The Pittsburgh Penguins were one of the best teams in the NHL during the regular season and they have continued that trend in the playoffs, as they defeated the New York Islanders in a tough series before advancing to play the Ottawa Senators in the second round.
The two teams already played on game and after winning 4-1 the Penguins have a 1-0 series lead after getting four goals from four different players in Game 1, with Pascal Dupis and Evgeni Malkin banging in two of them. The team got a boost last round with the return of Sidney Crosby from a jaw injury and the team will be looking to go up 2-0 on Friday night at home. In the first game Craig Anderson made 26 saves for Ottawa while Tomas Vokoun was solid net for the Penguins, making 35 stops.
The game was all Penguins after the first period ended, as the team scored two more goals and kept the Senators off the board. Malkin has been great in the playoffs, while Dupis is leading the team in goals. Malkin is tops in points with 13 and 10 assists, while Daniel Alfredsson is tops with six points and Erik Karlson has five assists for the Senators. The Penguins roster is stacked with talent after trading for Calgary forward Jarome Iginla at the end of the season and now they also will have Crosby back.
The Kings and Sharks series has also started up and the series will move to San Jose with LA up 2-0. Antti Niemi stopped 27 shots for the Sharks, who will have to rebound when the series shifts to San Jose for Game Three on Saturday.
"We found a way," Kings head coach Darryl Sutter told reporters after his team had won their sixth straight playoff game. "You know what? The power play was on. We've been talking about it.
"We've been getting good looks and good opportunities and not finishing but we got it (tonight) from different guys. I didn't like how many penalties we took, our penalty killing did a good job and the power play came through for us."
San Jose coach Todd McLellan said he had been impressed by the overall performance and character of his players on Thursday night as they came back from an early 0-2 deficit.
"I liked our game," McLellan smiled. "We'll meet tomorrow at the rink and I'll tell our team that.
"The thing I like about our team, maybe in the past this would have bothered our team more, but with the group of guys we have I think we can recover from this. We'll take our chances just like we did tonight."
(Reuters quotes)