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Crosby, Malkin power Penguins, help Fleury grab 300th win

Tampa Bay Lightning v Pittsburgh Penguins

PITTSBURGH, PA - FEBRUARY 25: Evgeni Malkin #71 of the Pittsburgh Penguins helps his goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury #29 of the Pittsburgh Penguins defend the net against the Tampa Bay Lightning on February 25, 2012 at CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh defeated Tampa Bay 8-1. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

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Ultimately, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ star players came through on Monday, while many of the Boston Bruins’ best watched on the sidelines.

Boston managed to stick with Pittsburgh even with key players like Zdeno Chara still injured, yet much like head coach Claude Julien has said, they just haven’t had much margin of error. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to generate Pittsburgh’s three goals, including this electrifying game-winner by Malkin:

This 3-2 overtime win gives Marc-Andre Fleury 300 career regular season victories. His agent Allan Walsh points out that he’s the third youngest goalie to hit the 300 mark.

Crosby scored a goal and two assists while Malkin finished the night with two tallies. Kris Letang collected two helpers of his own and also helped trigger the overtime winner.

The Bruins deserve credit for hanging tough, including carrying the play for chunks of time, as you can see from this Natural Stat Trick graph:

bruinspitt

James OBrien

The Bruins saw two goals get disallowed through the first 40 minutes of play. The bounces frequently didn’t go Boston’s way, even though they scored two goals in less than 30 seconds.

The Bruins have now lost two games in a row. Their next game is against the Winnipeg Jets on Friday. After that, it’s a foreboding four-game road trip through the West.

Pittsburgh bounces back from two straight losses against the Islanders and will see the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday.

The worst news for them was that Beau Bennett went down with an injury. He returned for a shift but it didn’t go well: