin and off a spicy saucer feed from Geno, Guerin rips a wrister glove side over Thomas with 0.4 seconds left in the game. Talk about karma. Billy G has been held scoreless for the past 11 games and he finally came through.

Johnson wasn't impressive and there were several sloppy and soft goals scored by the Bruins tonight. Kreijci who's been battling the swine flu had a goal tonight, and even without Savard/Lucic/Kobasew on the PP, the Bruins were still a threat with big Chara and the shifty Wideman at the points. It was nice to see the Pens defense jumping into the play on several occassions and leading to 3 Pens goals. Eaton and Gogo jumped in, and then Mckee went all Mike Rupp on Thomas with a beautiful move for the Pens first goal.

In OT, Staal finally did something effective and stole the puck from Thomas and then dished it to Dupuis for a wide open net, game set match. This could be one of those games that turns the season around for the Pens. Their never say die attitude was in play once again even with all those key guys being out to injury. It was fun to see Geno turn his game up 10 notches in OT, he and Sid were running a clinic in the offensive zone for a couple minutes there.

Tonight the Pens will face the Anaheim Ducks. They beat the Ducks 6-3 a couple weeks ago and they'll be looking for a similar type game tonight. Gonch has been cleared to practice and he should be in the lineup Sat. night against the Thrashers. Gogo on the other hand will be out 2-3 wks and d-men Nate Guenin was called up from the minors today to take his place. I like what I see from Engelland so far, he's physical, likes to drop the gloves, and can skate fairly well. We'll see what Guenin's got tonight against a physical and fast Ducks team.

Hopefully Chris Bourque can finally light the lamp tonight on the 2nd line.

Lines for tonight:

Fedotenko-Crosby-Malkin

Bourque-Staal-Guerin

Cooke-Letestu-Dupuis Rupp-Adams-Godard

Skoula-Lovejoy

Eaton-Engelland

Guenin-McKee

Fleury vs. Hiller in net.