Gameday Poop: Game 4 – Penguins vs Senators – Out for Justice

Desire to Win

Sunday’s Penguin game was one of the best all around games I have seen the Penguins play in a long time. Ottawa looked very tentative as if they thought the Pens were going to be “Out for Justice” and it really showed when Daniel Alfredsson looked like he wet his pants when Brooks Orpik skated up to him at center ice. I do not personally remember a hockey player ever being that scared before in my life. Alfredsson later in the game showed his manliness by kneeing Orpik while he was sprawled out on the ice.

Desire to Win, some teams have it.

The Penguins have already been through the whole cheap shot incident thing before. Last year in the playoffs Ovechkin took out Gonchar’s knee and the NHL didn’t suspend him. Ovechkin looked over his shoulder the entire next game. Sutton and the rest of the Senators were looking over their shoulders the entire game Sunday. They out hit the Penguins only because they were leaving the puck to avoid the hit. The Pens once again opted for winning the game instead of revenge.

It was announced this morning that Jordan Staal along with 2 others is a finalist for the Frank J. Selke Trophy that is given to the NHL’s best defensive forward.

As far as I know, no one has figured out the meaning behind the timely “Out for Justice” slogan the Pens adopted for the playoffs before the first game. Billy Guerin came up with the slogan and wouldn’t admit that it was because the Stevan Seagal movie had a better ring to it than Van Damme’s “Sudden Death” but all the Penguins are being hush hush when asked about it. Guerin “I can’t really talk about it” – Crosby “You have to ask someone else” – Letang “I can’t tell you”

Mixed up Lines. I know everyone always hates it when coach Bylsma mixes the lines all up during the regular season. The away games during the playoffs is when that sort of thing is the most useful. The home coach gets the last call on which players he puts out, and since Bylsma has mixed the lines up all season, all of the Penguins players are used to each other. Basically Bylsma can throw anyone out there at any time and the whole matching players up is rendered ineffective for Ottawa. Pure genius.

There’s no award for least improved player. I know a bunch of people are wondering if Ruslan Fedotenko will see time in a Penguin uniform again. Feds is a unrestricted free agent next year, and even though he’s a fan favorite for taking less money to stay with the team, his disappointing play this season resembled the lesser amount of money. He played 15 more games this year and had 9 less points. His plus minus went from second best on the team at +18 last year to worst on the team this year -17, a 35 point swing.

Ron Cook of the Post-Gazette raised his douche bag status to an even higher level yesterday when on The Nightly Sports Call he said “I would vote for Ovechkin for MVP of the regular season…” and he continued on “I think it’s going to be kind of a landslide for Ovechkin really“. I had no idea it was Ron Cook, I thought it was just some fat bald guy until they mentioned his name.

The Penguins most likely will not be changing their lineup today because of that whole winning thing. While at the same time the Senator’s are looking for change, look for the Senators to split up the Alfredsson , Spezza line.

How soon they forget. The Canadian fans in Ottawa are booing a guy that won the Gold Medal for their country less than 2 months ago. Maybe Crosby will get dual citizenship and take up residency in Sewickley Pennsylvania close to where he’s living now with Mario Lemieux and play for the USA team next time around. The USA doesn’t dump on their heroes.

The Penguins AHL team the WBS Penguins were swept out of the playoffs in 4 games by the Albany River Rats last night and Mark Letestu wasn’t very pleased with it “Losing in four, you’re dominated, in my opinion… First time for me. It’ll sit with me all summer, that’s for sure.” This is the first time since 2003 that they have been eliminated this early, this will actually give the Pittsburgh team a chance to call up a handful of players to work with the main team without worrying whether it effects the WBS Penguins playoff chances.

Boston’s Marc Savard, the guy that Matt Cooke beaned in the head and helped the NHL adopt a head shot rule, is back skating and if all goes well could start working out and be back on the ice soon. *The NHL is not using the headshot rule in the playoffs, see Suttons hit on Leopold for reference.

The playoffs are a fickle pickle, but with Pittsburgh, Washington, Boston and Philadelphia all leading their series, if things ended this way the Pens would be playing Marc Savard & the Boston Bruins next round and Washington would play Philadelphia. All of these series are all a long way from over though.

I have been picking on Ponikarovsky’s performance, not hustling and all around lollygagging and then he went and got a goal last game, his 3rd in 19 games. It was too bad he had to leave the game right after he got the goal.

Another PenguinPoop exclusive! We hired a detective and it has been confirmed pending DNA tests that the Ottawa mascot is the bastard love child of H.R. Pufnstuf & Witchiepoo and from what we can only surmise, it came about from them ingesting too many of those magic mushrooms.

Before you bother go to see if Ponikarovsky left the game right after that, I assure you he didn’t, but I bet you can’t remember one thing he did after that goal, I sure can’t.

PenguinPoop TV. Yeah that’s right, we just started a Youtube page called PenguinPoop TV that our fans can go to and watch our favorite video’s like this one featuring Andy Sutton and his witty repartee. “PenguinPoop TV”

Gametime is 7PM and can be seen in HD at Scotiabank Place or on FSN Pittsburgh. *Versus and CBC will airing the game outside the Pittsburgh area.