2009–10 Pittsburgh Penguins season

The 2009–10 Pittsburgh Penguins season was the 42nd season of the franchise in the National Hockey League (NHL). The Penguins entered the season as defending Stanley Cup Champions. It is scheduled to be the last season during which the Penguins' home venue will be Mellon Arena, before they move into their new arena, the Consol Energy Center, which is being constructed adjacent to the Mellon Arena across Centre Avenue.

The regular season began with a home game against the New York Rangers in which the Penguins held a banner raising ceremony beforehand.

The Penguins qualified for the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. They did not become champions of the Atlantic Division, but earned the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference with 101 points. They began the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs on April 14 against the Ottawa Senators. They beat the Senators, but were eliminated in the Eastern Conference semi-finals against the Montreal Canadiens.

First half: October to December
The Penguins began the 2009–10 season on Friday, October 2. Prior to the game the team raised the Stanley Cup banner at Mellon Arena. The ceremonial banner raising was shown on a video board outside Mellon Arena, which displayed highlights from the previous season during the days leading up the game. The Penguins won their opening night game over the New York Rangers and defeated the New York Islanders the following night. After their first loss of the season to the Phoenix Coyotes, the Penguins embarked on a four game road trip to complete a series of five games in eight days. The Penguins swept the four game road trip—setting a new franchise record for consecutive road wins to start a season. The Penguins extended their overall win-streak to seven games by winning the first three games of their ensuing homestand; the win-streak ended with a loss to the New Jersey Devils on October 24.

The Penguins began November with a three-game road trip in California. After defeating the Anaheim Ducks, the Penguins lost their first back-to-back games of the season to the Los Angeles Kings and the San Jose Sharks. The team then lost to the Boston Bruins and New Jersey Devils. During the four-game losing streak the Penguins were outscored 17–3. Against the Bruins, Sidney Crosby did not score a point for the fifth-consecutive game, the worst of his career. The Penguins ended their skid with a 6–5 overtime victory against Boston on November 14. Bill Guerin tied the game with .04 second left, and Pascal Dupuis scored in overtime.

Extended injuries hindered the team throughout much of the early season. On November 16 the Penguins played without four of the six defenceman that had started with the team. Additionally, they were without forwards Tyler Kennedy, Max Talbot and Chris Kunitz. Evgeni Malkin had also missed significant time. Later in the week it was announced that defenceman Jay McKee would miss two to four weeks, but that Sergei Gonchar and Max Talbot, who had surgery during the off-season, would likely return on November 19.



In late December through January 1, rosters for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver were announced, and five Penguins were selected. Malkin and Gonchar were selected to play for Russia, Crosby and Marc-Andre Fleury for Canada, and Brooks Orpik for the United States.

The Penguins concluded the first half of their season with their 41st game on December 30 against the New Jersey Devils. Through the first 41 games, the Penguins earned a 26–14–1 record. While the Penguins won five straight in the middle of the month, they ending losing three in a row, and four of their last five, including shutouts of 0–2 and 0–4 to the Devils. The 0–4 shutout earned Devils' goalie Martin Brodeur his 104th career shutout and the NHL record.

Second half: January to April
The Penguins began the second half of their season with their 42nd game on January 2 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Penguins went on to lose both of their first two games of the second half of the season with the second coming against the Florida Panthers. The Penguins then returned home for a two game home stand in which they split by first defeating the Atlanta Thrashers and then loosing in a high scoring 7-4 contest to the Philadelphia Flyers. After the home stand, the Penguins embarked on a five game road trip of Canada and Minnesota in which they finished the trip with a decent 3-2 record with wins coming against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers. They battled with a struggling New Jersey Devils team for the Atlantic division title, but ultimately fell short, due in large part to having lost all 6 divisional games against the Devils. The Penguins had a 21-14-6 record in the 2nd half of the season, placing them in fourth place in the Eastern Conference (despite having the 3rd best points total). It would be the 3rd time in 4 years that the Penguins had 100+ points in a season (having missed out by a single point the previous year) and the 4th straight year with 45 wins or more.

Standings

 * Atlantic division


 * Eastern conference

Game log

 * Green background indicates win (2 points)
 * Red background indicates regulation loss (0 points)
 * White background indicates overtime/shootout loss (1 point)

Stanley Cup playoffs
The Penguins advanced to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. They earned the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference and home-ice advantage in the opening round match-up with the Ottawa Senators. The Penguins defeated the Senators 4-2 and will now face the 8th seeded Montreal Canadiens.

Eastern Conference quarterfinals
The Penguins lost game one of the series 5-4. The Penguins took an early 1-0 lead when Evgeni Malkin scored at 3:03 into the first period on the power play, but finished the first period trailing the Senators 2-1 after Peter Regin and Chris Neil both scored on rebounds. The Senators extended their lead to 3-1 early in the second period on the power play when Marc-André Fleury was caught out of the net on an odd bounce off of the end board in which Chris Kelly put into the open net. Malkin managed to decrease the deficit to 3-2 with his second power play goal of the night near the midway point of the 2nd. The Senators lead was then re-extended the lead 3 minutes later when Erik Karlsson scored on the power play. Five minutes into the 3rd period, Craig Adams scored on a backhand shot to decrease the Senators lead back to one goal, but almost five minutes later ex-Penguin Jarkko Ruutu scored what would be the game winning goal. Alex Goligoski scored to make the score 5-4 with about a minute and a half off of a no look feed from Sidney Crosby behind the net.

Looking to tie the series at 1 a piece in game two, things didn't get off on the right foot with the Senators Peter Regin scoring 18 seconds into the game to take an early 1-0 lead. Sidney Crosby leveled things up 8 minutes later knocking in a rebound off of a Chris Kunitz shot. After a scoreless second period, Kris Letang scored the game winner at 16:48 in the third on a slap shot with the assist from Crosby who fed Letang after falling to his knees. The Penguins were able to fend off the Senators for the remainder of the game and leveled the series 1-1.

The series then turned to Scotiabank Place, the home of the Senators for game 3. The Penguins started the scoring 1:17 into the first when Alexei Ponikarovsky beat Senators goalie Brian Elliott to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead. The Senators Peter Regin scored late in the first period, but the goal was disallowed due to the fact that the puck was scored by a clear kicking motion. Early in the 2nd period, Mike Fisher scored on a power play to knot things up at 1-1. Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby both went on to score goals in the second, with Crosby's coming on a power play to give the Penguins a 3-1 advantage after 2 periods. Bill Guerin extended the lead to 4-1 when he slotted home a shot on a breakaway. The Senators put on the pressure late and managed to put another behind Marc-André Fleury, this time it was Matt Cullen on the power play lifting a shot over Fleury's glove front a wide angle. The Senators pulled their goalie on a late power play to extend their man advantage to two, but failed to convert any shots to goals. When the clock struck zero, the final score was 4-2 to give the Penguins a 2-1 series lead.

Two days later, the two clubs met again in Ottawa for the fourth game of the series. The first goal of the game came 11:50 into the first period when Evgeni Malkin scored on a power play slap shot to take a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. In the second period, Ottawa turned the puck over near their blue line and Sergei Gonchar fed Chris Kunitz who then tapped the puck into the offensive zone where Sidney Crosby uncovered gathered the puck and slotted it home past Elliott to take a 2-0 lead. 12 seconds later, Maxime Talbot fed Matt Cooke from the corner boards to the front of the goal to increase the scoreline to 3-0. Things got ugly for Ottawa 13 seconds later, when Crosby came into the offensive zone virtually untouched and put a wrist shot top far corner to extend the lead to 4. Senators goal keeper Brian Elliott was then pulled and replaced by Pascal Leclaire. After the change Ottawa managed to score two goals from Chris Neil and Daniel Alfredsson]] to decrease the Penguin lead to 4-2. The goal scoring then continued in the period when Maxime Talbot scored a short handed goal. Matt Cullen for Ottawa then scored on a 5 on 3 power play and finally Chris Kunitz scored for Pittsburgh with around two minutes left in the period to go into the intermission with a 6-3 lead. In the final period, the Senators scored on another 5 on 3 power play and Jordan Staal scored the last goal of the game on a backhand shot to end any hopes of a Senators comeback. The final score was 7-4 and Pittsburgh took a 3-1 series lead back to Pittsburgh.

In game five the Penguins looked to wrap up the series on home ice. In the first period, the Senators took an early 2-0 lead with Mike Fisher scoring at 10:25 on a power play and Jarkko Ruutu put another one past Marc-Andre Fleury a little over a minute later. Kris Letang scored on a slap shot during a power play at 18:05 in the period to decrease the Senators lead to 2-1 going into the first intermission. In the second period, neither sides could manage to score until Chris Kunitz put a wrist shot past Pascal Leclaire to knot things up a 2-2 with about a minute and a half left in the second period. In the third period, Sidney Crosby scored at 9:01 on a beautiful wrist shot goal sitting on his backside in front of goal that looked like it could be the series clincher. The Senators quickly responded though at 10:24 when Peter Regin put a slap shot past Fleury to tie the game back up at 3-3. The game then went into overtime and a winner wasn't found until 7:06 into the third overtime when Matt Carkner's slap shot hit Fleury and trickled past the goal line to give the Senators a 4-3 win and decrease the Penguins advantage in the series to 3-2.

Playoff log
Win Loss  Win Playoff Series


 * Scorer of game winning goal in italics

Player stats
The following statistics were compiled from the Penguins' official website.

Skaters
Note: GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; +/− = Plus/Minus; PIM = Penalty Minutes

{| class="wikitable" style="border: 1px solid #aaa;" ! style="border: 0;" | Playoffs
 * style="background: #f2f2f2; border: 0; text-align: center;" |
 * style="background: #f2f2f2; border: 0; text-align: center;" |

Goaltenders
Note: GP = Games Played; TOI = Time On Ice (minutes); GAA = Goals Against Average; W = Wins; L = Losses; OT = Overtime Losses; SO = Shutouts; GA = Goals Against; Sv% = Save Percentage

Final roster
Updated April 28, 2010.


 * }

Transactions
The Penguins have been involved in the following transactions during the 2009–10 season.


 * Trades


 * Free agents acquired


 * Free agents lost


 * Claimed from waivers


 * Lost from waivers

Notable achievements

 * Sidney Crosby – 400 Points, 6th fastest in NHL history; October 3, 2009
 * Matt Cooke – 100th career goal; October 11, 2009
 * Deryk Engelland – 1st NHL game; November 11, 2009
 * Pascal Dupuis – 100th career goal; November 14, 2009
 * Mark Letestu – 1st NHL game; November 14, 2009
 * Mike Rupp – 1st NHL hat trick; November 30, 2009
 * Sidney Crosby – 150th career goal; December 3, 2009
 * Jordan Staal – 10th short handed goal; December 15, 2009
 * Jay McKee – 100th career assist; December 15, 2009
 * Alexander Pechurskiy – 1st NHL game; January 16, 2010
 * Nick Johnson – 1st NHL game and 1st NHL goal; January 21, 2010
 * Mark Letestu – 1st NHL goal; February 1, 2010
 * Sidney Crosby – 300th NHL Assist; February 6, 2010
 * Sergei Gonchar – 200th NHL goal; March 2, 2010. First Russian Defenseman to do so.
 * Pittsburgh Penguins – recorded 55 shots against the New York Rangers; March 5. 2010. Set a new team record for most shots in a road game.
 * Chris Kunitz – 100th NHL goal; March 22, 2010
 * Sidney Crosby - 500th NHL point, 3rd youngest in NHL history (after Gretzky and Lemieux); April 8, 2010. Last regular season home game at Mellon Arena.
 * Eric Tangradi - 1st NHL game; April 11, 2010

Draft picks
The 2009 NHL Entry Draft was the 47th NHL Entry Draft. It is was held June 26–27 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, the first NHL draft to be held in Montreal since 1992. At the Entry Draft, the Penguins made two trades to increase their number of overall picks, as several of their picks had been traded previously. With their first-round pick, the Penguins chose Simon Despres, 30th overall.


 * Notes on Draft Picks:
 * The Tampa Bay Lightning's third-round pick went to the Penguins as the result of a trade on June 28, 2008 that sent Gary Roberts and Ryan Malone to Tampa Bay in exchange for this pick (being conditional at the time of the trade). The condition – Ryan Malone is signed by Tampa Bay prior to the 2008-09 season – was converted on June 29, 2008.
 * The Tampa Bay Lightning's fifth-round pick went to the Penguins as the result of a trade on October 1, 2008 that sent Michal Sersen to Tampa Bay for this pick.
 * The Penguins' fifth-round pick (151st overall) was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs on February 26, 2008 along with a second-round pick in 2008 in exchange for Hal Gill. The New York Rangers then acquired the pick from the Maple Leafs in July 2008, then the Penguins re-claimed their pick in a June 2009 trade that sent Chad Johnson to the Rangers.


 * The Penguins' third-round pick was traded to the New York Islanders as a result of the conditional trade in which the Penguins acquired Bill Guerin on March 4, 2009. The trade sent the New York Islanders a conditional 2009 draft pick that became the third-round pick, because the Penguins advanced beyound the first round in the 2009 playoffs.