Penguins vs Flyers Gameday 74 Battle for P.A.

Pennsylvania... Land of opportunity, land of the Blue Collar folk, and Brotherly love. However there will be no love for our "brothers" in Philadelphia. The last time these two teams met, the Philly Cryers ended a 12 game winning streak heading into the Winter Classic. The last time these two teams played the Penguins were on the top of the world and no one was going to stop them, at least that's how it seemed... Unfortunately their momentum was put to a crawl, however despite that the Penguins are still just 5 points outside of this Flyers team for first place, but the Flyers have a game in hand above the Pens.

Without a doubt, Penalty Killing must be improved on in this game, since Cooke's ejection in the game against the Rangers, the Penguins have let in 4 power play goals, and have dropped their percentage down to 85.9% PK and tied for 1st in the league with the Kings and the Capitals.Cooke's presence on PK will be missed for the remainder of this season but someone will need to step up to make things happen out there.

Goaltending is a question mark today, as Brent Johnson will not be attending this back to back pair of games, Brad Thiessen has been assigned to the Penguins and has traveled to Philly to meet the team. Brad will back up Fleury tonight in net, and possibly start tomorrow against the Devils as there is another game on Sunday against the Panthers. In Thiessens 42 games he has a32-7-1 record, 1.88GAA .924SV % and 7 shutouts.

Player to watch for? Chris Kunitz who is hotter than hot right now with 4 goals and 4 assists in 4 games. Everyone kept talking about Ben Lovejoy and his production, meanwhile Kunitz was coming back from a 12 game injury like it never even happened. He didn't score the first two games against Buffalo and the Habs but now that he's gotten his wheels back it definitely shows why he is one of the top scorers on this team. Expect Kunitz and Kovalev to do something tonight, Neal needs to eliminate his regulation time struggles but Overtime Neal is beastmode.

All of the Pen's defense practiced today but Orpik will not be in the line up until Tuesday at the earliest. Your lines look something like this based off of practice:

James Neal - Dustin Jeffrey - Alex Kovalev
Chris Kunitz - Jordan Staal - Tyler Kennedy
Pascal Dupuis - Maxime Talbot - Chris Conner
Mike Rupp - Craig Adams - Arron Asham

Zbynek Michalek - Paul Martin
Kris Letang - Ben Lovejoy
Deryk Engelland - Matt Niskanen

Between the Pipes for the Penguins? Marc Andre Fleury!

Lets go Pens! Do it!

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So the suspension was levied yesterday and even though everyone knows it already, the NHL and Mario Lemieux aren't happy about Cooke's behavior. 5 suspensions for Cooke means he gets 10 games and the first round of the playoffs. That's all I'm gonna say about the matter.

"I made a mistake. I'm the one that's accountable for that. I take full responsibility for it. I'm sorry to my teammates, my management, my coaching staff and my organization. It's something that, moving forward, I'll make different." - Matt Cooke.

Sidney Crosby, grant them the strength to defeat your enemies.

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