The Skinny: Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury stopped all 31 shots he faced to lead the Penguins past the Flames, who had not been shut out since an opening-night 6-0 setback to the Vancouver Canucks.
The Crosby Factor: Sidney Crosby made his presence felt when he set up Kris Letang for a power-play goal at 8:20 of the first period. On the play, Crosby kicked the puck from his skate to his stick before threading a cross-crease pass to Letang, who had an easy tap-in for his ninth of the season
The Big Saves: In the second period, Fleury turned aside a pair of quality scoring chances by Curtis Glencross before getting in front of a heavy slap shot off the stick of Jarome Iginla.
The Quote: “He definitely stood on his head all night,” Glencross said of Fleury during a post-game interview on the Fan 960. “We had quite a few chances. We’ve just got to bear down on them.”¶
The Rare Goal: With Calgary pressing to tie the game in the final frame, defenceman Rob Scuderi broke up a Calgary rush and passed the puck to Evgeni Malkin. Instead of shooting, Malkin dropped the puck to blue-liner Hal Gill who wired a shot into the top corner behind Miikka Kiprusoff for his first goal in 26 games and just his second of the season.
The Power-less Play: Calgary failed to score on five man-advantage situations although a lot of the credit has to go to Fleury, who seemed to be in the right spot to stop the puck all night.
The Race: With nine games left to play, the Flames are just three points ahead of the Canucks for top spot in the Northwest Division and Vancouver has a game in hand.
The Next Game: The Flames don’t have much time to catch their breath as they travel to Columbus play the surging Blue Jackets tonight (5 p.m., Rogers Sportsnet, Fan 960).
