Written by
The Sports Network
(Sports Network) - A pair of streaking Atlantic Division rivals square off
this afternoon as the New Jersey Devils try to match their longest winning
streak of the season against the rolling Pittsburgh Penguins.
After dropping their final three games before the All-Star break, the Devils
have responded with three straight victories to pull within three points of
the Penguins for the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference.
Pittsburgh, meanwhile, has won nine of its last 10 and has gotten within two
points of Philadelphia for the conference's fourth seed.
The Devils stretched their winning streak on Saturday with a 6-4 win over the
hosting Flyers, scoring the game's first six goals before getting outshot 24-1
in a third period that also featured all four of Philadelphia's goals. Still,
two power-play goals from Kurtis Foster and a goal and two assists by Ilya
Kovalchuk was enough to help the Devils sneak out a win.
"Philadelphia is one of the highest-scoring teams in the league and you get
into this building, momentum shifts and the crowd gets into it. You can see
what can happen," New Jersey head coach Peter DeBoer said when asked if he was
concerned going into the third. "We did enough to win. Like I said, this isn't
an easy place to win in. We will take it."
The Devils went 3-for-7 on the power play and Johan Hedberg stopped 17 saves
through two periods and ended with 37 stops on 41 shots faced overall.
New Jersey now looks to match its season-high four-game win streak from Dec.
12-17 despite still having a number of injured players out of action. That
list includes Travis Zajac, Henrik Tallinder, Adam Henrique, Adam Larsson and
Ryan Carter.
The Penguins, of course, remain without superstar Sidney Crosby as well as
solid center Jordan Staal, but that hasn't stopped the club from playing well
as of late. Pittsburgh rebounded from losing the opener of a four-game swing
in Toronto 1-0 on Wednesday with yesterday's 2-1 victory over Boston.
Evgeni Malkin and Matt Cooke scored goals and Marc-Andre Fleury made 28 saves
for his ninth straight win. It is the second-longest win streak of his career
behind only an 11-game run from Nov. 17-Dec. 11 of last season.
"It was a tight game all the way through," Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma
said. "They had a goal there to get back to one and every player had to go out
there and play good team defense. We got a lot of good efforts and it was a
huge win for us."
Malkin's 28th goal of the season -- second most in the NHL -- was also his
league-leading 60th point. He has points in eight of his last 10 games, with
15 in that span.
The Devils have won their last two meetings with the Penguins by identical 3-1
scores and have taken three straight and seven of the past eight played
between the foes in New Jersey.
The Sports Network