Malkin to Play Wing

Its amazing that we addressed the problem of not having a winger for Crosby at the trade deadline by getting him two quality wingers, which has worked out great for Crosby and the first line. But now Malkin's wingers seem to have went cold, suddenly Malkin looks like Crosby did before the trade deadline attempting to carry an entire line by himself. Malkin has still been getting his points but if you look at when he is getting them its on the Power Play or on a shift he has been put out there with Crosby. So Now in the offseason we need to look for one winger for Sid and Two for Malkin since Geurin and Sykora are likely to be gone. This is going to be very challenging with a shrinking Salary cap on the horizon.

My solution to this problem:
There are a couple of options, one trade Jordan Staal who has proved to be a beast lately for 2 scoring wingers. This would not be a bad option if we get to good scoring wingers with favorable contracts.

The second and better option in my opinion is to move Staal up to second line center and move Malkin to wing on either Crosby or Staal's line. (i would rather see Staal play wing for Malkin, but Staal has proven he can't play wing where Malkin has excelled there while playing beside Crosby). If the Pens did this they would only need to go out and get one true scoring winger in the offseason, this would give them two amazing lines and help the Penguins control there salary cap. If the Penguins went this Route here's what there lineup would look like.

TBD-Crosby-Kunitz
Dupius-Staal-Malkin
Kennedy-Talbot-Cooke
Adams-Zigs-Goddard

Obviously there will be some additional people added to this team in the offseason that could shakeup this lineup a bit, and we may retain Sykora if he comes back at the right price he would replace Dupius on the second line. But if you ask me this looks like a petty good lineup

Pens vs Flames

This was a great game, it truly looked like playoff hockey. Going into this game i was really curious to see how the Penguins would respond after losing only there second game in regulation under Dan Bylsma. Fleury was awesome in getting the shutout, the Defense played great and had both of our goals, and we got a rare power play goal. Right now the Penguins are in 6th place and looking at a first round match up with the Washington Capitals. I think this would be a fun series to watch but see the Penguins winning easily in 5 games, i just don't believe the Capitals have the goal tending or the Defense to beat the Penguins in a 7 game series. The way the Penguins are playing right now the only team that could stop the Penguins in the Playoffs are the Devils, and hopefully we won't have to play them until the conference finals.

MVP

I was listening to the Mark Madden show today, where he stated 11 voters for the NHL MVP award were asked who they would be voting for and none of them said Evgeni Malkin. This is a travesty, Ovechkin is going to win this award because of all of his stupid antics that get him noticed in the national media all the time. This award is for the most valuable player not the biggest jack ass. Malkin is going to win the scoring title and deserves the MVP to go with it, he has been huge for the Pens this year if it was not for him and Crosby we would not be in the playoff hunt this year. There are two reasons he is being overlooked for this award and neither of them are good.

1. Malkin can't speak english well so the national media doesn't hear from him very often.

2. He plays on the same team as Sidney Crosby who is the NHL's poster boy.

I would be willing to bet if you went to other Hockey cities and asked who the best player for the Penguins is the answer more often then not would be Sidney Crosby. And some years that would be the right answer but not this year, this year has been all about Malkin for the Penguins. That is not to say that next year won't be Crosby's year again. I guess i just feel bad he is being over looked for this award when he really deserves it.

Crosby in Malkin's shadow

Sorry for the long delay between posts, i have been very busy and the Pens have been playing so well that i have not had much to say other than they look great right now.

So here is an interesting topic i have been thinking about and discussing with a couple of friends. What has got into Sidney Crosby, since he came back from the groin injury he has been on fire. Here are the couple senario's that i have thought of that may explain the difference in his play.

1. He has been injured and sick most of the season and the 5 days off gave him a chance to get healthy.
2. He plays much better in Bylsma's system compared to Therrien's.
3. He finally has some linemates that can play up to his level.
4. With Malkin excelling and hearing MVP chants at every home game, some of the presser is off Crosby so he is playing much better.
5. its a combination of all the things listed above

In my opinion its a combination of scenario 1, 2, and 4, I think the rest helped him dramatically and the intense forechecking and up beat offense in Bylsma's system plays right into Crosby's game. But i honestly think Crosby is playing so much better because the pressure has been some what taken off of him, for the first time in his career he is flying under the radar which is amazing considering he is the second leading scorer in the league. Let me know what you think, to me this is a very interesting question.

Scoring Title

With Malkin slumping right now Crosby has tightened the race for the scoring title to 7 points. With Crosby and his new line mates red hot right now does anybody think that Crosby has a chance to pass Malkin and win the scoring title this season?

Penguins vs Panthers

This was hands down the most exciting home game of the season, the Penguins dominated this game from start to finish. If it wasn't for a sub-par effort by Fluery and an unbelievably great game by Vokoun the Penguins would have won this game big. They easily deserved 6 goals out of this game considering they registered 50 shots to Floridas 21. It sucks that we gave Florida a point but the important thing is we came away with two and extended our winning streak to 7 games. The win moved the Penguins into 6th place only one point behind 5th place Montreal. Also how good were Jordan Staal and TK last night?

Malkin feeling Crosby's pain

Do you think its a coincidence that Malkin had one of his worst games of the season against Washington while Sykora was out of the line up. Well lets look at who his wingers were, Dupuis and Feds. Sound familiar world class center surrounded by to inferior wingers, all season all the fans said Malkin was better than Crosby and Crosby should be able to elevate his wingers (Dupuis and Feds) game if he is really that good.

Now all of the sudden Crosby has a supporting cast and is putting up the numbers while Malkin struggles while trying to elevate Crosby's sloppy second wingers (Steeling Sean Avery's favorite words). This post is not meant to be a knock on Malkin, just to point out that hockey is a team game and even great players are easily contained when they are the only talent on the ice.

Pens beat Caps

What a great way to finish off a long road trip. The Penguins successfully won 5 out of 5 games on the road and moved into a three way tie for 6th place. The 5th win of the trip ensured the Penguins the chance to control there own destiny. From this point forward if the Penguins take care or business and keep winning they can't be knocked out of the playoffs.

It felt so good watching Crosby and the Pens dominate the Capitals, Ovie has nothing on Crosby. What a series it would be if we land up playing the Caps in the playoffs. I would love to rub there noses in it as we roll over them and there weak goal tending in 5 games. For me the Capitals have passed the Flyers as our most hated rival.

By the way if i had to grade Shero on this years moves i would give him an F for has pre- season moves and an A+ for his trading deadline moves.

Crosby vs Ovie

Pretty excited for today's game, it would be great if we could cap off this amazing road trip off with a win over the hated Capitals. After today's game the Penguins return home for a huge game against the Florida Panthers.


Following the Penguins over the past two weeks i have began to wonder what is more exciting watching the penguins cruise through the regular season last year on there way to the playoffs, or watching them play great hockey down the stretch desperately fighting for a playoff spot? Let me know what you think.

Doesn't anybody lose anymore

Have been doing a lot of score board watching and it seems none of the teams fighting for the last 4 playoff spots ever lose anymore. Its amazing how well we have played recently and we still are not making up much ground. Right now Carolina is winning big, and the Flyers and Panthers are also both winning

Travis Stouffer's Prediction

You heard it hear first the Penguins will win the stanley cup this year. I recieved this in text message form this morning after the Penguins dominated the Florida Panthers last night . You may ask who is my source for this? Well it's no other than Travis Stouffer the most reliable of sources.

Personally with the changes Shero has made over the last two weeks i dont think winning the cut this year is out of the question, but i would caution fans that we should worry about making the playoffs first. That being said this road trip has been amazing for the Pens with 4 wins in 4 games. With an 8 game home stand starting next week it is very possible that the Penguins could unseed the Flyers from the 4th seed and we could see a first round match up of Penguins vs Flyers. That would be a great match up for us seeing that we have owned the flyers over the last couple of years.

Penguins Trade for Geurin

Penguins trade for Geurin, I don't think this was a trade anywhere near the magnitude of the Hossa trade last year, but we gave up almost nothing for a veteran scoring winger. Yes Geurin is well past his prime but he is still better than the other wingers we have and he also has an expiring contract. So basically we gave nothing up and got a guy to help us in the playoffs this year, his salary will then come off the books and we can begin to search for a permanent scoring winger for Sid and Geno. I would still look for Staal to be traded over the summer with the salary cap shrinking. Overall i would say Shero did a good job today, when you look at our lineup now it looks much stronger than it did two weeks ago. All of the sudden this Penguins team looks like they can do some damage in the playoffs.

Pens Put Satan on Waivers

The Penguins have just put Miro Satan on waivers. Considering Satan has played much better recently, is only on a one year contract, and the Penguins are in the playoff picture right now this move can mean only one thing. The Penguins are about to make a big move before the trade deadline. This move puts the Penguins 7.5 million dollars under the cap, so my question would be who are the Penguins trading Staal for?

Here is a list of people that i think it could possibly be

1. Kovalchuk
2. Hejduk
3. Heatley
4. Frolov
5. Antropov and Kaberle (this one is only a possibility if the Penguins don't expect to re-sign Gonchar)
6. Thachuck
7. Guerin

First of all excuse the spelling of some of those names, secondly i realize some of those trades would take more than just Jordan Staal. Also there are many other names out there that the Penguins may make a move for but i did not list them because acquiring them would not have required dumping Satans Salary.

This is an exciting time, i just hope Shero doesn't screw it up.

Penguins Beat Stars

This was not as much of a game as a Pittsburgh route, Dallas was never even in this game. Glad we got the two points and we got them convincingly but this game was not much fun to watch, it looked like the Stars have packed it in for the season. It was nice to see both Staal and Satan score goals in this game. Satan clearly likes playing for Bylsma more than Therrien and i suspect he will get his chance on the first line again once Crosby gets back in the lineup. If Satan continues to play the way he has the last two weeks him Crosby and Kunitz could be a very productive line.

So far so good on the 5 game road trip, 2 games played to Penguins wins if they can get at least one more win on this trip they will be in great position to compete for the 4th or 5th seed in the East. with the win against Dallas the Penguins moved back into the playoff picture for the first time since January taking over soul possesion of 8th place. They should be able to pass in injury riddled Sabers team, and the Canadians and Rangers who are playing about as well as the Penguins did in December and January. The teams that are going to be hard to pass are the Flyers and Panthers.