Welcome to the Black and Gold Society. This is your place for a fresh take on the Pittsburgh sporting world. Including extensive coverage of the Penguins, Pirates and Steelers.
For the third time this season we will see the Carolina Hurricanes face off against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins have come away with 2 victories already against the Cane's.One, a 3-0 shutout by Big Brent Johnson in Carolina,the other being a 5-4 Shootout win in Pittsburgh. I was lucky enough to attend the first, will be missing this game but will be in attendance for our fourth match-up in Carolina, Feb 25th.
This will be the 8th consecutive game that Sidney Crosby is not in the line up for the Penguins. The Pens are 3-4-0 without Sid in the line up, and 0-1 without Malkin or Crosby on the ice. Tonight is however going to be the first Staal vs Staal match up we've seen all year, as the first two times these teams met Jordan was still suffering from his first, then second injuries. The brothers Staal will be the major story line for most of the night, along with our missing Stars.
The Pens are going to be out there rocking the Powder Blues, the jerseys they wore during the shutout:
Projected lines for the Penguins will be similar to the lines against the Devils:
Kunitz-Letestu-Dupuis
Cooke-Staal-Kennedy
Rupp-Talbot-Conner
Adams-Jeffrey-Asham
Defensive pairings:
Brooks Orpik - Kris Letang
Paul Martin - Zbynek Michalek
Alex Goligoski - Ben Lovejoy
Marc Andre Fleury will be between the Pipes for the Pens.
Huge weekend for the Black and Gold and it starts right here at the Consol Energy Center.
Tonight we're going to have a match-up between what used to be a really good team, and what used to be a really bad team. The Penguins meet the Devils tonight in Jersey, without both of their star players. This is the first time that this has happened since February of 2006, back then Geno wasn't even on the team! To fill the void Byslma has called up Dustin Jeffrey again and put him up on the first line against the Devils. Earlier in the year Jeffrey was called up to go and scored the opening goal for the Pens to go on and win against Buffalo, the last game of the 12 game streak the Penguins put together.
Unfortunately for Jeffrey, the points he put up in the Sabres game (1G 1A) are the only points he's been able to produce in his 4 games this year for the Penguins, however he is one of the scoring leaders for the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. So far in 37 games this year Dustin has 41 points off of 15 goals and 26 assists, he led the baby Pens in scoring last year with 71 points with 24 goals and 47 assists. Tonight he has to be hoping he can end this small scoring drought in the NHL and keep showing the top brass and his team mates why he should be on the Penguins full time.
Staal will still be out there to fill a large part of the void that's there with both Geno and Sid out, so it's a good thing that he has picked his game up, with 6 points in the past 3 games. Chris Kunitz also has a goal in each of the past 3 games the Penguins have won without Crosby. At the same time though the Devils have won 3 of their last 4, putting up 18 goals in those 4 games. Penguins defense and P.K is going to need to be spot on tonight to prevent this surging Devil's offense from slamming pucks down our goalies throat.
Lines for the game tonight for the Pens:
Kunitz-Jeffrey-Dupuis
Cooke-Staal-Kennedy
Rupp-Talbot-Conner
Adams-Letestu-Asham
***Late minute line changes, Letestu is going to be on the first line and the first PP line. Jeffrey's gonna be on the Adams, Asham line.
Big Brent Johnson will be between the pipes for the Penguins.
A lot of big names missing for the Penguins in this game with the goalie choice of BBJ, but this is definitely a time for the Penguins to show their mettle against a team that is trying to come out from the basement.
Also apparently as a stab against the Jersey locals the game tonight is a Terrible Towel Invasion night for Penguins fans, so if you're going to the game you better bring that Terrible Towel with you and swing it with pride! Go Pens! Go Steelers!
**Okay, this photoshop is too funny not to post. It showed up after I had already made this post.
Another bit of information that slipped through my fingers was the increase to Letestu's contract extending him an extra 2 years on the team. That should be plenty of time to develop the Test Tube into something deadly for sure, especially at the $625,000.00 price tag we got him for. This does pose a question as to what will happen to Maxim Talbot as we would then have 5 centers, and Talbot's salary is near around $1,050,000.00. This poses an interesting set up for the trade deadline in 41 days.
Shero signing Letestu, someone who is easy to move up and down lines and adapts in his positions without question, could be setting up some kind of trade for Talbot to another team. Personally I love Mighty Max, he scored the game winning goal in the Stanley cup finals in 09, he scored the Overtime goal in 08 to end the triple OT slugfest against Detroit to force game 6, the guy rocks a Fu Man Chu, I mean come on we need him! But production wise, Talbot hasn't always been the best option, and with cap space a question, at his 1mil salary, and Testi coming in at half of that, you have to admit, it poses the question. Who stays, and who goes?
Look at that high school photo esque pic right there!
Hopefully we can find ways to keep the pieces together, but this singing of Letestu is definitely more of Shero's magic.
**In recent news, apparently Geno is out in the game against the Devils tomorrow with an undisclosed injury, he did not practice today. **
Three in a row for the Pens!
So last night I touched on the Pens vs Redwings game a bit, mostly about the injuries to both teams and the effect Evgeni Malkin would have on the team still filling in for Crosby. It turns out the Geno Kunitz and Dupuis line was a good choice later on, even if Jordan Staal took the opening face off, leading on to score the first goal of the game off a bad feed by MacDonald behind the net. T.K Was able to steal a pass intended for Ericsson and dished it out to Staal in front of an open net to take the lead just 3:02 into the first period. The Pens had gotten to their game and they had gotten to it fast.
They were relentless on the attack in the first period, shortly after the Staal goal, Chris Conner came flying into the offensive zone and nearly beat MacDonald for a second goal but wasn't able to get enough elevation on the puck. This coming after two highly electric charges by Geno to the net that were turned aside by MacDonald, but the Pens were not done attacking this young netminder who was starting only his 5th game of the season. Chris Conner, on another break away ended up being hooked and awarded a penalty shot, the 6th of the year for the Penguins, going into this one 0-5 on penalty shots.
Conner would not be turned away so easily this time; "I kind of knew what I was going to do the whole time going in, you just have to execute and make it work." Conner ended a 0-12 penalty shot drought leading all the way back to 2007. "The adrenaline was going a little bit," Conner stated in an interview after the game, "It felt good, and it felt good that it went in." Even though the Penguins went on to score 2 more goals, Conner was the one who gave them the go ahead goal to continue on to a much needed victory without Crosby. This all in the first period!
The second period seemed to spell a little bit of trouble for the Penguins as they suffered 3 penalties and only took one from the Wings. Penalty Killing has been a staple for the Penguins defense this year, leading the league in the category murdering 87.9% of their penalties faced.On the opposite end of special teams however the Penguins have struggled, scoring on only 18.1% of their Power Play opportunities. If the Pens were able to achieve a 20% or more mark in the PP department it's entirely possible the Penguins would be even further up the divisional ladder, if not on the top rung. Despite killing off all 3 penalties in the period, and fantastic goaltending from Marc Andre Fleury, the Wings were able to get a point on the board.
Kris Letang had a pretty notable performance in the 2nd period but not for the reasons you would think. After looking at what could of been a 3-0 lead early on in the 2nd period, Letang had a wide up net right in front of him, but after only lightly tapping the puck, and it going off the front of the post, Letang raised his stick high to celebrate! Sadly though Le' Tanger had not actually gotten the puck in the goal, and instead had let the action continue with Detroit gaining the puck. On Detroits offensive charge, Tanger then came down and tripped their player on a break away, the Pens somehow get out of not getting a penalty shot against them, and we move on. Poor Tanger had to feel at least a bit embarrassed about his premature celebration and then handcuffing us for a penalty later.
With 2:32 left to go in the 2nd, the Wings notched up what seemed like a freebie after a lull in the game action. I remember thinking right before this goal went in that things were entirely too quiet and that something not so good was about to happen, shortly after that thought they get the freebie and make it 2-1. That only seemed to anger the Penguins and it was now time for the Malkin, Kunitz, and Duper line to do it's thing.
Not but 30 seconds later, Malkin takes the puck into the offensive zone, does a short dish to Kuni in the slot, he just eases it back to Duper and Duper lets a wrist shot go, the rebound goes to Kunitz, then Kunitz dumps it in the net behind MacDonald to answer back, bring the lead back to 3-1, and energize the crowd.
I missed the first half of the 3rd period, but from what I was able to get updates on, the Wings were peppering Fleury and trying desperately to get back into fighting contention in this 3-1 game. The Pens would have nothing of it though and continued on to win, after an Empty Netter by Cooke to seal the deal.
Sadly though things didn't go the way the Pens would of liked division wise. The Cryers were facing the Capitals and even with a 2-0 deficit in front of them in the 3rd period, the Capitals were able to tie the game and force it into OT. Unfortunately this gave the Cryers a point by default, and even more unfortunate, was when they won within 58 seconds into overtime to take the extra point away and pull out 65 to 62 in the standings against the Pens. The good news was that their defeat of Detroit keeps the Penguins 4th in the league, tied with Detroit at 62 points.
In other news around the NHL, the Canucks went on to fall to the Avalanche in Colorado picking up only one point against their division rival. The Tampa Bay lightning beat the Blue Jackets off of 2 Stamkos goals, putting Stamkos at 35 goals, ahead of Sidney Crosby by 3 and just behind the total scoring title at 63 points on the year.
Lot's going on in the Pittsburgh sporting world lately. Between the Jets and the Steelers suddenly being all good times for each other, trade rumors for Malkin, and allegations that Sid is going to boycott the All Star Game, it's a pretty big week for news. I'd like to touch on Crosby's concussion a bit more, the allegations about the All Star Game and the upcoming Pens VS Red Wings game tonight at 7:08pm at Consol.
Crosby's Concussion gate:
A lot of people still question this 'Mild Concussion' that star Center Sidney Crosby suffered earlier in the month. He was expected to be sidelined for a week, but we're now going on the 13th day since this all started. Many would of figured that Sid would be back on the ice sometime near the end of the week last week for Boston, but we didn't see him. This didn't deter the Penguins however as they still went on to win 5-2 against a Boston team that has frustrated them greatly the previous 2 appearances.
Crosby, after a recent decision by Bylsma to not address the media, finally did so about his condition; "I've definitely gotten better..." Crosby said, "It's kind of on and off. As far as symptoms, it's mostly headaches and that kind of thing. Some days you feel good, you feel like you've had progress, and there's other days that are a little bit tougher."
In terms of the All Star Game, there have been a series of rumors lately stating that Crosby's agent made comments leading towards Sid boycotting the ASG because of the lack of fines and overall lack of attention paid to the two hits to the head he took during the Winter Classic and the Tampa game on the 5th. Crosby has shot these rumors down, going on to say; "I'll be there if I can be there. I still haven't ruled out being there." So the 'Kid' wants to play in the ASG but will he? We already know he won't be a captain, which in my opinion is a good thing as it will take some of the spotlight off of Sid for now. The two Captains nominated for the ASG fantasy draft are Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes and Nicklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings.Wonder if Crosby gets picked last would Fleury say give him some crap for it?
Yet here we are, looking at a huge "rivalry" game against the Detroit Redwings at home tonight, with no Crosby to be seen on the ice, missing his 6th consecutive game. I emphasize the rivalry portion of this game because while it isn't a full on bad blooded rivalry the memories are definitely still fresh in the minds of the players on each team who were there to do battle with each other, through 7 brutal games two years in a row, for the NHL's ultimate prize. Even with Crosby out the Penguins still are lucky to have Pavel Datsyuk out of the lineup for the Wings along with both of their star goalies, Osgood and Howard are both out with injuries leaving an unproven netminder in Joey MacDonald, between the pipes against the Pens.
It's a shame not having Howard out there, since he's actually saved Crosby from a fight or a head hunt just this last year in March. They call this a fight, but really Howards facewashing of Crosby just keeps him out of an even bigger fight against Zetterberg, and Bertuzzi.
The Geno Effect
So usually when this kind of thing happens, when the Pen's are going on without their star Center, we look to the other rising star, Evgeni Malkin. However, as of late Geno hasn't been the Geno of the 08-09 season, where he went on to put up incredible numbers(113pts) in the regular season and leading the playoffs in scoring with 36pts in 24 games. Going on to win the Conn Smythe trophy and of course, Lord Stanley's Cup. The 09-10 season saw a decline in Geno's performance where in his 67 games played he put up 77points but like the rest of the team, appeared to be in some kind of hangover after hoisting the cup, however Malkin was battling on and off again knee ailments.
As it stands right now, Malkin is 3rd on the Penguins in scoring, at 36points, but this is through 41 games. Is it an issue with the lines Geno plays on? You might think so, but Malkin has spent just as much time on a line with Kunitz and Crosby as he has on a line with Cooke and Talbot. Now that Crosby is injured Geno's been moved around to a couple of other lines as well, specifically tonight, starting at Center with Dupuis and Kunitz as his wingmen. The lines are noticeably one of the biggest factors, in the 08-09 season Geno was paired with Ryan Malone and or Petr Sykora, both of which were averaging 18-20 goals a season, where as Cooke and Talbot average about 7-10 goals a season. Is this the factor that's leading to his lack of stellar performances?
Due to the drop off in point production it's no wonder that people are crying to trade Geno or getting all caught up in the whirlwind of trade rumors that is already floating around, but Penguins GM Ray Shero said it best when speaking about the GM of the Wild Chuck Fletcher: "When Chuck goes to Minnesota, they have players, but they ain't these guys. It's not close," Shero said. "It's a lot more difficult for Chuck, that's for sure. Whenever Chuck calls and says, 'What are you up to,' I say, 'Chuck, I can't give you Crosby or Malkin, that's all I can tell ya.'"
Shero seems pretty adamant that he won't be dishing out Malkin, so for now, lets just drop the trade allegations already.
Ravens vs Steelers rematch proves that the Steelers are still AFC North top dogs:
A shootout, who saw that coming in the AFC north rematch between two of, if not, the two biggest rivals in the NFL today? I certainly didn't see it coming, maybe a 17-14 nail biter but a 31-24 bunker buster? Yowza. The speculation leading up to the game was that the turnover battle was going to be the key indicator of how this game was going to go. At the half, the Ravens were winning the turnover battle with a +2 including 14 points off turnovers, at the end of the game though the Steelers ruled the day with a huge performance from Ryan Clark defensively to come up with not only a forced fumble but also a huge interception to keep the game alive.
The play that really set the whole game into winning formation for the Steelers was this amazing catch by Antonio Brown, one of two Rookie wideouts, along with Emmanuel Sanders who has been nothing but money, earning the young receiving duo's nickname of "Young Money". This catch, energizes the Steelers and turns the tide of the momentum for good in their direction, helping them go on to lock in another AFC championship game this weekend against the Jets.
All and all, Saturday was a good day to be a Pittsburgh Fan.
For tonight lets lay down the law against Detroit!
