Thursday Igloo Update

Yinzers,

Another conundrum has come to light recently...and the Dude does not abide. It is not about this poorly placed Big Lebowski allusion, but rather about the Penguins' apparent inability to play well against teams from the sunshine state. There is no connection between Florida and hockey. It was a lie that Florida was looking to buy the Chiefs and contrary to the sorority bimbo's hand guide to common knowledge, there is no connection between the Everglades and glaciers. I blame the atmosphere. The south is lazy, ergo when the Penguins play a team from the south, they play lazy.

The Tampa Bay Lightning, a.k.a. Pittsburgh-South made the trek up north to Mellon Arena last night. This game was not so much lazy play as much as it was health concerns. Evgeni Malkin sat out his 5th straight and 7th out of the last 8 with a bruised foot. Sergei Gonchar also sat out his 4th straight game, this night due to strep throat. What is that KGB up to? At any rate, the absence of these two players is very apparent, especially on the power play. The Pens went 0/4 tonight and have been atrocious at best with the mother Russia's best sitting out.

Scoring was sparse through the entire game and so were the total shots...at least in comparison to the Pens' last few contests. The Penguins only put up 27 shots after averaging well over 30 for the season and the Lightning scraped up 17 shots, scoring on 2 of those. The game opened up with a pretty obvious boarding penalty by Tampa Bay's Matt Lashoff on Pittsburgh's Ruslan Fedotenko. Justice was served when Lashoff pulled down a 5 minute major and 10 minute misconduct for his actions. The downfall: the Penguins fail to score on a 5 minute power play. This would be a theme for the night. Steven Stamkos opened up the scoring on the power play at 17:00, scoring his 46th goal of the season. Steve Downie added his 22nd of the season just 29 seconds into the second period. The game from then on was in the hands of Lightning goaltender Mike Smith. Smith got the job done turning away all 27 of Pittsburgh's shots.

The Penguins need to be patient and get Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar back in the lineup. Without these two on the ice, opponents can focus all of their energy on Sidney Crosby and Jordan Staal, rather than spreading focus to Crosby, Staal, Malkin AND Gonchar. The good news is the Penguins have clinched a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Points will only help their position from here on out. Buffalo has been on a hot streak and currently holds onto the 2nd position by 1 point over the Penguins who have a 1 point advantage over the 4th place Devils. Don't you just love playoff drama? Get in the mood for some scruff.

The Pens' next game is Saturday at 1:00pm against the Atlanta Thrashers.

Let's go Pens,
B Brog