New Sidney Crosby Gatorade commercial

Pens beat Lightning

Looking to bounce back from a defensive meltdown against the New York Rangers two nights earlier, the Pens defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 tuesday night in front of the 50th consecutive sell-out crowd at Mellon Arena. Lets take a look at some key moments that led to the Pens victory.

• The first period goal by Jarkko RUUUUUUUUUUTU was awesome. Not only did he power his way to the net, he also scored while taking a stick to the face, compliments of Dan Boyle. Ruutu left the game briefly to get stitched up but returned at the start of the 2nd period.



• Jordan Staal's play. After Evgeni Malkin scored to put the Pens up 2-1 in the second, Jordan Staal scored 35 seconds into the 3rd period to make it 3-1. Staal has been criticized this year for lacking the offensive flair he displayed last year while scoring 29 goals as a rookie. I felt Staal played an amazing game in both the offensive and defensive zone, especially his defense against Vinny Lecavalier. I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but Staal on a few occasions seemed to get under Vinny's skin, once taking a slash from Vinny to the back of the leg.



• Once again, Jarko Ruutu amazed us with another play he created. While losing his stick in the Pens zone, Ruutu displayed his best David Beckham impersonation and literally kicked the puck all the way down into the Lightning zone, then made a perfect kick pass right on the stick of Max Talbot, who barely missed scoring on the play. The play even made it on SportsCenter later that night. Let's watch it again.
  
• Marc-Andre Fleury was solid in the net. He limited his rebounds and made a few key saves in order to preserve the win for the Pens. During the trade deadline, many people were discussing trading Fleury due to the play of Ty Conklin. While I think that nothing should be taken away from Conklin, since he literally kept the Pens playoff hopes alive while Sidney Crosby was hurt, I believe that Fleury is the future. Alot of people were ready to write Fleury off, but he was a big reason we made the playoffs last year. Also, he is only 23 yrs old. Goalies don't seem to peak until their late 20's or early 30's. We will see in a few years when the Pens win the Stanley Cup and Marc-Andre Fleury will be a big piece of the puzzle.

Well this ends our recap of the Pens/Lightning game, but check back later today for analysis and recap of the Pens vs. Devils in a must win game for the Pens.

Penguins vs. Rangers

vs.

The Pens travel to NY to take on the Blueshirts tonight. Conklin will be in net because of the Fathers Trip. Solid. Empty Netters has a good preview of the game tonight.



I still hate Jagr, and I always will. He really messed up a good thing we had going on in Pittsburgh. The only retribution I can get is to post this picture of him dressed up like a girl. Ha.

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There's so much cool stuff going on over at ThePensBlog right now that I can't even list it all individually. One of the coolest things is that we got linked, but alas, the URL in the link is wrong. Still, thanks for the link.

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Petr Sykora has been pretty good lately. I've got to admit, earlier in the year I wondered if getting Sykora and Sydor was a good thing. Turns out, it has been. What an idiot.

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The "OFFICIAL" list of man games lost. What the Pens have done with all those injuries is just fantastic. You all know that though.

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See you all tonight for live coverage of the Pens game.

Pens goon Flyers

Hossa serving up "fresh, hot poop" to the Flyers courtesy of ThePensBlog.

Post-Gazette | Empty Netters

The game was great. Like the picture says, we served up some fresh, hot poop for Stevens and Co. If you want a blow by blow recap, check the links above or ThePensBlog. Some observations:

• Missed the Richards thing with Malkin, because once again I was watching the puck. That said, Richards is trash in my book. Some tool on the TSN wall wrote that Richards would be the captain of Team Canada some day. Sorry pal, not as long as that Sidney Crosby character is around.
• Riley Cote, also trash.
• That no name that hit Letang on the icing call, he's... well, you know what he is.
• The entire Flyers organization = TRASH.

Malkin is only 2 points off the NHL scoring lead.

Tyler Kennedy is still 81 points behind Ovechkin and the scoring lead. He'll catch up.



ESPN has an article about Hackshow Pronger and the NHL's disciplinary woes.

Code Red continues quest to defend title

Despite playing with a short bench, Code Red (3-0-0) of the Warrendale Adult Hockey League defeated the Icers 5-1 tonight at Blade Runners Ice Complex. With a new power line formed consisting of Nick "Picklestabber" Fromlak, Matt "Twink" Kendall, and Evan "Warencek" Wawrykow, Code Red played a defensive minded game to get their third win of the season. With an eleven day layoff between their last game, it took almost until the second period to shake the rust off, especially for Kendall, whose passing wasn't as crisp as he would have liked it to be, fanning on an errant pass to a wide open Wawrykow in front of the net. You could see on the bench Wawrykow's displeasure, but soon the two teammates were back in sync, cycling as they do best behind the opposing team's goal. Sniper Matty got Code Red on the board first with a twisted wrister to put Code Red up 1-0 in the first. End of the 1st period: Code Red 1 Icers 0.

In the second period, Code Red's offense caught fire, first with a rebound tap-in goal that barely slid past the goalie by Kendall in front of the net. Towards the end of the period, Code Red got back on the board with a lazer slapshot from the point by Elliot Robinson. End of the 2nd period: Code Red 3 Icers 0.

Early in the 3rd period, the Icers finally got on the board with an odd man rush that developed into goal scored from between the circles in the Code Red zone. After getting caught sleeping on that one play, Code Red settled down defensively and limited the Icers scoring chances. The play of the game occured when the Icers had a clear breakaway, however Robinson back-checked and without penalty, managed to strip the Icers forward of the puck. Shortly thereafter, Code Red got back on the board with a pass from behind the net right to a breaking Fromlak, who wristed the puck past the goalie from the slot. There was a brief stoppage in play, when Wawrykow inadvently hit the referee in the nuts with the puck, while attempting to clear the zone on a penalty kill. A few minutes after play resumed, Code Red scored the final goal of the game with another wrister from Matty from the slot. Final Score: Code Red 5 Icers 1.

*Note: Due to failure to obtain proper media credentials, recap for Code Red's first 2 games of the season unavailable.

Previous Games: Code Red 4 Green Machine 1
Code Red 7 Nordiques 4

Next game Monday 3/24/08 at 11:00 PM Location: World Rink

Pronger sent to bed without dinner

Pronger gets what he deserves (8 games) for this:

Read it at NHL.com

He's a tool.

Penguins Enforcers: Georges Laraque

I figured this would be a good topic for our first major feature. I'm going to cover each of the "enforcers" each of the Pens have had since 2000, one at a time, starting today. If you don't like it, comment.

2007-2008

Georges Laraque

Wikipedia | Hockeyfights.com | Career Stats

The Penguins acquired Laraque from the Phoenix Coyotes on February 27th, 2007 for Daniel Carcillo and a 3rd round pick. George basically did nothing last year, and virtually dissapeared in the playoffs. This season, he's been on and off. For a few weeks he'll be a force behind the net and actually get into a few fights. Then for a month or so, he will disappear and ride the pine. Recently,Therrien was pretty pissed at Georges and called him out during a practice. My favorite fight this year:

Nothing spectacular, but I hate Riley Cote and the Cryers, so anytime one of them gets pummeled is a good thing.

When Georges is on his game, he can be a great fourth liner/fighter, if not the best in the league. When he isn't playing well, he looks like he is skating in quick sand for the 3 minutes a game he's on the ice.