The Pens finished strong tonight in one of the best games of the season with goals from Petr Sykora, Miroslav Satan, Evgeni Malkin, Max Talbot, and Sergei Gonchar who picked up his first of the season. Bylsma seems to be taking a more aggressive approach to our defensive and offense game that started to show in tonight's match-up made the team look like a playoff team once again.

The Pens were really working together and there wasn't really a star that stood out during the game tonight. It felt like the Pens were connecting passes, leading some decent offensive rushes, and coming up big on defense all night. The Habs were without Alex Kovalev, who was ordered to sit out a two game road trip, probably to heal up for Hockey Day in Canada. Carey Price probably should have sat out tonight too, since his injury he is 2-8-1.

Sergei Gonchar's presence is just what our defense needed at this point in the season. Since his return, he seems to influence the younger guys, and make the older players play harder to keep their spot. His goal tonight will certainly lift our slumping blue liners out of the hole the Pen's first half of the season has been.

Ray Shero announced yesterday that Michel Therrian's days as the head coach of the Penguins has ended. Dan Bylsma of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins has been named interim head coach to take a new approach and lead the team through the remaining 25 games. Blysma's first NHL coaching job was with today's opponent, the New York Islanders back in the 05-06 season, and made his way to the Penguins organization in 06.

During the two years Bylsma was with WB/S along side Todd Richards, the current coach of Western conference leaders San Jose, they were able to win the AHL East Division, an Eastern Conference Championship, and posted a record of 98-49-5-8. This season the Baby Pens are 35-16-1-2 and are currently riding an 8 game winning streak.

Michel Therrian may be out of coaching job at the moment, but he has shown in the past what he has been able to accomplish with young teams, talented teams, and struggling teams and should find himself somewhere in need of a coach. This year he had to make some adjustments to his coaching technique after an average first half of the season to keep the Penguins from falling too far out of the playoff race and Ray Shero thinks its time to take the team in a new direction. As far as General Managers go, Ray Shero is at the top of the list. He has made bold moves in the past and this could be just what we need at this point in the season.