Pens cruise past Canes for commanding 3-0 lead

Bring on Detroit! (Or Chicago).

The Penguins beat the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 3 on Saturday night by a score of 6-2 and they are ready to return to the Stanley Cup Finals to battle the Red Wings or Blackhawks. They still have one more game against Carolina on Tuesday night, but Game 4 is probably a technicality at this point.

Whether they can sweep them or not, it’s hard to imagine that this series will go longer than five games. The Penguins have dominated offensively, and Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby have been absolutely sensational.

Malkin followed a hat trick and four-point night in Game 2 with another splendid performance, this time notching two goals and an assist. In the process, he broke a franchise record with his sixth consecutive game with multiple points. Mario Lemieux had five straight multi-point playoff games, doing that on two separate occasions.

Malkin has an amazing 16 points in his last six games. The Pens’ Russian centerman also became the first player with six straight multi-point games in the playoffs since Dale Hawerchuk did it in 1993 for Buffalo.

Crosby continued his own torrid pace, picking up a goal and an assist. He has a five-game point streak and has 10 points during that span.

The Hurricanes came out strong in the first five minutes on Saturday night and were rewarded for it, as Matt Cullen picked up his fourth of the playoffs on a quick play in front of the net.

But Malkin scored on the power play three minutes later, taking advantage of a giveaway by defenseman Tim Gleason to make it 1-1. The Pens have now scored power play goals in eight of their last nine games.

That gave the Pens plenty of energy, and then the top line struck with a beautiful goal with 43 seconds left in the opening frame to put the Pens in front to stay.

Chris Kunitz intercepted an errant pass in his own zone, then fed Guerin in the neutral zone. Guerin proceeded to gain the zone by letting the puck go between his legs, and then he backhanded the puck to Crosby, who was streaking to the net.

The Pens’ captain made no mistake, redirecting the puck over the pad of Cam Ward with a quick backhander. It was his league-leading 14th goal of the playoffs.

Things went from bad to worse for the Hurricanes real quick. They gave up another goal in the last minute of the first, as Malkin scored his second of the night, picking up a loose puck in the corner, making a beeline towards the net, and sliding the puck under Ward to give the Penguins a 3-1 lead.

After a scoreless second period, the Canes got back in it and made it 3-2, as Sergei Samsonov picked up his fifth of the playoffs on a rebound of a shot by Erik Cole.

But as has been the case throughout the entire playoffs, the Penguins never panicked. They continued to get great goaltending from Marc-Andre Fleury, and even though they were outshot 19-8 in the third period, they once again found a way to put the Canes away.

Malkin dropped off a pass to Ruslan Fedotenko, who picked up an insurance goal midway through the third and made it 4-2 Pittsburgh with a quick wrist shot from the slot.

Then the Pens would seal it with an odd empty net goal with less than two minutes left. Instead of trying to win the faceoff, Craig Adams shot the puck from the neutral zone and scored right off the faceoff from 120 feet out.

Guerin would add insult to injury by scoring his seventh goal with a nifty backhand shot from the slot, as Canes fans were pouring out of the building.

Slap shots

• The Pens have outscored the Hurricanes 13-6 in the last couple of games, and a whopping 25 goals have been scored so far in this series.
• To put this in perspective, consider the fact that only 10 goals were scored in the four games between Anaheim and Minnesota in the 2003 Western Conference Finals.
• Crosby and Malkin are carrying a Penguins offense that has scored at least three goals in all but two of their 16 playoff games. The Penguins have scored 61 goals in 16 games for an average of 3.81 goals per game.
• The Pens outshot Carolina 40-34. They’ve outshot their opponents in 14 of the 16 games they’ve played. Only Philadelphia has managed to outshoot the Penguins – they did it in Games 3 and 4.
• Marc-Andre Fleury rebounded from his average performance in Game 2 and stopped 32 of 34 shots.
• Carolina coach Paul Maurice after the game: “Our challenge will be to find a way to beat them once, and then we’ll try to revisit that. But we’re not looking at beating Pittsburgh four times. We need one game.”
• On top of Malkin and Crosby, five other Penguins had multiple points. Guerin, Fetodenko and Adams each had a goal and an assist, and Kunitz and Sergei Gonchar each had two assists.

Game highlights

Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin

Dan Bylsma