Thursday Igloo Update

Yinzers,

In their opening game back from the Olympic break, the Pens started things off on the upside. Monday night, the Pens played salt to the Buffalo Banana Slugs, coming out with a 3-2 victory. Neither team had their star goaltender in the game, so if you hear someone saying "Well, Buffalo would have won if Miller were in net," feel free to call Shenanigans. Brent Johnson started for the Pens and former Pen Patrick Lalime started for Buffalo, who has been lights-out against his former club since. What I saw in this game were the contributions from other sources. I do not care that our powerplay squad, coming into the game, was ranked in the high 20s, all I care about is that they capitalize on their chances from here on out. That was the case in the game on Monday night. Sergei Gonchar opened up the scoring at 14:58 in the first period with a powerplay goal from Alex Goligoski and Sidney Crosby. With the lead and proverbial pace control, the Pens headed into the locker room at the first intermission with a 1-0 lead. The first of said 'other sources' to contribute was Pascal Dupuis at 3:13 in the second period with helpers going to Ruslan Fedotenko and Evgeni Malkin. The Banana Slugs answered at 6:44 from Tony Lydman. After two complete, the score was Pittsburgh 2 - Buffalo 1. The first highlight of the third period was a heavyweight bout between the Pens' Mike Rupp and the Banana Slugs Paul Gaustad. Gaustad injured his hand on the first swing and Rupp started landing hay-makers left and right. Scoring resumed at 11:03 off the stick of the second 'other source' in Ruslan Fedotenko; assists went to Tyler Kennedy and Kris Letang. Buffalo added another one later from Derek Roy (pronounced "roy" not "wah"). Final score, Pittsburgh 3-Buffalo 2.



In other news, you may have noticed a new face on the Pens' blue line on Monday night. The young man's name is Jordan Leopold, who was acquired by Ray "Jukebox" Shero (he's got stars in his eyes) in a trade for the Pens' second round pick in the entry draft. Shero did some more work yesterday acquiring Alexei Ponikarovsky from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for Martin Skoula and Luca Caputi. Ponikarovsky won't be playing until Saturday, however, because he needs to get a work Visa from the government. Since he played long enough for Canadian teams, he became a citizen of Canada and now needs the Visa to live in the United States. I would look for Ponikarovsky to be more of a role-player like fellow Ukrainian countryman Ruslan Fedotenko. Either way, welcome to the team...BOT YNZ!

The Pens' next game will be tonight at 7:00 on Versus when they take on the Rangers in New York. After that, the Pens welcome the Dallas Stars to Hockeytahn at 1:00 on FSN-Pittsburgh.

Let's Go Pens,
B Brog