Penguins Ring in the New Year with a Walk on the Wild Side: Escape 3 – 2
No, it wasn’t pretty but the black and gold closed out the year with a win, riding a 6 game winning streak, defeating Minnesota 3 – 2. The Goaltending, Sidney Crosby, Phil Kessel and the Power Play (PP) all continued to sparkle. There was even some contribution from the bottom of the lineup. The Penguins defense, well that is a horse of a different color.
Miikko Koivu opened up the scoring following a Riley Sheahan hooking call (drawn by Jason Zucker). The Penguins’ Penalty Killing (PK) unit dumped the puck deep into the Wild zone. Derek Grant went in on the fore-check, while Koivu retrieved the puck from a Minnesota defenseman to reset the PP. As Koivu approached the Penguins blue line, Grant chose to skate to the bench, leaving Casey DeSmith and the rest of his PK partners to face an odd man break. Koivu passed the puck forward to Charlie Coyle then drifted unaccounted for, because of the vacating Grant’s replacement was just stepping on to the ice.