Pens vs Caps

Round two of the Eastern conference playoffs will feature the Penguins taking on the Capitals while the Bruins take on the Hurricanes. These are both going to be good series, but there is no question the Pens vs Caps series will be the one that draws all the media's attention. There is no two teams in the NHL that boast more star power than these two. For the Penguins you have mega stars Crosby and Malkin and for the capitals its AO and Semen who doesn't qualify in my book as a mega star but is a solid player. I predict the Penguins win this series in 6, and Orpik destroys AO at some point and time in this series. There would be no greater feeling than to bounce this Washington team from the Playoffs. Does anybody else agree with me that the Capitals have passed the Flyers as the Penguins most hated rival. Game one of this series starts Saturday at 1:00 pm in Washington.

Penguins 5, Flyers 3

The Penguins closed out the Flyers in 6 games with there victory on Saturday afternoon. When we went down 3 nothing in this game and were showing no signs of life i thought for sure this series was over for the Penguins. I felt confident if this series came back to Pittsburgh for game 7 the Flyers would have won, considering that had out played us three straight games. But then all of the sudden the Penguins turned it on like a light switch and scored 5 unanswered goals to eliminate the Flyers. I don't understand why this team does not play with desperation all the time, if they would they would be unbeatable. So who does everybody reading this want to play in round 2.

Game 4 Pens vs Flyers

I am really excited to watch this game tonight, my prediction is a 5-2 Penguins win. I am also going back on my original prediction of the Penguins in 6 and making it Penguins in 5.

Pens Fall to Flyers in game 3

that game really sucked luckily we defended our home ice so this loss doesn't hurt that bad. Fleury looked terrible giving up huge rebounds or Fleury-Bounds as my friend Eric calls them. Also the Penguins just didn't seem to get any breaks, i thought they played well enough to win but things just didn't go there way. The one bright spot in this game was Malkin with 2 goals, going into the playoffs i was wondering if Malkin would disappear like he did last year in the playoffs or continue to be the beast he was in the regular season. By the looks of the first three games in the series Malkin will not disappear when other teams play him physically throughout the playoffs. He is showing why he deserves to be MVP not Ovie who has 0 playoff goals in two games and his team is losing 2 games to 0.

Penguins Dominate Flyer's

Wow what a game, the Penguins owned the Flyer's from beginning to end. I thought this was going to be a competitive series but if last night was any indication of how this series is going to go the Penguins will end this in 4 games. The third line was amazing last night and will probably be the key to the Penguins success in the playoffs. The Flyer's are loading up to stop our top two lines and have no one left to defend our third line that could be a second line for almost any other team in the NHL. Fleury was also amazing last night, he gave up almost no rebounds.

Malkin vs Ovie

I left this in response to on another Penguins blog i Read and thought i would share my thoughts with my readers. She was saying Malkin should be the MVP over Ovie which i agree with. She also put up a lot of stats that showed Malkin had a much better year than AO, but the one stat and argument i couldnt agree with was shooting percentage Malkin shoot 12.1% and had 35 goals AO shot 10% took 560 shots to lead the league and had 56 goals. Her argument was if Malkin was a puck hog and took 500 shots he would have had 70 goals. But as i state below it is hard to get shots in the NHL.


I agree Malkin is the better player and deserves the award much more than AO, but your argument about there shooting percentage is ridiculous. It's not easy to get that many shots and would love to have a guy on the Penguins team that could take 500 shots and have a shooting percentage of 10. That being said Malkin is a much more rounded player that actually plays defense. People will make the argument that AO is not one dimensional because he is in the top ten in hits in the league, but if you watch him play he takes himself out of position to take cheap shot runs at people which is a big reason a guy with 56 goals can have such a low + - rating. Another reason Malkin is being overlooked for this award is because he lives in Crosby's shadow, maybe not here in Pittsburgh but in every other city he is. If you went to any city other than Pittsburgh and asked who the team MVP is almost everyone would say Crosby. And if Crosby played the entire season the way he has over the last month that would be the correct answer.

Theres No Place Like Home

Can you believe the Penguins managed to get home ice advantage? a month ago I was wondering if we would even make the playoffs. Now we are the 4th seed and get to host the hated Flyer's. I don't believe this will be as easy of a series as it was last year but still think the Penguins will win. I base this mostly on the fact that the Flyer's goalies suck and Fleury has been ridiculous over the past month and a half. I look for the Penguins to take this series in 6.

Pens vs Islanders

This really wasn't much of a game the Penguins didn't look like they even cared if they won this game or not and still stomped the helpless Islanders 6-1. However it is always nice to go to fan appreciation night, it is very fun to watch the players interact with the fans at the end of the game. More importantly Malkin had two points to take a 4 point lead over Ovie in the scoring race with only one game remaining in the season.

Congratulations Pen's

With the Penguins win over the lightning last night they have clinched a playoff spot. The only things for the season left to be determined are who the Penguins will be playing in the first round and can Malkin hang on to win the scoring title. I believe Malkin will win the scoring title, with only 2 games left in the season he has a 3 point lead over Ovie, he should be able to hold him off.

As far as the game last night, this looked like the team that played for Therien not Bylsma. We looked great in jumping out to a 4 -0 lead in the first two periods but managed to squander the lead in the third by giving up 3 goals in 4 minutes. However this game does not concern me, the Penguins clearly let up on the helpless Lighting in the third and that's why they were able to climb back into the game. If that had been a playoff game the Penguins would have continued to push and put them away in the third period. The bright spot of the game was Sidney Crosby who had two PP goals to give him 101 points on the season, Geno also got back on the score sheet with 2 assists. Under Bylsma Crosby has been an entirely different player, if he had been playing under this system all season there is no question that Crosby would have won the scoring title and the MVP award for the year. Staal is another player who has shined under Bylsma's system, two months ago i was doubting that Staal would ever be a top 2 line center in this league, now he is clearly one of the better young centers in the league and will pull a premium if we decide to trade him before the draft this year. I don't believe he will be traded unless a team makes the Penguins a ridiculous offer like two young scoring wingers with affordable contracts.

Playoffs

The Penguins only need one more win to ensure them a playoff birth and no worse than the 7th seed. It looks like the Penguins are going to finish with the sixth spot and play the Capitals in the first round. This is going to be an exciting match up, if anybody is interested in buying playoff tickets i have a set in section C30 that i will be selling.