Pittsburgh Penguins' winning streak is no more

The Pittsburgh Penguins' winning streak was put to bed by the Buffalo Sabres tonight. The Sabres, who came to win, finished the 1^st period on top as they lead the Penguins by 1 point. Sabres worked hard and took advantage of the opportunities early on in the game and came out on top with the first goal. Jarome Iginla, newly acquired by the Penguins, made his first goal during the first period giving the Penguins their only goal. The Penguins winning streak is tied for second longest in the NHL and only 2 short of the league record held by the 92’-93’ Penguins.

The Sabres who have had a rough start to the season and are currently 13^th in the Eastern Conference dominated the ice early on against the Penguins.  If the Sabres trump the Penguins, will the win be contributed to the player that are out of the Penguins line up? Crosby is out with a broken jaw, Letang out with a broken toe and Martin out for hand surgery.

The Sabres continued to build on their first period lead as they added two goals to their lead, 4-1, in the first three minutes of play.  Penguins needed to come from behind, if they wanted to continue their winning streak. The Penguins may have been down during the second period, but it was too soon to  count them out, as Pascal Dupuis kept pushing into the Sabres zone.  Buffalo did a really great job at controlling the tempo of this game, they were able to maintain a strong lead against a team that no one else was beating.

As the game moved into the third period, Dupuis continued to push into Sabres zone assisted by Iginla, other than that Penguins were lacking some serious offense. The Penguins gave away five straight power plays to the Sabres luckily they were also able to successfully kill them off.  Sabres continued to hold the Penguins off and maintained their 4-1 lead late into the third period. As the game progressed past the half way point in the third it appeared the game was out of sight for the Penguins.  The Penguins were unable to capitalize on their power play in the third period and the Sabres take the Penguins 4-1. At a moment like this with such a surprising loss, the Penguins must be hurting for Crosby. Tonight the Penguins learned that their team is not invincible and they have to come ready to play at each game. The Penguins were mistake prone, showed lack of discipline and overall were not sharp. This game leaves everyone asking: What happened?!