Shea-ved Ice: 3 Stars Of The Week
It's been a busy seven days for the Penguins that included four games and the Christmas holiday.
The Penguins went 3-1 with convincing wins over the Phoenix Coyotes and Florida Panthers. The most exciting game was easily Thursday's game with the Washington Capitals.
Pascal Dupuis won the game for the Penguins in the seventh round of the shootout.
With four games to compete for three spots in my Stars of the Week rankings, two familiar faces rose to the top.
Without further adieu, here's this week's stars:
#1 Evgeni Malkin
Geno tallied two goals and five assists over the last week. He gets the nod for first star because of his dominating performance against the Coyotes during a 6-1 win.
Malkin had two goals and three assists to power the offensive assault. All five points came in the first 40 minutes of play.
While he was held off the scoresheet during a 3-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Sunday, his seven points in three games was still impressive.
He has now moved into second place on the Penguins in points with 32 (13 goals, 19 assists).
#2 Sidney Crosby
Crosby extended his point streak to 24 games with the Pens' lose goal against the Senators. During the streak he has 24 goals and 22 assists.
Throw out all the points before the streak started and Crosby would still be third in the NHL scoring race.
In addition to being named as the NHL's 3rd Star of the Week, Crosby saw his overall lead in All-Star voting grow.
According to NHL.com, Crosby leads Chicago's Jonathan Toews by 215,630 votes.
#3 – Marc-Andre Fleury
Fleury was 2-1 over the past week with wins over the Coyotes and Capitals. His lone setback was against the Senators.
He stopped 26 of 27 shots against Phoenix before stealing two points for the Penguins against the Capitals.
Not only did Fleury make 32 saves against the Capitals, but he stopped six of the seven shooters he faced in the shootout.
The only shooter to beat him was Alex Ovechkin. While 32 saves may not seem like an impressive number, I lost track of how many big saves Fleury came up with in that game.
Had the game been played in Pittsburgh, the fans would have been standing and chanting his name for 60 minutes. He was that good.
The Penguins have three games coming up this week.
On Tuesday, the Penguins will play the Atlanta Thrashers before heading on the road to take on the New York Islanders Wednesday night.
Then, the main event of the week will be the NHL Winter Classic at Heinz Field against the Capitals.
Let's all hope that the forecasted rain holds off so we can enjoy the great event that the Winter Classic has become.
The Winter Classic is only a few days away. If you're not going to be at Heinz Field, join me right here on KDKA.com for the first Shea-ved Ice live blog.
You can also follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/CaseySheaPens
