Steve Downie can’t get the puck past the Canucks’ Ryan Miller Saturday night in Vancouver. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — “Ugh,” Brandon Sutter was saying, or something that sounded suspiciously like that. “Nothing there. Just nothing. Maybe the first 10 minutes.”

Yeah, maybe not even that.

Canucks 5, Penguins 0.

And it wasn’t anywhere near that close.

The visitors looked fatigued, frustrated and — let’s face it — they played lousy on top of all that. It made for one seriously flat finish to a Western Canada trip that opened Wednesday with a take-care-of-business shutout of the awful Oilers and peaked Friday with a full-throttle shutout of the contending Flames.

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Chris Kunitz lunges through a pack of Flames for a loose puck Friday night in Calgary. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

CALGARY, Alberta — Marc-Andre Fleury carved another slice of franchise history with his eighth shutout, this on 21 saves in the Penguins’ 4-0 snuffing of the Flames Friday night at Scotiabank Saddledome.

“I’m proud of it,” Fleury said afterward. “It’s a good feeling.”

No doubt, but the best feeling among the visitors?

Sidney Crosby scored two sensational goals, on a one-handed tip off the rush and on a partial-break rocket past Jonas Hiller.

“I felt good,” the captain said. “It felt nice to get rewarded.”

Again, no doubt. But the best feeling of all?

Be very certain that belonged singularly to one seriously beleaguered Chris Kunitz, he of the three primary assists, relentless wheels and exceptional puck decisions.

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Kris Letang forces the Oilers’ Justin Schultz to swing wide Wednesday night in Edmonton. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

EDMONTON, Alberta — Kris Letang had a choice.

Check that: He used to have a choice. Now, it’s been decided in advance.

It was the third period of the Penguins’ thorough 2-0 shutout of the Oilers on Thursday night at Rexall Place, and that two-goal lead was being protected when Edmonton’s Oscar Klefbom pushed up ice on a possible break. And every instinct of nearly every defenseman at every level of hockey in that precise situation is to backpedal. Glide back, get the stick out, survey the scene for others joining the rush.

So just for fun, as the visitors were hurriedly packing their bags for the brief flight south to Calgary ahead of the foot of snow expected here overnight, I posed this question to the increasingly great No. 58: What would the Letang of last season had done?

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