Leafs in the middle of winter

Time to forget about last nights little fiasco and move on to the next game. Forgive and forget, right?

Maybe not so fast.

Hopefully the Penguins learned something or ok, for the sake of things, let's say, we hope they noticed something? Sitting back on your hands with a 3-1 lead does not always guarantee you're going to win the game. Sometimes the other team fights back. Remember so many of those games earlier this season where the Pens were down and fought back late in the third to take the win? Gawd, I want that team back... that passion to win.

Last time the Pens played Toronto they sat back (I think) and expected an easy win. You can't do that. Teams like the Leafs, and the Lightning, sometimes they just get a burr under their saddle on any given night and you know what? They can kick you right in the slats and take your two points. And that's what happened last time. Not tonight, please?

The Penguins cannot do that tonight. This is desperation mode and the need for points is becoming all the more apparent. I don't care how many games are left, who wants to wait until the bitter end and have to claw up into 8th place, needing only 2 points.. or worse yet, only 1.

This bitter pill, otherwise known as losing, is tough to swallow for a team that was in the Stanley Cup finals not even a year ago. But it doesn't matter. You can't rest on your good intentions, or even the expectations of your star players. Everyone needs to step up and do what they are there for. And that's win hockey games.

With that said, I still love those guys, win or lose. I just prefer seeing them winning, and who wouldn't?

LET'S GO PENS!!!

All a matter of seconds

How else would you describe something terrible, a tragedy... devastating. Quite an accurate word to use in regard to the Pens pathetic 3-4 loss in OT against the Devil's last night.

What seemed like the making of a win, being up 3-1 at one point, the Penguins let things slip away, literally in the ending seconds of the third period. But skip back to about 8-9 minutes left in the 3rd, it's still 3-1 at that point. Petr Sykora takes what seems to be a questionable hooking penalty, ok that's two minutes, but to add insult to injury he decides to spout off to the referee. Who knows what was said, but I'm guessing said offiical didn't care too much for it as he added on another 2 minutes, making it a 4 minute penalty for the Pens to kill. Charming.

And that's where the wheels fell off the cart, as the old saying goes. Literally seconds later the Devil's new acquisition, but an old hockey geezer in his own right, Brendon Shanahan gets the puck off the face off and scores. Now, 3-2. Of course that little feeling of confidence you had is starting to dwindle, but being a true fan, you stay optimistic. Right?

Then seconds wind down, I'm thinking ... "less than a minute, they can hold on to this...". OMG noooooooo. The freakish goal that bounces off Fleury and then off Whitney tieing the game makes you just want to reach for the barf bucket. That one was a gimme. What the hell, I guess if it had been in reverse, I'd have taken that goal. OT time.

A feeling of dejavu comes over the watcher when with a minute left in OT, the Devils score again to win it. Since when did dwindling seconds ever make you wanna hurl?

Of course the Pens really needed 2 points out of this game, and getting one was barely a consolation for such poor play. The defense almost just up and disappeared, leaving Fleury out to dry. I've designated Boucher my new whipping boy. I went all season last year without any particular player that I really didn't care for, the years before that it was Mark Recchi and other nameless individuals.

I haven't been that disgusted after a game in quite awhile.. oh wait, I guess it's only been a couple weeks. My bad.

game on in New Joisee

So everything is still all happy happy since the win on Weds. night against the NYR's, but now the Pens move onto New Jersey, where the Devils sit atop the Atlantic division... the same one where the Penguins are fourth.

But what little matter is that when we still sit in 10th place in the conference? There is a bit of a log jam there with teams with 55 points (Buffalo in 7th place), Florida with 54, Carolina with 53, then the Penguins in 10th with 52.

More good news though in the injury department. Brooks Orpik will be back tonight. Shame he'll be replacing Hal Gill though in the lineup. Not so sure I agree with this move, but then again, who could even remotely figure out the thinking of our head coach when he makes up these line combinations.

Anyhow... it's game night, it's trivia and wings night... life is GOOD!

LET'S GO PENS!!!!

Why we love the Pens and Sidney Crosby

That goal is slick.. and you have to know Henrik Lundqvist was going, WTF?

Beating the NYR's 6-2... yes, feels good.

The game was well enough in hand when Sidney scored, along with the two goals by Kris Letang, and two by Petr Sykora, and one by Jordon Staal. Great game despite looking sluggish at first, but I guess that's to be expected after a week off.

Ah yes.. and a four point night for Sid. Sergei Kostitsyn can go screw. Him and Semin can go join forces and do something productive... like shutting the heck up.

LET'S GO PENS!!

the high's and low's of it all...

Sure injuries are bad enough for the Penguin's roster right now. Seemingly so. But now... now, to lose a player due to suspension. Ouch >_<

Pittsburgh Penguins' forward Matt Cooke has been suspended two games without pay for delivering a hit to the head of Carolina Hurricanes' Scott Walker in the January 20th game.

In the first period of the game, Walker was rattled by the collision with Cooke. Walker left the game and did not return, while Cooke received an interference penalty on the play. Cooke will not return until the January 31st game against Toronto.

May the line shufflings comence!

On a more upbeat note... Sid's back in the lineup tonight. He claims to be at 80%. Silly me for thinking maybe one more game out would be better, but we'll trust him on this one.

The Rangers are in town (Pittsburgh) and it's snowing like heck in northeast Ohio... so that can only mean....



Let's Go Pens!!

Quietly waiting...

What seems like a long time since the Penguins have played a game has actually only been a week. Still a long enough time to get stale.. or maybe in some cases get better and improve. We'll have to see which it's going to be tomorrow night when the Rangers get to town.

Nervous about the remaining half of the season? You betcha. Sitting in 10th place in the Eastern conference a month ago was bad enough, but the more the season drags on, the harder it's going to be to get out of that spot and in to the top 8.

An interesting blog article over on the NHL Home Ice website. (that's XM radio's site in case you didn't know) It's about this bloggers opinion of the All Star game, a good read... my fav paragraph....

No, I’m not advocating playing the All-Star Game outside. I’m for putting that lame dog down. Instead, hold the All-Star festivities around the Outdoor Game. Keep some semblance of fan voting for the various skills competition, keep the fan fest stuff, have the meeting of the minds…and then, on the Sunday, actually play a real NHL game outdoors.

For example, this weekend, it would have been the Montreal Canadiens against, say, the Boston Bruins.

Check out the rest of the article HERE.

Now that's an idea I could actually approve of. But you have to read the whole thing, it's a fabulous idea.

From Puck Daddy... comes your comic relief of the day... staring McFarlane figurines of Sidney Crosby (I have that one!), Roberto Luongo, and Alex Ovechkin...



Over at the Hockey News dot com, a sort of oddball article about 7 players who need to step up.

I find it kind of weird to even list Daniel Briere. To tell someone to step up would suggest that they were capable of doing so, or have done so in the past. Since leaving Buffalo 2 years ago, little Danny hasn't done diddly.

And frankly is there a step even high enough for Rod Brind`Amour being at a -29... the NHL's worst? For them to list Buffalo's Tim Connolly over Maxim Afinogenov is just wrong, and they even say as much.. well, almost. But Connolly, and even Briere for that matter just need to be healthy, and this year (and in Connolly's case he's chronicly on IR) they've not been that.

Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby practised with the team Monday after staying off the ice for five days to rest his ailing left knee, but his status for Wednesday's game against the New York Rangers is questionable. *sigh*

One good thing, Paul Bissonnette and Bill Thomas have been recalled up from the Baby Pens to suit up. We'll find out tomorrow just who will get to play against the Rangers. Here's to hoping that week off did someone some bit of good.

LET'S GO PENS!

All Star hangover

If you're like anyone else who more than casually follows hockey, you probably checked out this weekends All Star game. (or as Seth at Empty Netters refers to it.. All Star lame, lol) I confess to having checked out pre and post game shows on the NHL network before both Saturday and Sunday's events.

Ok, maybe not so much after the game last night. I was a bit miffed. Sure I was glad the Eastern Conference came away with the win, but I totally didn't agree that Alex Kovalev was the games MVP. It was pretty much written in stone he was going to win it, both my husband and I called it. Does the fact that he was from Montreal and the game was in Montreal have anything to do with it. Eh, you decide.

A more likely candidate? Gosh, there could be a couple. Alexander Ovechkin, Tim Thomas, even ol' Vinny Lecavalier, and maybe a long shot but even Marc Savard. Certainly Kovalev had nothing on any of these guys, I mean... seriously.

Just goes to show it was meant to be a crowd pleaser. Or shall we say, a Habs pleaser. I call a party foul!



Was super duper happy they acknowledged Sidney Crosby as the highest vote getter, and at least announced him prior to the rest of the Eastern Conference lineup. Yay Sid! Nice suit, btw.



Overall, I was most impressed with Evgeni Malkin. Sure he plays for my Pens, but he really seemed to come out of his shell over the weekend. He probably gave what I saw as one of his best interviews to VS. He spoke well, smiled, and didn't seem to be too very nervous. The fact he won one of the skills competitions and scored in the game, made him look all the more the part of a true all star coming into his own. Good for him.

All in all the skills competition was sort of a disappointment. They seriously need to revamp this. The potential for something more exciting is there. Given there will be no game next year because of the Olympics, that will give them 2 years to figure it out.

It's pretty much a given that the only people who watch this thing are hockey fans anyway, but that doesn't mean we're a bunch of mindless dolts that don't want to see a little more excitement in this. However if you were just cruising the channels and paused on the skills competition, chances are you moved on and checked back when the extreme cage fighting came on.

It's done and over now for awhile. Time to move on with the rest of the season. Here's to hoping that the next all star game has improved voting, more watchable skills competition, and something to talk about the next day besides Alex Kovalev.

Let's go Pens!

tonight's edition of the Staal Brothers...

Sunday we had Staal versus Staal... Marc and Jordon, and we have it again tonight with Eric versus Jordon. Like Seth over at EmptyNetters says.. we'll be reminded of this quite a bit tonight. I'm betting FSN breaks out the stock footage of them as kids playing on the backyard rink.

Sidney Crosby hasn't decided if he'll go to the all star game or not because of his knee, but he's still playing tonight. I realize he's the face of the NHL and all... but for the sake of the Penguin's, I'd rather he just stayed home.

No thanks to the Buffalo Sabres not winning in regulation last night, the Pens are back in 9th place. Boo Buffaslugs.

John Grigg writes an awesome article in todays Hockey News online about what to do about fighting in the NHL. You can read it HERE. I like this.. and agree.

Another less than thrilling article on the subject at the Hockey News is HERE.

The Sharks recall Claude Lemieux... seriously.

Also in the should be retired or close to it catagory, Brendan Shanahan, recently signed to the New Jersey Devils, scores his first goal last night, most likely much to the dismay of Jay Pandolfo. Why? Cuz he got scratched last night in favor of Shanny. And if things keep up, who knows what his future will be with the Devils. Such a shame.

And... you had to know this was coming again... Foppa is at it yet again. Trying to skate. Does anyone even care about this anymore? Certainly not me.

Anyhow, this will be the Pens last game before the all star break, so let's go out with a win shall we? :)

LET'S GO PENS!!!

It's all good again.. for now

Everyone in Pittsburgh is wearing their happy faces right now, the Penguin's have won a second straight game... everything is right in the world again.. almost.

The Pens played a pretty tight game, and in the end it paid off for them. Getting a goal past the overstuffed looking Lundqvist is no small feat, but it was good to see 3 get past him and none past Fleury.

The best goal of the game though was the one Petr Sykora scored off a killer pass from Ryan Whitney in the second period.... that was one pretty play. Eric Goddard showed lots of restraint after getting taunted by the likes of Coloton Orr and a few other Rangers trying to start something several times during the game. He gets an A+ for ignoring it all... the team didn't need that extra man off while being ahead.

So yes, I'm happy, my Penguins win this afternoon, even when they're wearing the powder blues!! Ahhh happieness :D Ok, so we're at least sitting in 8th place for now, only a mere point behind Buffalo, hey moving upwards, correct!!??

Up next is the Pens last game before the All Start break, which will be against Carolina on Tuesday at the Mellon Arena...

Let's Go Pens :)

Rangers come to town... it's game day!

It's snowy outside, it's Sunday, and the Pens play today, how much better can it get? Sure, a win would be nice as well. The always pesky New York Rangers hit the Mellon ultra early today at 12:30 pm. You just gotta love that the NFL takes first priority, as this games start time was strictly determined by the playoffs of the NFL. Ehh.. whateveh. I'm not going to complain too much since the Steelers are in said playoffs. Not to take away from my Penguins though because in my book they always are top priority over any other team I may be a fan of, no matter the sport. ( I think the computer room in our house is pretty much proof positive of that! )

It may make you nervous to know that the Penguins plan on wearing their powder blue jerseys today. I love the looks of those jerseys but dang... our record in them really isn't too good :(

According to this mornings PPG:

Crosby was one of nine regulars who missed the Anaheim game. Two others besides Crosby, defensemen Rob Scuderi and Kris Letang, will be game-time decisions today.

Seems Brooks Orpik is out for the game though... sadness, no free candy for the NYR's :(

Looking to bring something fierce to today's game...

Goalie change and other.. stuffs

So imagine my pleasent surprise when I checked my cellphone for last nights 3 stars of the game only to find a text message from the Penguins, detailing the trade of goalie Dany Sabourin for Edmonton Oilers goaltender Mathieu Garon. Also going to the Oilers from the Pens is Ryan Stone and a second round draft pick in 2011.




I think this is a solid move. Garon was doing great last year until he got injured and missed the last of the season. From what I know of him this year he's kind of gotten lost in the shuffle with Dwayne Roloson, and a younger goalie. So maybe his numbers aren't up there as of now, but I think he'll be much more reliable in net than Sabu ever was. So cheers, Ray Shero and company.

So on and so forth...

Interesting article on TSN.com this morning on the effiiciency of the power play. Some interesting tidbits....

The overall leaders in power play production:
1. Nicklas Backstrom, C, Washington (31.2)
2. Brad Boyes, RW, St. Louis (30.8)
3. Jarome Iginla, RW, Calgary (30.1)
4. Todd White, C, Atlanta (30.1)
5. Teemu Selanne, RW, Anaheim (29.7)
6. Alexander Ovechkin, LW, Washington (29.2)
7. Evgeni Malkin, C, Pittsburgh (29.4)
8. Vyacheslav Kozlov, LW, Atlanta (28.3)
9. Patrick Kane, RW, Chicago (28.2)
10. Ryane Clowe, RW, San Jose (27.9)
11. Ryan Getzlaf, C, Anaheim (26.7)
12. Mark Streit, D, N.Y. Islanders (26.3)
13. Thomas Vanek, LW, Buffalo (25.8)
14. Ilya Kovalchuk, LW, Atlanta (25.5)
15. Pavel Datsyuk, C, Detroit (25.2)
16. Mike Cammalleri, RW, Calgary (25.2)
17. Jeff Carter, C, Philadelphia (25.1)
18. Sidney Crosby, C, Pittsburgh (24.7)


The player's power play production is then measured on a per-60-minute basis to show who is most productive based on their ice time with the man advantage. The results are all based on players that have scored a minimum of five power play points this season.

The Most Efficient Power Play Performers on the Penguins? Petr Sykora at 8.76 and Evgeni Malkin at 6.98 And the least? Jordon Staal at 3.12. And listed in the catagory as 'guys who get big power play minutes yet are not efficient? Sidney Crosby at 6.25.

Vote on some interesting hockey related polls over at The Hockey News. HERE. They just recently added, 'who faired better in the Garon/Sabourin trade'.

And to stick (sort of) with the goalie theme here is a 'fun' little YouTube clip.

Pens take out Ducks... yay a win!

How much more entertaining a hockey game can be when your team is actually playing decently AND winning. Despite being down several key players last night, the Penguins did surprisingly well against the likes of Chris Pronger and the Ducks of Anaheim.

One of the more entertaining aspects of the game was seeing Matt Cooke fit right in playing along side Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora and scoring two of the Pens goals. Hal Gill scoring off the face off late in the third was pretty slick as well.



Defensively speaking the Penguins made a decent showing last night, considering they were missing Letang and Scuderi. Losing Brooks Orpik midway thru the game was a little disconcerting. Still no word as to what happened and how long he'll be out. This is going to be another hard hit for the Pens to swallow if they lose Orpik for too long. The D men are dropping like flies >_<

Frankly I'm beginning to wonder about Satan, well.. I have been for a couple weeks. This guy was supposed to be scoring some goals and he's kind of faded away into obscurity. Sort of blending in with the wall paper so to speak.


On the other end of the scale is Paul Bissonnette. I like this guy. I saw him in training camp back in September. This guy plays (and fights) with passion. Why is this guy not in the NHL? This is his fight last night with Nathan McIver. I would have rather posted the FSN Pittsburgh clip of this, but Bob and Steigy said Bissonnette was fighting Steve Montador... and he wasn't. Ahh well, some things just never change... do they lol.




All in all it was a much needed win for the Penguins, especially doing without Sidney Crosby. It clearly shows this team can pull it together in the face of adversity if need be. Who's to say this isn't the much needed shot in the arm that will turn things around for them. Here's to hoping.

Let's go Pens :)

Ducks at home tonight... anything can happen

This is likely a pretty accurate description of the Pens lineup... a trainwreck. >_< Crosby, other Penguins won't be playing tonight.

The Pens have already lost 177 man-games to injury. <--- unreal statistic, yet somehow, I'm not surprised.

Injuries: C Sidney Crosby (TBD, left knee), C Max Talbot (TBD, upper-body), D Rob Scuderi (TBD, head), LW Pascal Dupuis (TBD, knee), LW Ruslan Fedotenko (IR, right hand), C Mike Zigomanis (IR, undisclosed injury), D Sergei Gonchar (IR, left shoulder).

How depressing is all that? Can it be a legitimate excuse for sucking the way we have been? Only a fraction. 3 of those injuries didn't happen until the loss against the Caps Wed. night.

Tonight the former Mighty Ducks... now just the Ducks.. of Anaheim fly into the Igloo to take on the Penguins. One thing is for certain, it is in a weird little way a good thing that they are playing a Western conference team tonight... you know, the whole points thing.

From yesterdays Trib: Coach Michel Therrien admitted after the Penguins’ optional practice today at Mellon Arena that math is beginning to work against his club’s playoff hopes. The Penguins have 46 points. No Eastern Conference team has qualified for the playoffs over the past three seasons with fewer than 92 points, and Boston needed 94 last season.

So yeah.. collecting some points from a non Eastern conference team would be a good thing.

Pens win, Flyers still suck! Next.. the Crapitals!

Well if you were not entertained by last nights showing from the Penguins, well... you're either not a hockey fan or you're not alive. Heck.. maybe even both, who knows?

The Pens played what could have been one of the best games of the season so far, and quite possibly the most important. It didn't change their standings in the conference much, but it was an important morale booster for the team. They played a solid game, adopting a new method of trapping the other team in the neutral zone, used usally by the Devils and a few other teams around. At this point, I'm not gonna argue with anything that works.

Putting Cooke up on the first line with Sid and Malkin seemed to work to. He added just enough grit that it seemed to do the job. Was awesome to see him get into Mike Richards face early on, seemed to throw him off a bit :)

Of course the constant chanting of "Crosby sucks" at every break in the action got old rather fast, but it seemed as the game went along, that along with the Flyers hopes, died out.

My personal favorite moment was late in the third period when Malkin and Scott Hartnell both take a penalty. Hartnell's being for diving. I do hate that guy, and honestly... is he quite possibly his teams own worst enemy? Was funny how the arena announcer originally said the penalty was for roughing, and Steigy and Bob's commentary on that was utterly priceless. Was better yet to hear the reaction of the crowd when he had to correct it. :)

Tonight the Crapitals come to Pittsburgh, always an entertaining game for sure. It remains to be seen if the Pens can feed off last night's momentum, and the fact that the Caps are on a 3 game losing skid, most recently losing to the Oilers last night.

Plus you know everyone is going to be watching the Ovechkin/Malkin saga, and Crosby/Semin.

As a Penguins fan we all feel better about winning last night, and winning tonight would do double duty. I say onward and upward (the standings!)

LET'S GO PENS!!!

Trap and score boys... trap and score

Flyer stomping day... we hope

Well the weekend passed and the Penguins are still the same team they were on Saturday when they lost to the Av's. I'm a bit surprised, but I think I can safely say that if they lose much more, that won't exactly be the case.

There needs to be a shake up in the ranks, where that will happen, remains to be seen.

Tonight the Pens go up against the Flyers. And if there were ever a team all us Penguin fans hate, it's the Flyers. And who's next on that list, the Crapitals... and guess what, we play them tomorrow night!! SO! If the Pens can't get jacked up to go up against these two teams, they have no pulse left!

I did a little roaming around this morning and found this awesome blog written by a gal who is an Islanders fan. She made a great post about female fans vs. the dreaded puck bunny! Go check it out! Not Your Average Ice Girl.

Oh and speaking of good blogs... the much loved and often misunderstood (ok, maybe not misunderstood, but those guys... well... I love them lol) guys over at the Pensblog have moved from blogger over to an new blog host, called of all things... Bloguin. The new format is awesome and will suit their needs better, they have just out grown us minions here on blogger. Their new addy is THE PENSBLOG. <--- click there!

Not alot left to be said. Things are what they are, as crappy as that sounds. When things look their worst, they probably are lol. But, I'm not letting that ruin game day for me. We're gonna kick some Flyer ass tonight!

LET'S GO PENS!!!

cry me a river...

The Penguin's sob story continues. The big question is, now that they've lost yet -again- to a lowly Western conference team, will anything big happen this weekend? Frankly I'd be surprised if by Tuesday's game in Philly if there isn't some big shake up, but maybe I'll be wrong, we'll just have to wait and see.

One thing is for certain, something needs to happen, and fast.

I'm not so much worried about myself. I always have, and always will be a tried and true Penguins fan, win or lose. I love my team that much. Of course it's more fun when they are winning, last season was proof positive of that. But two seasons ago it was quite the exact opposite. And guess what? I was still there.

It will just really bother me if those 'fair weather' fans are already set to jump off the Penguin's winning wagon. Those are the sort of people I can do without, yet.... those are the same asshats who took all the tickets from us loyal folks. Ahhhh don't get me started.

on the outside looking in

It's no longer an issue of losing games per say... it's a matter of making the playoffs. Of course one goes with the other, you don't make the playoffs by losing games, and you don't make them if you're in 10th place. In simpler terms... let us use pictures...




Being in 10th place is totally unacceptable for this hockey club. There is no way that the higher ups in the Penguins organization can just sit by and watch a quality team like this self destruct. I find it hard to believe that not one person knows what the 'real' problem is. Who has lost control, who isn't doing their job... whatever. Fix it for crying out loud.

Seems I sat on my hands yesterday after reading the Hockey News article about Jaromir Jagr hinting (teasing?) at wanting to come back to Pittsburgh. There are enough other hockey sites and blogs who posted about it last night and today so I'll not bother, but my comments on the site after reading the article.....



At this point... something has got to give, and I'd really appreciate it if it were the standings, with the Pens going upwards.

Today's afternoon game with the Av's in Colorado will be another 'must win', 'crucial', insert cliche` here... type game.

It's snowing like crazy here in north east Ohio. I hate the Cavs... Ohio State lost (again) and I could care less... Browns head coaching news leading the sports... WHO CARES! Gimme some good old hockey!!!

LET'S GO PENS!!!

grab a window seat, and a helmet...

Wake up puckheads!

So it needs to be said right off, that I'm not too full of myself after Tuesday nights much needed win against the Thrashers. Yes it was much needed to break the 5 game winless streak, and 2 power play goals after going some 33 without one were also well needed. BUT! a win against Atlanta is not really that impressive, is it? Although I'll take the 2 points, wouldn't you?

The Pens go into Nashville tonight on the start of a 3 game road trip which sees them going to Colorado, then into Philly (gag). Now the Predator's aren't exactly tearing up the standings themselves, with a 17-19-3 record, and 37 points in the Western Conference. Hey, maybe another easy win at hand? Gawd, I can only hope. At this stage of the season I'll take the 2 points anywhere I can get them and get back up in playoff contention, rather than molding here in 9th place. Because when it gets right down to it, I really hate having the Flyers higher in the standing than the Pens.

True dat!

Tonight the Pens also start their yearly "Dads trip". Why not the moms? Hey, they birthed these hockey players too!!

Should Ray Shero be calling Brendan Shanahan? KulkaKorner says yes.

And scary thought of the day... could double JJ be leaving the Russian KHL league to come to the NJ Devils? Now that could be quite interesting!

Just this second I got a text alert from the Pens... seems they've signed Jordon Staal to a 4 year extension through 2012. Good job... but he needs to start doing a little better, everyone knows he's more than capable of it too.

how depressing

You know things are getting bad when you don't feel inspired to write in your hockey blog, or worse yet when you go to get dressed on game day and you overlook your Penguins attire. Ah, but I did put on a Pens tshirt... hey, gotta do something to help, right?

The beat down on Saturday really depressed me. I am not that blind to realize that there will be some losses in a long 82 game season. However, I also am smart enough to see that my team is sucking pretty hard right now with little hope of any end in sight.

I came across two rather... interesting articles in my internet travels today. The first one by Mark Madden, his take on the Pens current lack luster performance seems pretty right on to me. It will be surprising to no one if someone's head isn't on the chopping block if this winless streak goes on much longer. You can read the article HERE.

The other article was written in a Rangers blog, talking about why the Rags should go for the Pens jugular tonight. Ouch >_< Read it HERE.

Someone.. bring the bandaids.

And a big thumbs up to the Pensblog. They said today what I have said for ages about Sidney Crosby. After his fight in Saturday's loss to the Panthers, it was expected alot of non Pittsburgh markets were going to step out and take their usual bash Crosby shots. The writer's at the Pensblog said:

"At this point, every time Crosby does/doesn't do something, some guy who thinks he's clever will job Crosby, thinking they look tough doing it. When people outside of Pittsburgh all of a sudden become "Crosby experts" when Crosby does something, it insults everyone's intelligence.

"Oh, Bettman won't touch his annointed one."Are we still using this as a premise for an article, guys? Seriously?

We admit that our perception of Crosby differs from the other 29 NHL cities for reasons that are self-explanatory. But it's pretty offensive when people who don't watch Crosby on a game-by-game basis come out of the woodwork when he does something questionable and act like they're delivering an educated opinion. No, you're not. You can't bullshit a bullshitter."

VERY well said. I give that my stamp of approval. If it accounts for anything lol.

So here we are, on another hockey night in Pittsburgh.. well, NYC... we need some motivation for the team.....



Oh... and if things weren't bad enough... Zigomanis is now officially on IR. And according to Seth over at Empty Netters... the coach is line juggling and stuff... yay, good times *rolls eyes* Just say no to 7 defensemen please.

What now?

Anyone got any good ideas what would kick this team in the butt and make them start producing and winning some games???

*sigh* I'm fresh out.

Here's to winning on Saturday against the Florida Panthers...

Winter Classic part deux

Of course I watched the Winter Classic... I'm a hockey freak, right?

Granted I had no vested interest in it as I did last year when the Pens played, but I was seriously hoping that the Blackhawks would kick some RedWing tail... ahhh but, no such luck.

Seth over at EmptyNetters did an awesome live blog of the game, check it out HERE.

Oh and thumbs up to Seth for going for the double header today, live blogging the Winter Classic, then doing tonights Pens game as well... what a trooper!

My overall impression of this years Winter Classic was good. More of a hockey game than last years, but the weather might have been a big factor in that as well as the quality of the ice surface. Last years attendence dwarfed this years, Ralph Wilson Stadium held more people.

The TV coverage was alright.. hey, it's NBC... like they really care about hockey. I could do without Bob Costas on any type of broadcast. Arrogant sucker. And honestly, as much as I like Darrin Pang, I didn't need to know that Ty Conklin had to go to the bathroom. Oh and did you know, Conklin has been in 3 outdoor games?? *cough* If you didn't then you weren't watching, and probably wouldn't be reading this anyway.

Today's find....... Are you a Crosby fan???

A new year, time to pull it together

So yuck, 2008 certainly did not end well, all that's left is to hope that 2009 starts with the Penguins getting their collective heads out of their behinds and step up and play the hockey they are more than capable of.

Sure it'd be easy to point the finger this way or that, but I think rather than focusing on one person or issue everyone needs to take responsibility. As a head coach Therrien's done about all he can do. After Tuesday's loss at home to the Bruin's, the players had a player's only meeting. Therrien was quoted as saying, "It's about time they had a meeting, I'm anxious to see what's going to come out of this."

Wouldn't we all?

All that said, the Pens head into Boston tonight to take on those same Bruin's they lost to on Tuesday. Let's hope for better results as well as a better showing of talent that this team possesses.

Bring it... Let's go Pens!