ANOTHER HARD EIGHT

The day after his 26th birthday, Brad Theissen was capable. You might say it was a Fuhrian performance. Fortunately, the Penguins' offense was Oilerian to go with it as they rolled a  hard eight on the Winnepeg Jets for the second time this season at Consol. On February 11th, the Penguins defeated the Jets 8-5 (the most goals surrendered in a game by Marc-Andre Fluery this season). Last night Thiessen "held" the Jets to just 4 goals for an 8-4 win.

Eyvgeni Malkin has 17 points in 10 career games against Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec (with the Jets and Atlanta) and Sidney Crosby has 19 points in just eight games. Pavelec gave up 14 of the 16 goals in the teams' last two meeting this season. After the 6th goal last night Bob Errey commented, "Maybe they should send him a get well card."

The  night was Jame's Neal's, registering a hat trick (the second in his career). Do ya think "The Real Deal" is enjoying being in Pittsburgh? Scoring only one regular season goal last season after coming over from Dallas in the Alex Gologoski trade, Neal has taken flight with 35 goals thus far and has a new $30 million contract to play the next 5 years in the 'Burgh. AND he's only 24!

Speaking of being happy, Tyler Kennedy has got to be ecstatic to see Sidney Crosby... on HIS line. Kennedy scored two goals and spent the remainder of the game being set up by his teammates in an attempt to score an HT himself. When you play on Crosby's line you do the same thing as if playing with Mario--keep your stick on the ice and go to the net. Crosby set up Kennedy for both goals with passes from behind the net. Both goals were scored within 10 feet of the net.

What a power play group. The Pens had Crosby, Malkin, Neal, Letang and Kunitz on the ice last night. It kind of reminds one of the Penguins' PP back in the day of the second Stanley Cup. As Mike Lange called it in Game 1 of the Finals against the Backhawks, "Francis, Stevens, Jagr up front, Murphy and Lemieux." The difference is FOUR of those guys are either in the Hall of Fame or soon will be.

Pascal Dupuis scored his 21st goal which is his career high.

Five Penguins have scored over 20 goals. Two others, Sullivan (14) and Cooke (16) have an outside chance of reaching 20 in the final 9 games. 

The Penguins have now scored 5 or more goals 17 times this year. Eight of those games have come in their last 20, of which they've won 15. They also have 37 goals in 9 games thus far in March.