Pens fall to Cats

!Ryan Whitney on the ice for a goal against? Why I never!

Bad loss, not much to say. At least the Penguins solved the puzzle that is Craig Anderson! Yeah, not much comfort either.

The Panthers came out strong; outshot the Pens and scored two goals within 39 seconds. Bad news. The Penguins did everything in their power to turn the momentum; Georges Laraque fought (!!!), Coach T pulled Marc-Andre Fleury in favor of the Conk-block after a bad rebound that allowed the third goal and even tried to unite Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. All for naught.

In the end, this is just one game out of 82. Surely fans will over-react and be upset, but it's a long season. If it's any consolation the Pens beat Florida 3 games to 1 in the season series, so even though a bitter loss tonight doesn't feel good, there's a sense that Pittsburgh already took the majority of the points from this opponent.

Now, thankfully, it's a time to take a breath. Pittsburgh just played 11 games in 19 games, several back-to-backs, in many different cities with many different conditions and storylines. It's over and what's done is done. The next two days offer a time to catch our collective breath, regroup a little and look forward to a surely exciting and explosive game against Washington. Who will start in goal? Who knows. Will Marian Hossa be back? Hopefully. There's a million different questions and storylines but all that matters is the team comes together, gets a good practice or two in and buckles down for the next stretch.

As we said, it is after all just 1 game out of 82.