The Penguins biggest challenge against the St. Louis Blues might have been just overcoming their mistakes right off the bat. Only nine seconds into the game, Kris Letang was already skating to the penalty box after flipping the puck over the glass and over the glass for a delay of game. 24 seconds later, Jeff Carter was joining him in the box after getting a stick up into the face of a Blue.
The Pens killed off a long 3v5 situation and didn’t fall behind early. In fact, they would get on the board first. Jeff Carter won a draw in the o-zone and Marcus Pettersson laid a pass of for the suddenly hot Chad Ruhwedel to hammer home past Ville Husso and open the scoring at 14:42 into the first period.