Shea-ved Ice: 3 Stars Of The Week
Two games is a small sample to pick three stars of the week from, but luckily for me there were some standout performances.
It was a little unsettling to see the Penguins drop consecutive games last week after ripping off 12-straight wins.
Contrary to how I felt about some early season losses, I'm chalking up last week to the normal ebb and flow of a season.
Here's the three stars of the week:
#1 Evgeni Malkin
Granted he lost his head for a minute during a 3-2 Flyers loss on Tuesday. As a result, the Flyers scored the game-winning goal with Geno in the penalty box.
Anyway, he looked pretty good despite missing the previous four games.
He scored the Pens' only three goals last week, with two coming on the power play against Philadelphia.
His first goal came off a wicked one-timer from Alex Goligoski. All I can say is Brian Boucher is lucky he didn't get in front of the shot because we very well could have had another clip of a puck getting stuck in his helmet. (How scared must he have been that he was seriously hurt on that shot? It still makes me cringe watching it. Freaky stuff.)
Malkin's second goal came off a slapper from the point that I'm sure Boucher would like to have back.
Against the New York Rangers, Malkin pulled another move out his bag of tricks to burn Henrik Lundqvist with time ticking down in the opening period. Lundqvist had no chance of stopping a move like that at all.
#2 Sidney Crosby
With three assists this week, he extended his career-best point streak to 20 games.
He also padded his lead in the NHL scoring race over Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Crosby's 54 points (26 goals, 28 assists) are eight better than Stamkos (25 goals, 21 assists).
In addition to the assists, Crosby continues to dominate faceoffs.
According to NHL.com, Crosby won 56 percent of his draws against the Flyers and 59.1 percent against the Rangers.
#3 Kris Letang
Letang only had one assist, but is continuing to hang around the league leaders among defensemen.
Heading into Monday's game, Letang is tied for third among defensemen with 27 points (five goals, 22 assists).
Atlanta's Dustin Byfuglien holds a six-point lead over Letang with 33 points (11 goals, 22 assists).
What's also impressive with Letang's play this season is his play in the defensive end. The plus/minus statistic can be misleading at times (Philadelphia's Andrej Meszaros and Sean O'Donnell are leading the league and Scott Hartnell is in the top 10 as well), but how many times has Letang's skating ability prevented scoring chances?
Letang's plus-17 rating ranks him in the top five in the NHL behind Meszaros (plus-22), Danny Briere (plus-18), O'Donnell (plus-18) and Nathan Horton (plus-18).
Looking at those names, if someone had money on them in Vegas, they probably just broke the bank.
The Penguins will play four games in the next seven days, which should make my job a little easier.
Check back for more stars of the week next week, and you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CaseySheaPens
