"Evgeni Malkin swears he isn't shocked the Penguins have gone three games without a win at Consol Energy Center. They've scored only seven goals in the losses, with Malkin and fellow superstar scorer Sidney Crosby each tallying just once. "I feel like we are playing better every game," he said Wednesday night after a 4-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs that dropped the Penguins to 1-3-0 overall. "We need to work to get better." Hard to do better than limiting an opponent to 14 shots, as the Penguins did. However, goalie Marc-Andre Fleury stopped only 10 ? and coach Dan Bylsma said, "there's a couple he's got to come up with a save for us." Defending Fleury were his teammates. "Way too many mistakes all night," defenseman Alex Goligoski said, a reference to what seemed to be an absurdly low official tally of four turnovers. The Penguins appeared to commit that many on the sequence that led to Toronto right wing Colton Orr's opening goal in the first period. About that first period: It was the ugliest of the new arena's young life, but the Penguins could probably play the next five seasons without looking as bad over the first 20 minutes as they did in this game. "Our puck management was just so bad in the first period," said defenseman Paul Martin, who also acknowledged a poor morning practice for the team. "We got better as the game went along, but you can't have a first period like that. We'll start winning games when we start making better decisions with the puck." A few more goals would help, too." http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/penguins/s_704253.html
