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The Penguins didn't have much of a book on Chicago goalie Antti Niemi before last night.
Barely an index card, really, since there were only nine NHL appearances on his resume.
And while they know a bit more about him now, they still don't have all much insight on how to get pucks past Niemi. Not based on data collected during their 2-1 overtime loss to the Blackhawks at Mellon Arena, anyway.
"We ran into a hot goalie," Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar said. "He made a couple of nice saves. You have to give him credit."
It certainly wasn't a matter of getting shots on Niemi; the Penguins finished with 33 and had another 36 that were blocked or missed the net. And they weren't shy about going to the net or absorbing a hit to make a play or get off a shot, either.
"[Niemi] looked big, he looked confident, he found the puck, [allowed] no rebounds and he was in control," Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said.
Kris Versteeg of the Blackhawks got the winner at 2:38 of overtime when he collected a Brian Campbell rebound at the left side of the crease and flipped it past Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
The Penguins, who had a five-game winning streak snapped, are 20-9-1 and will face Carolina here at 7:38 p.m. tomorrow.
The Penguins played without leading scorer, center Sidney Crosby, who had a sore groin.
"That's two years in a row that we didn't see him," Quenneville said. "And I'm not complaining."
Crosby was replaced by Mark Letestu, recalled earlier in the day from the Penguins' minor league team in Wilkes-Barre. Evgeni Malkin moved into Crosby's spot between Max Talbot and Bill Guerin, and Letestu took Malkin's place with Ruslan Fedotenko and Pascal Dupuis.
Left winger Matt Cooke returned to the Penguins' lineup after serving a two-game suspension for a high hit on New York Rangers forward Artem Anisimov Nov. 28, and assumed his customary spot with Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy.
The Penguins and Blackhawks rank among the elite clubs in their respective conferences, and both played with an intensity well beyond that generally found in a non-conference game in early December.
PDF"I think their coach was using that game as a measuring stick, seeing as how we won last year and they were close to being in the finals," Cooke said. "Anytime you do that and there are hits thrown early in the game, it becomes intense."
One of those hits, by Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith on Cooke at 6:45 of the opening period, might be a candidate for a review by the league office. Keith blindsided Cooke and appeared to strike him in the head, the kind of offense that earned Cooke his suspension.
"I hit him 10 seconds earlier down at the other end of the ice," Cooke said. "He skates right down and hits me from behind, right in the side of the head."
Penguins alum Marian Hossa got the only goal of the opening period. He used his body to control the rebound of a Brian Campbell shot before swatting the puck past Fleury at 7:37. Both sides were down a man when Hossa scored.
In fact, Hossa's goal was the only one by either team until 18:28 of the third period, when Staal collected the deflection of a Malkin shot and threw it by Niemi from the inner edge of the left circle for his eighth.
Staal's goal had its roots in a play drawn up by assistant coach Mike Yeo during a timeout the Penguins had called just seconds earlier.
"You don't often get the opportunity to execute one on of those faceoff plays," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said. "We got one tonight for a big point."
Naturally, they would have preferred two, if only to establish an edge in case they run into the Blackhawks again this season. Which can only happen, of course, in the Stanley Cup final.
"It was a big game for both teams to prove themselves," Staal said. "Coming into this game, we wanted to prove we could play with this team. We've heard a lot about them, and wanted to show them our best."
Penguins Plus, a blog by Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson, is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
