Regular season ends with 4-2 win over Philadelphia

A highly entertaining regular season came to a conclusion with a rather boring 4-2 victory over the Flyers.  Despite the presence of both Jody Shelley and Steve MacIntyre, the only fight was some young kid with a crazy name losing a decision to Joe Vitale.  Now both teams will be ready to rumble on Wednesday when they open the Stanley Cup playoffs against each other.  I am on the road here, so I will make this update fairly quick by jumping right to the game summary:

Period One

At the 5:33 mark of the first period, Pascal Dupuis added to his career high goal total, netting his 25th of the year, while extending his league high scoring streak to 17 games!  He was assisted by Arron Asham (11) and Jordan Staal (24).  Pens led 1-0.  At the 19:07 mark Braydon Schenn tied it 1-1.  The period ended that way.

Period Two

At the 7:15 mark Chris Kunitz restored the Penguins' lead by scoring his career high 26th goal of the season assisted by ART ROSS winner Evgeni Malkin (59).  The Penguin retake the lead at 2-1.  Very shortly after a planned goaltender swap, Jaromir Jagoff tied the game on the power play beating netminder Brent Johnson to make it a 2-2 game.  Late in the period, the Penguins answered with the two headed monster.  At the 17:54 mark, Sidney Crosby scored his 8th goal of the season on the power play, assisted by Chris Kunitz (35) and Jordan Staal (25) to give the Penguins a 3-2 lead.  Then at 19:48, Evgeni Malkin brought the house down by scoring his 50th goal of the season, assisted by Kris Letang (32) and Sidney Crosby (29) to give the Penguins a 4-2 lead, and put an exclamation point on his Art Ross victory.  The third period would be uneventful and the game ended 4-2 Pittsburgh.

Despite all the chest thumping, there is not much to be taken away from this game relative to the playoffs.  After about a period and a half, the game took on a decidedly pre-season feel.  It cannot be a bad thing to get the win at the Consol for the first time this season, and it was great to see Geno get his 50th, but the biggest win is the lack of fresh injuries to the team.

Some brief notes to conclude this post include the fact that Malkin's Art Ross victory is the 14th for the Penguins in the past 24 years!  You read that right.  14 of the past 24 Art Ross winners were Penguins. Malkin's 1.45 points per game was the highest since Sidney Crosby won it it 2006-07.  Speaking of Crosby, he put up 37 points in 21 games, with 8 goals and 29 assists while playing on a hodge podge of lines.  Pretty impressive stuff.  Geno became the 9th player in Penguins history to record 50 goals.  Pascal Dupuis had career highs in goals and points with 25 goals and 59 points, while Chris Kuntiz did the same with 26 goals and 61 points this season.  Despite playing in 20 fewer games, Jordan Staal had a career high 50 points, beating the 49 points he has posted twice in his career.  The 108 points the Penguins tallied had them 4th in the league in points, and only one off the conference lead. This total was accomplished while sustaining a league high 359 man games lost!  Pretty impressive stuff.  That point total is the second highest in franchise history.  I am going to stop here, and likely do a season review post prior to the playoffs starting here in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.  GO PENS!!