As the Penguins and Rangers shifted their first-round playoff series to New York, the Penguins also shifted things around in goal. Game 1 was 28-year-old Jeff Zatkoff’s chance to start – and shine – in his first career playoff game, a 5-2 Penguins win. The club’s No....
For most of Game 2 against the New York Rangers Saturday, the Penguins weren’t unhappy with their play. But they also seemed a little off, getting away from the aggressive forecheck and puck possession that have brought them success. During a five-minute span in the...
At Wednesday’s morning skate, Marc-Andre Fleury was the first goalie off the ice for the Penguins. Tristan Jarry, the 20-year-old called up from the AHL as a potential emergency backup for Jeff Zatkoff, was nowhere to be seen. Although head coach Mike Sullivan called...
The Pittsburgh Penguins have heard the buzz. As they went on a 16-5 tear to close the season, rising from playoff-bubble team to second place in their division, they also rose in the opinions of many from an also-ran to a Stanley Cup favorite. But the Penguins don’t...
Sidney Crosby and, especially, Kris Letang have logged big minutes in leading the Penguins’ second-half comeback. So, after the club clinched second place in the Metro division with a win at Washington Thursday, head coach Mike Sullivan gave his captain and best...
Before the Penguins started to find their identity – and their offense – it was Marc-Andre Fleury who kept their season afloat. Friday, with his team coming off a 12-4 March and surging toward the postseason in a way that’s starting to draw parallels to their 2009...
Thursday night outside the Penguins’ locker room, Pascal Dupuis was fielding questions about his selection as the team’s 2016 Masterton Trophy nominee with the graciousness and humor that have been his hallmark since arriving in Pittsburgh eight years ago. But the...
The shift in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ identity started almost immediately after head coach Mike Sullivan was hired. “When you’re handed a group of players, I try to look at it and say, what are our strengths as a group, and how do we play to those strengths so we have...
For a team battling for a playoff spot, not to mention the hope of making a run at the Stanley Cup once they get there, Saturday’s news couldn’t have been much worse. Penguins star center Evgeni Malkin, who appeared to injure his left hand when big defenseman Dalton...
The Penguins landed the biggest name available just before the NHL trade deadline, adding 2012 league MVP, 2009 playoff MVP and two-time scoring champion Evgeni Malkin to their roster before hosting the Winnipeg Jets Saturday. The return of the Penguins’ own injured...
Saturday, Feb. 20, started like any other game day for Jeff Zatkoff. The Penguins’ backup netminder reported to work at CONSOL Energy Center, just as he has for most every game this season, expecting to back up starter Marc-Andre Fleury. But fate had other plans for...
The Penguins’ resurgence – going 10-4-3 since Jan. 1 to climb back into playoff position – has largely been driven by offense. In that time, only three teams have found the net for more goals than Pittsburgh’s 54 – a significant turnaround from their 28th-ranked...
When head coach Mike Sullivan was hired, he spoke of the identity he wanted his Pittsburgh Penguins to establish – hardworking, accountable, tough to play against. In what may be their signature win under the new bench boss so far, the Penguins did just that Saturday...
The good news is that the Penguins have delivered on head coach Mike Sullivan’s promise when he was hired that they would become a more resilient team. The bad is that they’re consistently putting themselves into situations where they have little choice but to battle...
When a team is sitting just two points out of the last playoff spot in the conference, it needs every point it can get. And, although the Pittsburgh Penguins have shown significant improvement in many aspects of their game under head coach Mike Sullivan, that’s...
As symbolism goes, the Penguins couldn’t have done a much better job of closing the book on a disappointing 2015 than they did New Year’s Eve in Detroit. After hinting at a newfound resilience the night before in Pittsburgh, evening the score twice against the Toronto...
In yet another game where the Pittsburgh Penguins’ power play could’ve made a difference, but instead went 0-for-3 in a 3-2 shootout loss to the L.A. Kings, Mike Johnston lamented the offense that could’ve been. “You just have to convert on the back-door chance [Phil]...
Twenty-five games into the 2015-16 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins are a puzzling study in contrasts. Often on the same night. Are they the team that steamrolled to their first win in San Jose in 18 years Tuesday, setting a season high for goals in a 5-1 victory that...
For the Pittsburgh Penguins’ struggling defensive corps, as the saying goes, sometimes when a door closes, a window opens. Tuesday, 21-year-old blueliner Olli Maatta added to the bad-luck streak that’s hampered his highly promising career so far when Minnesota’s Nino...
Could the Pittsburgh Penguins’ recent success have been a mirage, masking major flaws that are now becoming impossible to ignore? After starting the season 0-3, the Penguins won nine of their next 10, largely on the strength of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and...
After an 0-3 start, the Pittsburgh Penguins have won seven of their past eight and are starting to inch up the Eastern Conference standings. They’ve done that largely on the shoulders of netminder Marc-Andre Fleury, whose six wins are just one behind league leaders...
After limping out of the gate to an 0-3 start, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ record has evened up at 4-4. Their offense, however – ostensibly featuring four skilled lines with the potential to score – is still a work in progress. Evgeni Malkin leads the club with seven...
Four games into the 2015-16 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins finally got into the win column Thursday with a 2-0 shutout of the Ottawa Senators. And they did it by making some changes to what hadn’t been working so well in their first three contests. A loaded-up first...
Daniel Sprong had some big news to share. So, naturally, one of his first calls was back home to Montreal, where his family moved from Amsterdam when Daniel was a 7-year-old kid with an NHL dream. “I called the parents, friends from back home. I first told my mom I...
After a fifth consecutive year of falling well short of their postseason goals, the Pittsburgh Penguins emerged from this summer a significantly reshaped team. Third-line center Brandon Sutter was shipped out to Vancouver in a deal that brought back center Nick Bonino...
Penguins GM Jim Rutherford went into the past week determined to address his team’s well-known, biggest need – a proven, goal-scoring winger to play alongside Sidney Crosby and/or Evgeni Malkin. Wednesday, he got his man. “We’ve worked on this deal with Toronto for...
History will note that the 2014-15 Pittsburgh Penguins, entering the playoffs as a No. 8 seed decimated by injuries to four of its top six defensemen, lost in five games to the No. 1-seeded New York Rangers, this year’s Presidents’ Trophy winner and a clear Stanley...
In a contest that was as must-win as a non-elimination game could be, the Pittsburgh Penguins came out Wednesday and decisively won the first period of Game 4 over the New York Rangers. Patric Hornqvist opened the scoring just 2:22 in and the Penguins played with...
After Monday’s 2-1 defeat to the New York Rangers – a loss that put his club down in their first-round playoff series by the same margin – Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Johnston bemoaned his team’s shot selection in the first two periods. Specifically, how they...
On paper, the Rangers-Penguins series looks like a mismatch, pitting this year’s Presidents’ Trophy winner against a club that was in danger of missing the playoffs on the last day of the regular season and continues to play without three of its top six defensemen....
