Home / Sports / NHL / Pittsburgh buries New Jersey 3-0

Pittsburgh buries New Jersey 3-0

PITTSBURGH — Marc-Andre Fleury showed why he is the number one goalie in Pittsburgh as the Penguins rolled past the New Jersey Devils 3-0 on Thursday at the Consol Energy Center. He collected his first shutout and the Penguins first win of the season.

Chuck Kobasew, Sidney Crosby, and Craig Adams scored for Pittsburgh, Kobasew and Crosby in the first and Adams in the third.

Fluery silence all doubters last night as he made 27 saves for his 250th NHL win. In 33 games last year he recorded just one shutout.

“I’m happy to get a win,” Fleury said. “It’s a long season though. This first one is done and I’m looking forward to playing the next one. The guys did a great job. They helped me out a lot and blocked some shots and covered the guys in front.”

Fans weren’t the only ones pleased with his performance, Penguins coach Dan Bylsma was happy and knew he would have this type of performance.

“It was certainly a good start,” Bylsma said. “I think early on in the game, there was not a lot of action for him and around him, but in the second period they started taking the play to us and he had to make a couple big saves.”

Pittsburgh’s first goal was led by a strong breakout. Beau Bennett cruised through the neutral zone and gained the zone and dropped it back to Brandon Sutter who fired a wrist shot at Cory Schneider who gave up a huge rebound for Kobasew to slam it home.

Their second goal was another beautiful breakout as Pascal Dupuis and Sidney Crosby came down on a 2-on-1 rush as Crosby carried through the zone he fired a wrist shot past Schneider on the glove side.

Their third goal was once again textbook as they came through the neutral zone on a 3-on-2 rush with Evgeni Malkin  leading the way as they crossed the zone Malking fed the puck to a streaking Craig Adams who received the puck and fired a wrist show low glove side on Schneider.

“It wasn’t the best start from me,” Schneider said. “It’s tough to go down 2-0 to a team like that and have to claw back, but my teammates worked really hard in the second and third periods there, didn’t give them a whole lot and we had a couple good chances, but Fleury made some big saves. So, [it was a] disappointing start all around.”

Martin Brodeur will play when the Devils host the New York Islanders on Friday at Prudential Center.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

 

 

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: