Pittsburgh Penguins VS St. Louis Blues Game Recap

The Pittsburgh Penguins headed out to St. Louis on Monday to skate with the St. Louis Blues. Paul Stastny passed the puck to Alexander Steen. Steen fired a wrist shot and scored on Jeff Zatkoff who came in for Marc Andre-Fleury who rested.

It didn't take long for Pittsburgh to swing momentum in their favor. Defenseman Kris Letang and line 1 center Sidney Crosby got the puck to line one left winger Chris Kunitz. Kunitz scored his 8th goal of the year. Letang and Crosby both recorded their 23rd assists on the season with Pittsburgh's goal.

The game was tied 1-1 after 1 period. Pittsburgh took the lead in the second period. Evgeni Malkin scored his 20th goal of the year on a wrist shot to put Pittsburgh up 2-1. A few minutes later Vladimir Tarasenko scored his 25th goal of the year on a wrist shot.

The game was tied at two after two periods. Early in the third period, with 17:50 to go, Troy Brouwer scored his ninth goal of the season on a wrist shot thanks to a second assist by Paul Stastny.

The Blues took a 3-2 lead. Later in the third period, Troy Brouwer dished an assist to Paul Stastny. Stastny had 1 goal, 2 assists, and 3 points.

Pittsburgh pulled Jeff Zatkoff late in the third period hoping an extra man on the ice would make it a one-goal game. Kevin Shattenkirk fired a wrist shot to give the Blues a 5-2 win.

The Penguins promoted an AHL coach who was the assistant coach on their minor league team the Wilkes Barre-Scranton Penguins to interim head coach after firing their head coach Mike Johnstone earlier this season. The Penguins are too talented to lose to teams like the Blues. At the same time, that talent won't translate unless they have the right coach. The New Jersey Devils made Wilke's Barre-Scranton's 2014-2015 head coach the Devils new head coach after bringing in former Penguins GM Ray Shero to be the Devils new General Manager.

That put the Penguins minor league team in a tough situation where they had to promote their assistant coach to head coach for the 2015-2016 AHL season. That guy gets promoted to the Penguins head coach 20 games into the season after the team fired head coach Mike Johnstone who got the Penguins to the playoffs in his first season.

Pittsburgh has a lot of talent. Crosby and Malkin should have a second Stanley Cup by now after both getting so much hype first entering the NHL. Without the right head coach two of the NHL's top five skaters will be stuck in purgatory in Pittsburgh.