Fuse Box Monday

Yinzers,

The 2010-11 NHL season is nearly upon us. The Penguins start out their march to a dance with Lord Stanley this Thursday for the regular season home-opener against the Philthadelphia Flyers. It will be interesting to see Aaron Asham against his old team and I am anxious to see if the Penguins' dominance in the preseason is a showing of things to come. As for the preseason, let's take a look at how the Pens finished their regular season
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On Tuesday of last week, the Penguins took on the defending champion Chicago Blackhawks for the first of two preseason contests between the two clubs. Brent Johnson started between the pipes for Pittsburgh, posting 21 saves on 22 shots. Solid is all I have to say. Pittsburgh got contributions from Evgeni Malkin, Dustin Jeffrey, Nick Johnson and Mark Letestu with new-comer Paul Martin adding two assists. The lone tally for Chicago was scored by Kyle Beach. The Penguins out-shot the defending champs 39-22 and improved their preseason record to 4-0.

The first day of October was the second day of the meetings between the past two Stanley Cup champions. This day belonged to Chicago as they moved past the Penguins 5-2, issuing the Penguins their first loss in the preseason. The Blackhawks' goals were scored by Fernando Pisani, Tomas Kopecky, Marian Hossa (2) and Patrick Kane. The Penguins' goals came off the sticks of Alex Goligoski and Craig Adams. It was an off-game for the Penguins' goaltenders with Marc-Andre Fleury letting in 2 goals on 14 shots and Brent Johnson letting in 3 goals on 10 shots, but you can't win them all. The Penguins move to 4-1 for the preseason.

For their 6th and final preseason match, the Penguins traveled to the Joe to take on the Detroit Red Wings. It was news to me when I found out that Mike Modano, perhaps the best American-born player in NHL history and franchise player of the Minnesota Northstars/Dallas Stars, is now on the Red Wings. Just mind-blowing... New Penguin Mike Comrie shined in this game with 2 goals as the Penguins clipped the Red Wings 5-2. Other Penguins goals came from Chris Kunitz, Alex Goligoski and Evgeni Malkin. Red Wings goals were scored by Pavel Datsyuk and Mike Modano. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 22 of 24 and the Penguins finished the regular season an impressive 5-1.

The regular season starts this Thursday at 7:00 pm when "It's a hockey night, in Pittsburgh" as the Philthadelphia Flyers come to town. The game is on Versus, unfortunately. Ynz already know the new faces on the Penguins so I'll try and give you an idea of who to expect from the Flyers. The Flyers picked up Billy "Gray Beard" Guerin who is currently day-to-day with an injury. The Flyers had a relatively quiet off-season in signings. Apparently, they believe that they belonged in the Stanley Cup finals last year and did not want to change much. They picked up Nikolai Zherdev in addition to BG and extended contracts on many of their young players. Therefore, look for a team that is very rough around the edges and thinking that being the "Broad Street Bullies" will get them another playoff appearance. That mentality can only go so far if you don't have a stellar goaltender to fall back on when you take yourself out of the play. This is the best time of year: NFL, NCAA football and NHL all at once.

Speaking of NHL, yours truly is playing in the NHL-the Nittany Hockey League. I made my debut last night against what was supposed to be the best team in the league. Obviously I had no points playing right wing, but I think I did manage to fracture some poor soul's foot. That's hid fault for trying to block one of my slap shots with his instep. We lost 5-3 but the last was an empty-net goal.

Let's go Pens,
B Brog