Oh Carolina, Carolina. Where the hockey players wear NASCAR helmets and the NASCAR drivers wear Hurricane helmets.
What can you say except these guys are on fire, and if you know anything about Hurricanes, its tough to start a fire in one. How hot is the fire, how about 11 wins in a row at home. What’s the best way to put out that fire? With a fire of your own, Penguins are 15-2-3 since Bylsma took over as coach. Something is gonna give tonight and I willing to bet you see a huge Penguin fan contingent there.
Carolina Hurricanes, one of the NHL’s 5 state teams if you don’t count the New York Rangers & Islanders, can you name all five? I’ll let you know at the bottom.
Janne Pesonen & Ben Lovejoy of the WBS Penguins were named to the AHL’s Second All-Star Team. Pesonen has set the WBS points record for a season & Lovejoy’s plus 43 is the best plus minus in the AHL. I guess playing this well has left Lovejoy no time to work on his blog: Hockey Road Trip
Ruslan Fedotenko, who did not play the third period of the Pens/Devils game 2 nights ago practiced Friday and he should be in the lineup tonight.
Staal vs. Staal – Eric Staal has scored 19pts in the 12 games since he was reunited with Erik Cole, Jordan Staal has 6 goals and 5 assists since he was united with Dan Bylsma.
Malkin hasn’t quite sewn up that Art Ross trophy yet, Ovechkin tallied 3 more points last night and is only four points behind. Luckily, Malkin has one game in hand.
The Penguins who had only one goaltender signed for next year between Pittsburgh and the farm just signed Northeastern Husky goaltender Brad Thiessen a finalist for this years Hobey Baker award to a two-year contract. They didn’t stop there, right after that they signed his teammate Center Joe Vitale who was named Hockey East’s Best Defensive Forward. Both will be heading to the WBS Penguins.
New Jersey, Colorado, Minnesota and Florida are the other four, if you got them correct you can pick up the keys to your brand new Chrystler Cordoba in Marty’s office.
I was really looking forward to the Pittsburgh/Carolina double header this evening, but it would seem that once again the Pitt Panthers have doused my hopes.
I miss the Whalers, the uniforms and that “Brass Bonanza” song they used to play everytime someone scored a goal: Whalers Theme Song on Utoob – Bring back the Whale!
Game time is 7PM and can be seen in HD the RBC Center or at home on FSN.
That Kunitz call was stupid both pl;ayes hit at the sametime and skates collide Chris gets called for tripping, I’m not whinning but is it just me or have some of the calls against Pen’s benn more than a lttle questionable????
Crosby fails to score on a 150′ breakaway – Malkin fails to show-up on his penalty shot and IMO the game still shouldn’t have went into OT because that tripping call on Kunitz with Ruutu ‘diving’ negated the Guerin to Crosby goal. I’m not whining about it as this game could have went to either team. I just thought with all the refs were letting go this one was rather a wimpy call.
Good game expected tonight especially since a win by the CANES cinches them a playoff spot. From a Flightless Birdie POV this is a tone-setting game like the (6-1) smashing of the Devils as these two could meet in the first round. I think the matchup is this simple: How will the Gleason-Corvo combo handle the two-headed monster and company. They held Ovechnik down. The CANES have some good face-off centers and to a puck possession team like the Pens lets hope they bring their A-game. I did hear that in order to remind those tailgating at the RBC Center they actually ring a cow bell to remind them it’s GAME-ON. I’m thinking Pens fans will be heard in the crowd if anyone of them found out which one of the Carolina’s they actually play.
I thought people only go to the Carolina’s to retire or to play golf.
A little bit on Brad Thiessen – he’s not only a Hobey Baker Award finalist but also the Hockey East Player of the Year. He’s picked-up a lot of awards like the Eberly Award as the goalie with the best SV% in the BEANPOT. What in means the most is that Shero is doing something about building a shallow prospect/farm team goalie base. This is a major signing. Right now it is only UFA Garon and John Curry who may be slotted to backup Fleury next season. Other than that we have Chad Johnson with Alaska-Fairbanks (no relation to Chad Javon OchoCinco Johnson) and selections in last year Entry Draft: (150th) Alexander Pechurski from Magnitogorsk (Russia 3) and (180th) Patrick Killeen from Brampton (OHL). We also (I think) still have a sleeper in German, Patrick Ehelechner who we picked up in that (who could forget) Nils Ekman trade. Nils Ekman is like Peter Alhoa!
The first tie-breaker is WINS and right now a win tonight against Carolina will tie us with Carolina for most wins of the remaining teams not yet eliminated . . . (40) Flyers, (43) Canes, (42) Pens, (40) Habs, (40) Rags, ( 38) Panthers, (38) Buffalo. This is a BIG game.