didn't see one...didn't know where else to post it...

I'm a Pen's fan...game 1 sucked last night

Tonight has been intense. Back and forth action all night, Detroit getting a few shots to fall, and the Pens missing out on a ton of opportunities.

Last 20 seconds the fights break out.

DET leads the series 2-0 and it's moving to Pittsburgh. Going to be a ton of emotion

pens need a goalie in a bad way

the sad part is, despite letting in the softie last night, they still would have lost. but i'm not giving up fleury yet...i think crosby has been the bigger disappointment thus far.

and i friggin loved malkin at the end of last night. that vag zetterberg not dropping was typical.

the series doesn't begin until a home team loses (and that could very well be tomorrow night...)

dont blame the pens losing on poor goaltending. they have been outskated and outhustled 100 of the 120 minutes and the scores reflect that.

also, their coaching has been suspect as well. their line pairings are ridiculous and not double shifting crosby in the 3rd last night was stupid. he needs to sack up and skate more than 19 minutes. there was not even 3 mins of meaningful special teams play last night, so getting him towards 25 mins in the stanley cup finals isnt asking too much. he averaged 22 mins a game this year.

go wings

[This message has been edited by brian32178 (edited 6/1/2009 1:43p).]

not saying he's the only reason they lost but he seems to give up a lot of easy goals.....they need a big time goalie to get over the hump imo

yeah, i wasnt disagreeing that he needs to play better if they want a chance of winning. theyre going to need to score more than 1 goal a game to win though. unfortunately, i still think the pens are going to win the series. the red wings legs have to catch up with them at some point.

let's do it again on thursday, pens!

I'll start believing that the Pens can take this series when they prove that they can consistently score at even strength. Tonight they were bailed out big time by the refs. Hopefully more attention is paid to Hal Gill's ridiculous lack of mobility and tendency to interfere as the series goes on.

I don't really think the Pens have a real shot at winning this series. The Red Wings are too good. I am hoping they do because ew dont need the Red Wings dynasty to go on for the next 10 years. someone has to stop it or we could be looking at the type of Habs/Oilers/NYR/Islanders stretch runs that have been put together.

Speaking of which, if any of you are big fans of the NHL and like to keep up with news and goings on, one of my friends from work just started his own website that is a pretty good source of NHL related news. He worked here with the Stars for 4 years, and is a good writer. So, check it out.

the site is NHLintel.com

It would really help him out if you just clicked on it to see if its something you might want to check in on. If you dont like it, no big deal, but anything that happens in the NHL is on the site pretty quickly.

Go Pens.

Gig Em and Go Stars!

The wings are going to run out of steam in the next 3 years. Although they have gotten younger in recent years offensively, their core defensemen are still ancient. Chicago will pass them up in the west, along with Pittsburgh and Carolina in the east. I cannot complain too much when you have the longest current streak of playoff appearances in north american sports.

It will be interesting to see how the Wings deal with the retirement of Nick Lidstrom (I suspect after next season). They really aren't that old on the blue line though. Lidstrom just turned 39 and Rafalski is 35. Past that, Kronwall is 28 and Stuart is 29 (although I assume both will wear out sooner because of the way they throw themselves around) and Ericsson is 25 and Lebda is 27.

Last year the Red Wings used their first round draft pick on a goalie, Thomas McCollum. This was the first time that the Red Wings drafted a non-defenseman in the first round since 1992. The Red Wings had to waive Kyle Quincey because they simply didn't have a spot for him and were out of minor league options. With Jakub Kindl and Logan Pyett in Grand Rapids, Brendan Smith at Wisconsin and Max Nicastro headed to BU, I'm not terribly worried about depth in the system.

Together Lidstrom and Rafalski take up $13.45 million in cap space. Some of that will go to raises for the current defensemen, but I think that there will be enough left over to sign another top-4 defenseman. In short, I'm not that worried.

Chicago is going to have a cap nightmare in the next couple of years. With lots of money committed to Huet and Campbell, I don't know where the money is going to come from to re-sign Kane, Toews, Keith and Barker.

Pavel Datsyuk practiced on a line with Filppula and Hossa today:

http://www.freep.com/article/20090603/BLOG09/90603064/Daily+Datsyuk+upDate+-+he+s+skating++shooting++smiling

It looks like he took Holmstrom's spot. Homer has been pretty quiet lately, I suspect that he is nursing some sort of injury. I read some low level speculation that he may be retiring after this season.

dat with filp and hossa would be a pretty sick line. filp's passing has been spot on this series.

Heading back to the Joe tied - dominating 2nd period tonight by the Pens

wings looked slow in that second period and had entirely too many turnovers in the defensive zone. i still say pens in 6 unfortunately.

The Pens made this a series last night. I think Detroit will put up a fight at home and probably win game 5. I would rather the Pens win it, but if it goes 7 games its good for the NHL, and that is what is most important to me.

Good source for NHL news www.NHLintel.com


Gig Em and Go Stars!

It should be an interesting game tonight. I think that whoever takes game 5 will probably take the series. Detroit needs to cut down on the turnovers at the blueline that got Pittsburgh off and running. I have no idea what to expect from Datsyuk tonight. Hopefully he will be able to help slow down Malkin.

Speaking of Malkin, I think it would be interesting to see him play for a coach like Mike Babcock. I have a feeling that he would either become the greatest hockey player in the world, or be riding the bench with no option in between. When he charges the defenseman trying to hold it in at the blueline, Detroit needs to get the puck past him. That is a high risk play by Malkin and Detroit needs to make him pay.

[This message has been edited by BlueAggie (edited 6/6/2009 6:44p).]

for whatever reason (maybe it was all the booze), the blowout saturday did not bother me too much. most of them were garbage goals from garbage calls (and franzen got away with a nasty elbow on a crease pass-through at one point in the game).

game 6 should be fun. i do like all the chippiness from what's been 2 relatively level-headed teams

quote:

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I think it would be interesting to see him play for a coach like Mike Babcock. I have a feeling that he would either become the greatest hockey player in the world, or be riding the bench with no option in between

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You are completely mental if you think any coach in the NHL, or world rather, would bench Evgeni Malkin for any reason. He is already a Top 3 player in the world, has been the #1 player in the playoffs, and as he gains some maturity, could become the greatest ever.

It will take some real hard work to become THAT great, and maybe he doesnt have that in him. But seriously, get real with your 'Mike Babcock would turn Geno into the greatest all time or bench him' talk. Who would take a top 3 player and say, 'become better than those other 2 guys or you are no use to me' and bench him?

Great place for NHL news: www.NHLintel.com

Gig Em and Go Stars!

You don't think that someone like Mike Keenan wouldn't bench Malkin to send a message? I'm not saying during the playoffs, but during the regular season? I could absolutely see that. Babcock sent Osgood off to get his head straight for 10 days and he isn't any less important to Detroit than Malkin is to Pittsburgh.

Edit: Re-read your post I think that you misunderstood me.

quote:

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But seriously, get real with your 'Mike Babcock would turn Geno into the greatest all time or bench him' talk.

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I'm not saying that Babcock would bench Malkin for not being #1, I'm saying that if a coach like Babcock could get Malkin to play defense a little harder, he would be the best player in the world. To me, that is all that is missing Malkin's game. I really think that Babcock has done wonders with guys like Datsyuk and Dan Cleary.

[This message has been edited by BlueAggie (edited 6/8/2009 9:35p).]

Putting a guy like dan cleary in the same sentence as datsyuk and malkin is kind silly don't ya think? I would compare what hitch did with modano to make more sense.

Cleary might be a stretch, but he came up as a scorer and flamed out big time. Once he ended up in Detroit he reinvented himself as a hard working, defensively responsible winger. I don't think that's a complete coincidence.

I'm being a little bit hyperbolic about Malkin and defense, but I really believe that he could be better in his end of the ice.

I like Bylsma as a coach, he's done a nice job of pulling that team together down the stretch. I'll be interested to see how Pittsburgh looks after a whole season with him.

I think he could work on his D game a little bit as well, but there is nothing that he is doing that would warrant benching him. Not being a great defensive forward is only detrimental to your team when you arent scoring 1.4 points every night. And he was a +17 (45th in the league) for the year. Doesnt scream of a poor defensive playing forward to me. I wouldnt sacrifice being 1st in assists and points overall so that he could increase on an already good enough stat.

Also, Osgood had a GAA of over 3 this year. He simply wasnt playing that well (he has played spectacularly in the post season, however). That is reason to send a guy to get his mind right. And he only played about 1/2 the games this year anyway, so whats the harm in sending him home to get everything together? You go without Malkin for an entire week and it significantly hurts your team.

I dont think it is a bad idea to bench a player when he needs it. But, i see zero reason why anyone would ever bench Malkin. Just look at his stat sheet. If he was -20, then its a problem. If he wasn't scoring at will, then it's a problem. But he isn't, and he is. So when you put him on the bench, what is it exactly that he has to get straight?

Gig Em and Go Stars!

They should have benched him at the begining of last year's finals. I could get 0 points in 4 games. But this year he has been a worldbeater. Benching him for any reason isn't the same as benching a goaltender for a few games.

I would think that Malkin (even if he had 0 points in 4 games) would still give you a better chance than the spare you would have to replace him with.

You dont 'send a message' to a star player in the SC Finals by benching him. That just 'sends a message' to management that you don't care about winning the series anymore.

My first sentence was tongue in cheek. I was more commenting on how worthless he played last SC to this one.

Playoff benching /= regular season benching.

I would argue that +17 is pretty bad for a player who puts up as many points as Malkin. Granted, the Penguins haven't come up with enough good wingers to surround Crosby, Malkin and Staal, but still. The other thing is the number of bad penalties that Malkin took in game 5. They were only down 3 when he took a stupid penalties for elbowing Franzen. Detroit cashed in and Pittsburgh never recovered. (And I'm not saying that Pittsburgh would have made up the 3 goals, but a selfish penalty was the last thing they needed at that point.) Then Malkin picks up a couple of dumb penalties in the third.

And let's not forget that Malkin probably shouldn't have even been playing in game 3. He's lucky that the NHL needs all the stars they can get on the biggest stage.

I stand by my assertion that Malkin is one of the two or three most talented players in the world, but he won't be one of the greats until somebody convinces him to be.

what a game, and what a defensive finish.

here we go to game 7!

Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Is there anything better than that?

Clearly the best game of the series. As a die-hard Wings fan it kills me to say this, but Pittsburgh deserved to win this game. They outworked Detroit all game long and it took a spectacular Osgood to keep Detroit in it. I was very impressed with how many shots Pittsburgh's defensemen blocked. The pass by Talbot to set up the second goal was great, and Osgood left one too many rebounds out. Game 7 is going to be a doozy.

Naturally, after I spend all week arguing that Malkin is deficient in effort and defense, he goes out and plays his best defensive game of the series. I was very impressed, although I hope for Detroit's sake he doesn't put it all together in time for game 7.

Fleury's save on Cleary on the breakaway in the last couple of minutes was amazing. Cleary was never able to get much of a shot away, but Fleury did a great job of staying with him.

A couple of notes: Orpik blocked six shots and Scuderi blocked four, great games for those two. Faceoffs were even, which surprised me, I expected Pittsburgh to win more. I thought Detroit's ability to win offensive zone faceoffs late in the game really helped to keep them in it right until the clock ran out.

Can't wait for game 7. No rooting interest in either team, so I just hope its a good game.

Great game - Pens were sharp and Osgood as it's already been said kept the Wings in the game. Game 7 - hmmmm based on the previous 3, particularly the gm 5 one would have to heavily favor the Wings but it's now winner take all so who knows. As a lifelong Pens fan, I'd obviously prefer this gm to be in the Burgh, but seeing them bounce back tonight after the gm 5 debacle at least gives me some hope for Friday night. Great series.