This was pretty much a 7-0 game that the Pens won 3-0. The good times are rolling. In the last 4 games, the Pens have given up a total of four goals and are 9-for-10 on the PK. 90% on the PK is great, but only having to kill 2.5 penalties a game is better. Fleury had his third straight very good game and finally closed on a shutout opportunity. (Thanks to Tanner Glass taking a tripping penalty in the third, this game had garbage goal written all over it).
The defense is rounding into form. The Pens are undefeated since Eaton came back and Simon Despres is improving every game. The first line is running practice drills, Kris Letang is sharpening his carving tools for the Norris Trophy and even Tyler Kennedy is starting to produce at the level he has in the past. As we've maintained all year, TK has a place on this team because he does something that Adams-Glass-Vitale can't: produce offensively. Here's the ideal scenario: the Pens get another third-liner to play with Sutter and Cooke, and bump TK and DJ down to the fourth line with Craig Adams. You lose a little bit of 4th line physicality and Vitale's right-handed faceoff presence, but you would immediately create a 4th line that is capable of scoring instead of its current job which is to spend 45 seconds in its own zone before trying to feather a clearing attempt hard enough that it gets out of the zone but soft enough that it isn't icing.
As for the Rangers performance yesterday, ooof.
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