Break-out Player-ERS

Tuesday night the Pens took the ice for the first time this season against their cross state rival, the Philadelphia Flyers. Coming off a though loss in the home opener to the Devils, and a challenging practice Monday a lot was expected of the men in black an gold.

In the first period shots were fairly even, the score tied at zero, and the only real excitement came at 5:23. Eric Godard and Riley Cote dropped the gloves right off the face-off. It doesn`t take long once you wear the black and gold to learn the hate felt towards the Flyers. Clearly Godard won the fight though linesmen broke it up after letting the two men go at it for quite some time.

The second period however was full of excitement for both teams. The Pens lit the lamp first with a top-shelf goal from defenseman Brooks Orpik. This is only Orpik`s fifth goal, and thirty-fifth point in 300 career NHL games. Kris Letang and Tyler Kennedy assisted on the power play goal at 14:12.

Not much later Mike Zigomanis scored his first goal in a Penguins' uniform with help from Matt Cooke and Eric Godard at 14:54.

Late in the period the Flyers had plans of scoring their own goal to get themselves back in the game. Jeff Carter somehow beat Marc-Andre Fleury to make it 2-1 at 19:16; Carter had help from Upshall and Vaananen.

Twenty-one seconds later the men in white slipped another puck behind Marc-Andre Fleury to tie the game at two. Simon Gange was awarded the goal with help from Kimmo Timonen and Braydon Coburn at 19:37.

At this point the Pens may have been thinking about how they have never won when Brooks Orpik has scored.

The third period was hard fought by both teams, and the goalies kept the score the same taking the game to over-time.

With fears that the game might go to a shoot-out almost every fan in Mellon Arena yelled "shoot" as the Pens cycled in the offensive zone. Finally Letang and Orpik connected with Dupuis with just seconds remaining. Pascal Dupuis scored his first overtime goal to give his team their second win of the season. The goal was scored at 4:49; 10.2 seconds remaining.

The three stars of the game were 3. Kimmo Timonen, 2. Mike Zigomanis, 1. Pascal Dupuis.

Petr Sykora took the ice for the first time this season after suffering a groin injury during practice in Sweden, it was good to have him back in the line-up. However Ryan Whitney (foot) and Sergei Gonchar (shoulder) missed the game. Darryl Sydor, Paul Bissonnette, and Bill Thomas were healthy scratches.

Yet another rival is in store for the Pens this week in the Washington Captials. Alex Ovechkin will lead his team to Mellon Arena where the puck will be dropped Thursday night at 7:38.