The Penguins Take Flight; They Soar Past the Wild and the Jets

Wow, I mean Wow!!!!

Our boys in Black – n – Gold put up 2 touchdowns this weekend, 1 in each game. Granted, with all due respect to the tempered among us, Devan Dubnyk of the Minnesota Wild has struggled this year and went into Saturday night’s game with Save Percentage (Sv%) under 0.900%, so the 5 Goals (G) that got behind him should come as no surprise. Furthermore, after he was chased from the net, Alex Stalock, the Wild’s understudy in goal only gave up 1 G on 11 Shots, underscoring how bad Dubnyk has been playing so far, at the start of this season. However, our favorite flightless fowl torched the Wild starter for more goals than Nashville, Colorado, and Winnipeg could manage against the struggling Minnesota net minder.

To speak in the vernacular, “that ain’t hay”.

And even though last night, Winnipeg did put in their backup goalie, Laurent Brossoit, who also was struggling with a Sv% under 0.900%, for our Penguins’ young guns to victimize, let’s remember that last year, our Penguins have had their struggles against teams that they needed to not only beat but cruise past, like they did this Saturday and Sunday. Last year, weaker teams hung around and often times took our Boys of Winter into Over Time (OT) before surrendering, or worse hanging around until they beat us out right. So burying a winless Wild and a Winnipeg team with a defense corps that is a shadow of its former self is still a good sign.

Our Penguins are doing better than last year. So, let’s smile for at least a little while and enjoy seeing our team light up the scoreboard.

Captain Sidney Crosby had a big weekend with 1 Goal (G) and 3 Assists for 4 Points. Assistant Captain Kris Letang also feasted on the weak opposing Goaltending for 1 G and 3 A while piling up a +6. Jake Guentzel joined in the scoring fun, potting 3 Gs for the weekend.

However, the real story for this weekend’s back-to-back series was rookie and Hollidaysburgh’s native son Sam Lafferty. Lafferty had an outstanding preseason with Winger’s Kasper Bjorkqvist and Nathan Legare forming perhaps the only offense force of a rather pedestrian preseason. Unfortunately, our aquatic avians opted to start the season with 9 defenseman and only 12 forwards. So, Lafferty started the season in Wilkes Barre – Scranton (WBS).

The good news though is that he was on the big club this weekend and not plying his trade in WBS. The young forward and former 4th round draft pick had 3 Gs including a game Winning Goal (WG), and 2As, to lead the team with 5 Points (Pnts). He also posted a +5 for his weekends work.

A shout out needs to go to Zach Aston-Reese as well for his labors’. Aston-Reese potted 2 Gs, Against Winnipeg, one of which was the team’s first Short Handed Goal (SHG) He also picked up 2 As. Aston-Reese, like Lafferty finished the weekend at +5 over those 2 games.

Brian Dumoulin led the team in +/- for the weekend at a +7.

After 3 games in 4 days, winning all 3 by a combined score of 16 – 7, the Penguins get 2 days to catch their breath. They don’t play again until Wednesday. Hopefully, the team gathers some momentum while we fans take some times to revel in our team’s dominating performance.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the injured start coming back (assuming that it doesn’t turn into a revolving door right away). Will Lafferty and Adam Johnson get banished back to WBS? I would think WBS would love to get them back. The Baby Penguins lost all 3 games they played this weekend. They haven’t won a game since Johnson and Lafferty were recalled.

Next up, Colorado, Wednesday 7:00pm