Bits And Pieces

– Sidney Crosby has been named one of the finalists for the Ted Lindsay award, awarded to the league’s most outstanding player and voted on by members of NHLPA.

Crosby is up against Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightening, and his old friend Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.

Crosby was having a stellar season up until he took a puck to the jaw and missed the last month of the season. Despite that, he still finished tied for third in points. Good luck to Sid!

– Some big changes for game 5 tonight. Tomas Vokoun will be starting today, instead of Marc-Andre Fleury, who hasn’t been playing his best recently. This will be Vokoun’s first playoff game since 2007.

Letang’s A Finalist!

Congrats Tanger!

The NHL announced this morning that Penguins defenceman Kris Letang is one of the three finalists for the Norris Trophy, the award for the “defensive player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position.”

Letang is up against PK Subban of the Montreal Canadiens and Ryan Suter of the Minnesota Wild. All worthy candidates, to be honest.

Despite playing only 35 games of the 48 game season, Letang tied with Subban for most points among defencemen, with 38 points (5G, 33A), a career best for him.

He had a plus-16 rating, which was the highest of his career, and averaged 25:38 minutes of ice time.

The last Penguins defenceman to win the Norris was Randy Carlyle in 1981.

Congratulations, Kris!

Crosby Returns!

He’s baaaaaaaack

Game 2 of the Pittsburgh Penguins vs the New York Islanders just got a little more interesting.

The Penguins announced this morning captain Sidney Crosby, who has been out with a broken jaw since March 30th, will make his return to the lineup tonight. He missed the last 12 games of the regular season and the 1st game of the playoff series.

“I’m cleared to play tonight,” Crosby said. “I’m excited to get back in there and play in the playoffs.

“(The doctor) was around and I wasn’t sure if he would give me the OK or even consider it. I’m happy that he did and happy to be back.”

Speculation started mounting that he was ready to return when, instead of practicing with the spare line at practice, Crosby was reunited with his usual linemates Pascal Dupuis and Chris Kunitz. He also took a spot on the first power play unit.

This isn’t the first time Crosby is making a comeback against the Islanders. We all remember what happened last time he did.

Puck drops for game 2 at 7:00pm. Let’s Go Pens!

The Perks Of Being A Wall, Flower

The Pittsburgh Penguins went into game 1 against the New York Islanders without Sidney Crosby or Brooks Orpik and managed to come out with a 5-0 win.

Beau Bennett opened up the scoring, scoring a power play goal. He was the first rookie to score the opening goal of the playoffs since Jordan Staal did against Ottawa in 2007.

Pascal Dupuis scored his first of 2 after that, and the Pens took the 2-0 lead into the second.

Kris Letang scored the third goal early into the second period, and less than a minute later, Pascal Dupuis scored again.

Tanner Glass sealed the deal by scoring the fifth goal. Yes, Tanner Glass.

Marc-Andre Fleury got the first shutout of the playoffs, and the 6th shutout of his playoff career, tying Tom Barrasso for the team record.

It wasn’t all fun though. James Neal took a hit and a slash from Travis Hamonic, played one more shift, than didn’t return for part of the second and the whole third period. Then near the end of the game, Jussi Jokinen was hit my Marty Reasoner. He left the game, but with only a few minutes left, it isn’t clear what the extent of the injury is.

This was a great effort, but let’s not get overly cocky. We need to win 3 more to make it to the next round.

The next game is on Friday, May 3rd at 7:00PM. Let’s Go Pens!

Crosby Out For Game 1

The Pittsburgh Penguins go up against the New York Islanders in game one of the Stanley Cup playoffs tonight. However, a couple of familiar faces won’t be playing.

Sidney Crosby, who has been out since March 30 after being hit with a puck and shattering his jaw, will not play tonight. He says that while his doctor thinks everything looks good, he still isn’t ready to give him the green light for full contact.

Brooks Orpik, who has been out with an undisclosed lower body injury, also won’t be playing tonight. He didn’t give any info on what was wrong with him.

With these two out of the lineup, Pens will have to make do with Evgeni Malkin, James Neal, Jarome Iginla, Kris Letang, Marc-Andre Fleury, Pascal Dupuis, Chris Kunitz, and Brenden Morrow. The horror.

Puck drops at 7:30 tonight. Let’s Go Pens!

Pens @ Bruins Postponed

We’re with you

Due to the man hunt currently happening in Boston to catch the Boston Marathon bombers, the Pittsburgh Penguins- Boston Bruins game that was scheduled for tonight has been tentatively postponed until tomorrow at 12:30PM.

The Penguins’ Saturday game against Buffalo has been moved to Tuesday at 7:30PM.

This is completely understandable, and we send positive vibes to the city of Boston. We’re all behind you guys 100%. Team loyalty doesn’t matter at this point.

Pens Are The Atlantic Champs!

Change that X to a Y.

With their win over the Carolina Hurricanes, the Pittsburgh Penguins have become the Atlantic Division champions, clinching the division for the last time in history, as the realignment goes into effect next season. They already clinched a playoff spot on Sunday.

The win wasn’t a pretty one. The Canes were in fighting form, desperate for a win and were leading the game  3-2 until Beau Bennett, who was called up earlier this week, scored.  Evgeni Malkin scored a few minutes later, and Pascal Dupuis sealed the deal with an empty net goal to make it 5-3. Brandon Morrow also scored his first goal as a Penguin

The Pens did all this without Sidney Crosby, who is out of the lineup for the time being after having surgery to repair his broken jaw, Kris Letang, who is still out with a lower body injury, and James Neal, who has a concussion after a hit from the New York Rangers’ Michael Del Zotto. Letang is practicing and might be back soon.

Clinching the Atlantic division is nice, but there’s one prize we all have our eyes on.

Pens play the Tampa Bay Lightening on Thursday. Let’s Go Pens!

Are You Jokinen?

Our Newest Penguin: Jussi Jokinen

We all thought GM Ray Shero was done with the trades. After all, he managed to get Brenden Morrow, Douglas Murray, and, the best one of them all, Jarome Iginla. That should be enough.

Nope.

Today, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced they have acquired Jussi Jokinen from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for a conditional 6th or 7th round pick.

Will the Pens even have any picks left for the draft?

So far this season, Jokinen has 6 goals and 5 assists for 11 points. It will be exciting to see what Jokinen brings to the Pens. Welcome to Pittsburgh!

 

March Of The Penguins

Look at that smile!

The Pittsburgh Penguins last game of the month was certainly a memorable one.

The Pens won their 15th straight, setting a couple of records. This is currently the longest win streak of the season for any NHL team, and they are also the first NHL team to have a perfect month of wins in history.

The Penguins’ latest acquisition Jarome Iginla, who only landed in Pittsburgh at 12:30 in the morning, made his debut with his new team. In total, he had 17:30 of ice time, 3 shots on net, 2 hits, and was a plus 1. He was also awarded the 3rd star of the game.

Goaltender Tomas Vokoun recorded his 3 straight shutout, giving the Pens a 2-0 victory over the New York Islanders. He now holds the franchise record for shutouts.

Matt Cooke was a man on a mission. After a spectacular performance killing off a 5-on-3 penalty, Cooke scored the first goal for the Penguins, which ended up being the game winner. James Neal got the second one. Douglas Murray, the Pens’ newest defenseman, got his first point as a Penguin on that goal.

Now the not so great news.

Christ Kunitz was given a 5 minute major and a game misconduct after it appeared he boarded Josh Bailey. No word on whether he’ll hear from Shanahan for that hit.

And the worst.

50 seconds into his first shift, Sidney Crosby was hit in the jaw with a Brooks Orpik slapshot. After not showing up on the bench for the second period, word got out that he was transferred to a hospital. After the game, Dan Bylsma said that he was having oral surgery, and that’s all he knew.

Yikes. Let’s hope everything is OK with Sid. To see him lose any time is just the absolute worst.

Pens have a break until Tuesday, when they play the Buffalo Sabres.

IGGY!

No. Words.

Forget what you heard about Jarome Iginla going to the Bruins.

Earlier tonight, it was reported that Iginla to the Boston Bruins was pretty much a done deal. Everyone was just waiting for official confirmation from the Calgary Flames GM Jay Feaster. Well, we got confirmation of a trade. It just wasn’t to where we were expecting.

Jarome Iginla is now a Pittsburgh Penguin. We were trolled hardcore.

The Penguins didn’t give up much. They gave the Calgary Flames  Kenneth Agostino and Ben Hanowski, as well as the Penguins’ first round pick from the 2013 draft. Amazing.

No word on when Iginla will play his first game as a Penguin, or what line he’ll play on, but one has to imagine he’s going to be playing with Sid. It resulted in some golden results last time (sorry, I had to. Canadian pride and all).