Monday Igloo Update

Yinzers,

The Pens finished up their 5 game road trip on Thursday night when they traveled back to the TD Gardens in Boston to take on the Bruins for the first time since the Matt Cooke-Marc Savard incident. Fans in Boston wanted the ice to freeze red with Cooke's blood, but the coaches, management and most players realized that the only thing that matters now is getting into the playoffs. The Bruins tried to get into the act early with Shawn Thornton (no relation to Joe of the Sharks) going after Matt Cooke just 1:58 into the game. This was to be expected and was really no surprise. Thornton and Cooke duked it out for a short period of time before taking major penalties, with Thornton taking an extra 10 minute misconduct when he kept hitting Cooke while he was down, and refusing to promptly enter the penalty box in favor of giving Cooke more choice words. The Pens would have the last laugh in the first period, however, when they got a goal from a rocket of a wrist shot from Tyler Kennedy at 8:34. Another fight, this time between two titans, came in the second period when Mike Rupp and Zdeno Chara squared off at 11:34. I do not know the circumstances of the fight, but even though Rupp is an ominous 6'5" 230 lbs dude, Zdeno Chara is the largest man in the league at 6'9" 255 lbs. Rupp put up a good fight, but the enormous wingspan of Chara proved to be the trump card. Rupp could barely reach the face of the towering Slovak, leading to Rupp being thrown to the ice. Once again, the Pens would have the last laugh in the second period with a goal from Alexei Ponikarovsky at 19:45 in the second. Mike Rupp would add a 3rd goal to the Penguin's tally in the third period, giving the Pens a 3-0 victory and a much-needed 2 points.

Remember how the Penguins cannot seem to beat the New Jersey Devils, well the same seems to occur with the Southeast Division as a whole for the Penguins. No matter how great or poor the teams are in the Southeast Division, Washington, Carolina, Tampa Bay and Florida always seem to bring their 'A' game to the table against the Penguins and Saturday was no different. The Pens came home for the first time in 5 games to host the Carolina Hurricanes in a 1:00pm game. It was a Staal v. Staal with the Staal parents in attendance. Consult your drinking game instructions for proper boozing. At any rate, the Hurricanes are a Southeast Division foe, and they brought their 'A' game to the Igloo. Carolina opened up the scoring at 6:48 in the first period off the stick of Zach Boychuk. It took a while for the Pens to answer, but the answer came with just 18 seconds left in the second period from Jordan Staal on the power play. The hockey gods favored Staal the Younger. Evgeni Malkin netted his 24th of the season at 13:05 in the third period to give the Pens a 2-1 lead, but Joni Pitkanen answered just 3:00 later with his 6th of the season. This game was headed to overtime. The overtime period was intense with a lot of 'edge of your seat' style play. In the waning seconds of the overtime, however, the Carolina Hurricanes' Jamie McBain put home a rebound with 0:01 left on the clock to give the Hurricanes the 3-2 victory, stealing a point from the Pens. The Pens did come out with a point, which helped them to jump the New Jersey Devils for the lead in the Atlantic Division. The Pens now stand at 90 points, two ahead of New Jersey with 88 for the lead in the Atlantic and 2nd place overall in the East.
The Pens next game is tonight at 7:00 on Versus as they travel to Joe Lewis arena in Detroit.

In other hockey news, the Penn State Student Hockey League begins it's post-season tournament this week. Your White team finished with a record of 8-4-2 and pulled down the 3rd seed for the double-elimination tournament. We play the early game on Tuesday night at 10:15 versus the 6th seed Gold team.

Let's Go Pens,
B Brog