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.
So apparently today ESPN's Chris Mortensen decided that he was going to stir up trouble in Pittsburgh insinuating that Dick Lebeau was going to coach Defense for the Arizona Cardinals. First off, who in their right mind, after being inducted to the hall of fame -very emotionally I might add- on his way to a third Superbowl in 6 years, want to up and change teams next season? Secondly, where in the world would Mortensen get this information other than fabricating it in his own mellon? Finally, why in the world does ESPN always feel so inclined to misreport things?
Lebeau shot down the allegations saying to NFL network: "I promise you, if I'm coaching, it will be the Pittsburgh Steelers." Lebeau was also reported by Fox Sports as saying: "With this defense, with this group of men, they'll have to run me out of here." So really, there is the news from the mouth of the man they're trying to pile mud on top of. Steelers or bust for Dick Lebeau.
So this game started off with fireworks right out the gate.
Within a few seconds of the opening puck drop, this happened:
Why is T.K spazzing his leg out?
Then not but a minute later, Asham decided to say welcome to pain town, population Konopka.
Asham promptly reintroduces him to the inside of his shirt.
Even though this game was an 0-1 shutout the game was still a fun one to watch, surprising because it involved the Islanders. If you get past the fact that the Penguins seem to do particularly poorly against netminders they've never seen before, it was a goalie's dueling dream. Fleury made 30 saves, almost every one of them spectacular. Kevin Poulin was playing out of his mind, standard M.O like any goalie who's faced the Pens for the first time, Bobrovsky on opening day in Consol ring a bell? In the end though, Craig M.F'ing Adams made the game winning goal in the middle of the third period.
He didn't do it on his own though, off a Dustin Jeffrey faceoff win, which is dished over to Lovejoy who rockets it to the net, Asham catches the rebound, somehow it gets to Adams and he puts that bastard in the twine. The Islanders still fought down to the wire though shooting pucks on net right up until the buzzer, keeping MAF on his toes all game. But, Marc Andre Fleury is a certified BAMF, so MAF, BAMF'd all over the Islanders efforts, to take home his second shutout of the year.
Pens win a much needed 2 points before the break and now get to go spend time with their families. Except for Letestu, Lovejoy and Talbot going to Florida to beat the winter cold. Craig Adams deciding that last night was his Superbowl, says that he too is going to Florida and he's taking the family to Disney World.
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.
Fleury recorded his 22nd victory of the year against the Cane's on the... 22nd of January.
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.
Yeah yeah, it's the third time I've used that type of title. Anyway, who really is still reading all of this news everyday on Crosby and the All Star Game? Who watches the All Star Game? There is no hitting, barely any defense, and it's got half the heart. If it were a whole weekend of crazy skills challenges and then the Winter Classic now we're talking top billing.
Anyway it looks like both Sid and Malkin won't be joining the rest of the league in the All Star Game. Not too big of a loss in my opinion as both of our guys will get a chance to get to 100%. My guess is that neither of them really wanted to play in it, and are using this as a chance to continue to train and strengthen their bodies for the last 32 games of the season. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have both gone through 20+ game playoff seasons, and know the wear and tear that can take on their bodies. This downtime, in my opinion, gives them the ability to rest up in preparation for that.
Would it of been great to see all 4 of our Pen's on the ice against the rest of the guys? Sure, but we're just as happy to see Tanger the write in make it and Flower will get to show his style and flash off. Now what I would love to see, is a shootout against the best goaltenders and the best shooters but in the fashion of kind of like a Dunk contest where style points are awarded as well, think Fleury in the 24/7 HBO Pens Vs Caps show, or from any shootout practice:
I think it would be extremely fun to watch with the added flare and flash from the shooters and goal tenders. Just an idea that's all, probably wouldn't fly though.
Pens gear up for the Isles tonight. Gameday thoughts soon.
Well, what a rush this weekend was eh? First we saw the Penguins come out and play 3 periods of strong hockey against the Carolina Hurricanes without their two supernovas. Then we got to watch them Stillers come out and put up 24 unanswered points in the first half, seemly stamping all of their tickets to the Superbowl only to turn around in the second half and let up 19 unanswered and scare us all half to death! This was one of those games where you "Buy the whole seat but you only need the EDGE!"
This picture sums the weekend up fairly well:
*And as a bonus, heres the video thanks to "Pensareyourdaddy" at thepensblog.com
This isn't the first time Fleury has skated out onto the ice during the 3 stars demonstration waiving a Terrible Towel and wearing a Steelers helmet, this one is currently on my wall from 2009:
There is just something about those Powder Blues...
So I want to talk a little bit about the game. First off, did anyone see Sanchez pick his nose and rub it on Brunell? That's hilarious, if you didn't it's here:
The first half went as phenomenally as you could expect for a first half to go in an AFC championship game. The Jets had spent all week working on Plastering our wide receivers that they forgot we had Rashard Mendenhall. Rashard had a touchdown on the opening drive and 95 yards in the first half. It didn't stop with just Rashard, after a long run in the early going Isaac Redman came out and was dicing the Jets for big gains himself, it was as though we couldn't be stopped on the run in the first half, not so much the second half.
Roethlisberger was playing surgical football up until Maurkice Pouncey went down. This is probably the most devastating of the injuries we've suffered next to Troy and Aaron Smith going down this year. This kid started every game for us, every single one and he came out like a 6 year vet. Making adjustments, reading the defense, and taking up space for Ben. When he went down it just about broke my heart. If we win the Superbowl for anyone this year, it's going to be for Pouncey. Pouncey's been replaced by Jeff Saturday for the pro bowl next week.
Back to Roethlisberger though, I said he played well up until Maurkice went down because well, after that Ben threw 2 picks and fumbled 2 snaps, one of them costing us a Safety and collectively stopping the hearts of thousands of Steelers fans. I read an article today saying Roethlisberger was clutch... I just didn't see it on the field. While he did only get sacked 2 or 3 times all game, one of them being the botched snap for a fumble. The other came on a key drive that would of eaten off much of the clock, though the Jets did that for us later. In the first half I can assure you Ben could do no wrong, he was on fire and we couldn't be stopped. When we needed a big catch he found Miller for huge gains, someone who wasn't there in week 15.
Speaking of people who weren't there in week 15, where was Troy Polamalu yesterday? I heard his name only mentioned once in the 3rd quarter, and it coincidentally must of been on Sim's mind as well as he remarked about it right after I thought about it, of course, this was after Polamalu finally made a big tackle. He wasn't there during the 3 almost interceptions thrown right at Laamar Woodley and he wasn't near the one that Ryan Clark dropped or the one near Ike Taylor. What does that mean? The Jets spent all week learning how to throw away from the Hair. Didn't stop him from being a factor though because it still kept Sanchez on his toes enough to where he almost threw 5 or 6 interceptions, Defense has to make these picks.
Either way, the Steelers hung on to win the game, and it is largely in part because of this amazing effort by Ike Taylor and good awareness by William Gay to get the fumble recovery;
I remember watching this and saying to myself: "It's going to go to review, and we are going to get this one after that disaster of a call on the opening drive." Sure enough, Phil Sims read my mind and saw it going to review before it did, and it of course, went under the hood. Thankfully we didn't get screwed over and they realized that the crown of Ikes helmet hit the ball before anything else and caused it to get jettisoned into the air, picked up by Gay and run in for a 24-0 lead before the Jets kicked a field goal.
February 6th is going to be another big day for the Black and Gold of Pittsburgh, Penguins will face the Capitals in D.C at the Verizon Center at 12:30pm, and the Steelers will face the Packers in Arlington, TX after all the pregame B.S is done around 7:30ish. Get ready for our ultimate day anyone who bleeds that Black and Gold. If you didn't get vacation time, or the day off, call out sick we've got a hell of a holiday coming.
Time to get ready for the 4th Superbowl of my lifetime and #7 by #7 for the Steelers this year.
