The Pittsburgh Penguins are more than just treading water as they await the season debut of Sydney Crosby. The Penguins (10-4-3) are skating well heading into Tuesday night's home matchup against the Colorado Avalanche, having compiled a 7-2-1 record in their past ten games to stay in second place in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference with 23 points. Much of the credit for Pittsburgh's recent string of success can be attributed to James Neal, who has three goals and five assists in his last five games and 11 goals overall for the season without Crosby in the lineup. Crosby, by the way, skated with the Pens on Monday but his status remains unchanged.
Keep an eye on which team scores first -- Pittsburgh is 7-0 when netting the first goal, and Colorado has fallen behind by three goals ore more in three consecutive games. They lost two of the three in which they dug themselves an early hole.
"Playing catch-up hockey (stinks) and it's too hard to win games like that," defenseman Kyle Quincey said. "You're going to come back once in a while but you're not going to do it consistently."
Pittsburgh will try to avoid falling behind themselves after spotting Carolina three goals in Saturday's 5-3 loss to the Hurricane.
Here's your basic game information prior to the drop of the puck tonight from Mellon Arena.
When: 7:00 pm local time
Where: Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh
TV Information:
- National: VERSUS (HD),TSN2
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