Home not so sweet for falling Penguins
-
Marc-Andre Fleury, shown here making a save against Sergei Kostitsyn in last Saturday's home ice loss to the Canadiens: "We've had a couple of tough games."
Share with others:
Home games haven't been the same lately for the Penguins.
At times, it has been so quiet at Mellon Arena you could hear the team's stock in the Eastern Conference drop.
"We're not giving them anything to cheer about," goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury said after practice yesterday. "We're not making great plays. It's disappointing we can't offer great hockey in Pittsburgh. It's so much fun to play here.
"Usually, we come in, we play hard. We lose sometimes, but most of the time we play well, and the crowd feeds off it."
The Penguins are working on a streak of 83 regular-season sellouts going into the home game against Florida this afternoon, but a more immediate concern is a different run.
They have lost four home games in a row, five of their past six, six of their past eight and are 3-6-1 in their past 10 at Mellon Arena.
That -- along with an anemic power play -- has been a major reason they have fallen to fourth place in the Atlantic Division and, before last night, seventh in the Eastern Conference, just a point above the playoff cutoff line with the midpoint of the season approaching next week.
"Bottom line, we have not been playing well," said winger Ruslan Fedotenko, who has been one of the team's most-productive players offensively the past month with 13 points, including six goals, in 14 games -- but just four assists in six games at home during that time.
"We just need to dig deep and find that game and make sure we win the game [today]. It's frustrating for everybody -- frustrating for the players, for the coaches, for the fans."
Overall at home this season, the Penguins are 8-8-1 for 18 points, which ranked 25th in the NHL going into last night. They are within two regulation home losses of equaling their total from last season, when they were 25-10-6 at Mellon Arena.
"I thought at home we've had some good games and maybe not won, and then there have been games where our game hasn't been there," center Sidney Crosby said. "We need to give ourselves the best opportunity to win and get out of this. It's going to start with effort, and everything else should come."
Crosby has a goal and six assists in the six home games over the past month but was shut out in points in the team's most recent Mellon Arena game, a 5-2 loss Tuesday against Boston.
After that game, the players held a closed-door meeting in their locker room. They have not divulged what was said.
First Published January 3, 2009 12:00 am
