Tonight the Penguins will host the Islanders at Consol for the final game in the month of January. The penguins are 4-1-0 in the past 5 games, including a 4 game winning streak by Marc Andre Fleury. The Penguins are 10-1 at home, including a 9 game streak, since the lockout against the Isles and 16-4-2 overall since then. Last time these two teams met on Dec 29th, the Islanders ended Sid's 25 game point streak. Fortunately for the Islanders, the Penguins are still without Sid and Geno for this game, and it was announced today that Geno will also miss the All Star Game. The Penguins will be depending on good defense, penalty killing (88.4% 1st in the league) and the All Star goaltending of Fleury in the pipes to come away with a victory this time.
The Islanders aren't without their own woes in the press however, with recent attempted acquisition of Evgeni Nabokov off of waivers, after he signed a 1 year agreement with the Redwings. Nabby says he won't report, and has hung up on their GM Garth Snow on two separate occasions. "He had his heart set on going to Detroit, obviously." Snow said Sunday, "I told him I respect that, but he's a New York Islander now and we'd love to have him part of our group." Nabokov said he would play for any team so long as he's a starter, I guess that didn't include the Islanders. With the Isles recent injury woes at Goalie including Nathan Lawson's MCL injury, he would probably start. However Nabby feels like he needs to be on a playoff contender and not a bottom of the barrel pretender.
Still, despite their record, the Islanders are always a tough match up for the Penguins; "It seems like we always have close games with them." said budding D'man Alex Goligoski this morning, "They’re a young team and they’re good. They work hard, and it’s always a tough game against them. That’s what we expect tonight." Goligoski scored the overtime winner in the first match up against the Islanders, which was also the first home win at Consol Energy Center. In addition to all of that goaltender *Rick DiPietro will be starting again for the Islanders, who held strong even through a shootout to rob the Penguins in December, denying the extra point in the win column and any points for Crosby.
*DiPietro will not be starting in this game, the Isles apparently have given the nod to Kevin Poulin, in what I would guess is some attempt to throw off the Pens shooters.
There was some concern as Matt Cooke wasn't on the ice this morning for practice, however it was only due to family reasons and Cooke will be in the line up tonight. Eric Goddard got some practice time in in place of Cookie today however, which is a good sign that our brawling lineman is coming back into action soon.
Projected lineups for the game:
Kunitz-Letestu-Dupuis
Kennedy-Staal-Cooke
Rupp-Talbot-Conner
Adams-Jeffrey-Asham
Marc Andre Fleury will be between the pipes for the Penguins tonight.
Interesting notes about the Penguins penalty killing play recently, the Pens are 20-20 on the PK in the past 5 games, and over the last 10 games the Penguins have killed off 35 of 37 penalties for 94.6% PK. The Penguins have also tallied 8 shorthanded goals this year after Pascal Dupuis's game winning shortie against Carolina on the 22nd. Matt Cooke is tied for the NHL lead on shorthanded points with 5 (2G 3A.)
In other news around the league, Ovechkin takes a page out of "Crosby's Dive School" manual and took a huge dive against the Rangers last night. So if anyone says something about Crosby taking a dive, show them this gif. Another of their young netminders, Holtby, also got embarrassed 3 out of 4 shots against the Rangers in the shootout. Thought I'd have some footage of just the shootout but no, just game highlights, you'd have to check them out to see the embarrassment.
Lets go Pens!
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