Penguins Resolutions Past & Future

I love these pieces! Why? Because it lets us see how "human" the players really are and catches them at their best and funniest!!

This is video (poor in quality as it may be) of the latest segment by Dan Potash which was broadcast yesterday during Savran on Sportsbeat and game intermission where he asks the players what their resolutions were for 2008 (how they "faired") and what they will be in 2009 - as always, great stuff!!

That's So MAF (the musings of a Penguins goalie)!

This goes along with the above resolution post and it's just too, well - too MAF, not to give it a post all it's own!!

When asked what his New Year's resolution was for 2008, Fleury responded,

"I don't know, it's a year ago; I forgot about it. I don't know. Ah, yeah. OK. Can I restart?"

And his response when he "restarted,"

"Don't be late, you know, because I'm always running late everywhere, so; but that didn't work out so good; maybe for a couple of days and then I'm still late."

On this Date in Pittsburgh Penguins History

December 31, 1988

Mario Lemieux becomes the first player in NHL history to score a goal five different ways in one game (even strength, power play, short-handed, penalty shot, empty net) in an 8-6 win over New Jersey.

Whitney Interview (12/29/2008)

CLICK HERE to listen to the Ryan Whitney interview on NHL Live from 12/29/2008.

Pre-Game News (Early Edition!)

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HAL GILL
Gill is set to return to the lineup tonight against the Boston Bruins! Official word came yesterday afternoon on the Penguins webpage.

"He'll be back (Tuesday)," head coach Michel Therrien said. "That's good news for our club."

JORDAN STAAL
Staal is set to attain another milestone tonight -- it will be the 200th NHL career game he has played in; however, the bigger significance of it is that he will set a record with this milestone by being the youngest player in NHL history to do so.

SIDNEY CROSBY
Crosby will again share in a similar milestone with a teammate [Staal] in tonight's game as it will be the 250th career NHL game he will play.

STILL SIDELINED
Sergei Gonchar (IR - shoulder), Tyler Kennedy (IR - knee), Mike Zigomanis (undisclosed injury), and Kris Letang (undisclosed injury).

Pens "Buzz"

Here's a few interesting tidbits I found over at TIOPS

• Former Penguin Alexei Kovalev is an unrestricted free agent after this season and his interest is with resigning with the Canadiens; TIOPS believes it's more likely he will be a free agent and that he would be interested in returning to Pittsburgh for a chance to play with Malkin but is unsure as to whether or not Pittsburgh would be interested.
• Petr Sykora is interested in staying with Pittsburgh and TIOPS says he's looking for a three-year deal but may have to settle (compromise) for two years if he really does want to stay in Pittsburgh. We all know how Shero doesn't like anything more than 2 years for players outside the "core" (i.e., Ruutu).
  
• "The Penguins have been involved in talks with a Western Conference team that could involve an opportunity for a salary dump."

On this Date [minus 3 days] in Pittsburgh Penguins History

YES - I'm a few days late with this one (but the excuse my mommy gave me says I should be excused due to my illness), but better late than never; and KUDOS to the Pensblog for the reminder!!


December 27, 2000

The Comeback -- the return of Le Magnifique, #66, Mario Lemieux!!

Crosby #1 on Yet Another List

For the second straight year in a row, Sidney Crosby is #1 among the "100 People of Power and Influence" in the hockey world as ranked by The Hockey News.

Fellow Penguin superstar, Evgeni Malkin, also made the ranking at #91.

The December 29th edition of The Hockey News features Crosby on the cover (pictured in this post).

Play Penguins "Extra Attacker"

Did you happen to see the Pittsburgh Penguins official fantasy game, "Extra Attacker?"

Pre-season (registration / practice) runs through January 3rd with the regular season beginning January 4th.  Here are the general rules, but visit the Penguins Extra Attacker page for more information!!

1. Register and create your team or sign in.
2. Go to the roster page and select your starting roster by dragging and dropping players into the starting positions. Starting lineups include: 3 Forwards, 2 Defensemen, and 1 Extra Attacker. Then click submit.
3. You can change your roster every game or keep it the same, just have your lineup set no later than 5 minutes before game time.
4. Earn 25 bonus points each week for logging in and maintaining your roster once a week. The Extra Attacker week starts and ends on Sundays at 7:00pm. Exclusions apply.
5. Compete against other fans by starting a league of your own or joining a league with friends.

Win great prizes like tickets to an upcoming game, autographed sticks and jerseys.  I just got a chance to look at it yesterday, but it looks pretty fun (and the prizes are amazing)!!

Pens Pull Out Win Against NJ!

Penguins - 1, Devils - 0

Marc-Andre Fleury

Ruslan Fedotenko

Scott Clemmensen

(Pens win 1-0)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 5, New Jersey - 13

• no goals scored

(Pens lead 1-0)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 8, New Jersey - 12

• 12:51 - PITTSBURGH GOAL!! Ruslan Fedotenko; assisted by Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora

(game is scoreless after 1 period)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 5, New Jersey - 12

• no goals scored
• 10:12 - Matt Cooke receives a 10 minute game misconduct for "abusive language" after Talbot gets a stick in between the feet and crashes into the boards

Saturday, December 27th @ 7:00 PM (Montreal Canadiens)

Pre-Game News

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PAUL BISSONNETTE / DUSTIN JEFFFREY

The Penguins recalled forwards Bissonnette and Jeffrey this morning after re-assigning Jeff Taffe and Tim Wallace to Wilkes-Barre / Scranton last Tuesday.

PROJECTED LINES (FLEURY IN GOAL)

OFFENSE:

Dupuis  -Crosby - Satan

Fedotenko - Malkin - Sykora
Talbot - Staal - Cooke
Bissonnette - Jeffrey - Godard
DEFENSE:
Orpik - Scuderi
Boucher - Goligoski
Eaton - Whitney

Therrien "Calling Out" His Players [You KNOW Who You Are!]!!

My husband , John, told me about Coach Therrien's press conference that he and his dad listened to on the ride home from the game last Tuesday saying that he said the players are "complaining" about each other on the bench.

Below is video of the conference taken from PensTV - one of Therrien's more infamous press conferences - the likes of which we haven't seen since, well - since he called the team "soff!"

My father-in-law's take:  getting rid of the coach usually takes care of any problem your team has (not necessarily that this is his opinion, but he knows how this sort of stuff plays out -- it's usually the coach that "goes down" for the shortcomings of the team).

John's and my take:  someone new is gonna have to go!!  Neither of us believe Therrien is going anywhere and, as John says, Therrien's methods are "tried and true," so we don't think this is the answer.

This just DOES NOT sound anything like "our Penguins!"  Complaining about each other on the bench?  Come on, boys!  What are we - 4?  There is no way that you would hear anything like this about last season's team and we haven't quite pin-pointed who may be to blame.  John thinks it's more likely one of the players signed this season (i.e., Satan) while I think it's one of the AHL players who is getting a little "too big for his britches!"  Although I wouldn't think it's that far of a stretch for it to be one of the newly acquired players, I'm still not all too convinced it would be someone like Satan, but who else?

Regardless, this needs stopped and Therrien has taken the first step to getting rid of the "cancer" on this team and doing it the way he knows best -- calling out his players.  Let's hope for everyone that this nips it in the bud before more drastic measures need taken!!!

If any of you have your opinion about it, please comment or send me an e-mail -- I would love to hear it!!

A Heartbreaking Loss to the Bolts for the Pens!

Penguins - 0, Lightning - 2

P. Szczechura

M. Pettinger

M. Recchi

(Lightning wins 2-0)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 3, Tampa Bay - 7

• 11:14 - TAMPA BAY GOAL (PP) - P. Szczechura; assisted by J. Jokinen and M. Recchi

(Lightning lead 1-0)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 4, Tampa Bay - 9

• 5:15 - TAMPA BAY GOAL - M. Pettinger; assisted by P. Szczechura and M. Recchi

(Scoreless game!)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 8, Tampa Bay - 13
Rob Scuderi reached his 200th career penalty minute @ 11:17 for tripping!

• no goals scored!

Friday, December 26th @ 7:00 PM (New Jersey Devils)

SORRY for the Lack of Updates!!

Hi guys (miss me?)!

I apologize for the lack of updates, but I caught the flu-bug from my parents while visiting them over the weekend and I haven't been well since (I've actually been held here captive so that my mom can nurse me back to health which really isn't a bad thing!).

I'm going to try and see how far I can get with an updates post (because I'm sure you're more aware of the news than I am right now), but I tire out pretty easily and today is actually the first time I've felt somewhat better so I'm not too sure how that will turn out.

THANKS for all your e-mails (a lot of which will probably help me along with my post)!!  I truly appreciate all of my readers!

Stay tuned!

Stephanie

Pens Lose to the Leafs

Penguins - 3, Maple Leafs - 7

Tomas Kaberle

Pavel Kubina

Nik Antropov

(Leafs win 7-3)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 7, Toronto - 7

• 0:58 - PITTSBURGH GOAL (PP)!! Petr Sykora; assisted by Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang
• 5:23 - TORONTO GOAL (PP) - Alexei Ponikarovsky; assisted by Matt Stajan 
• 8:18 - TORONTO GOAL - Nik Antropov; assisted by Alexei Ponikarovsky and Jaime Sifers
• 17:01 - PITTSBURGH GOAL!!  Petr Sykora; assisted by Alex Goligoski

(Leafs maintain lead 5-1)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh -  6, Toronto -  3

• 8:31 - TORONTO GOAL - Niklas Hagman; unassisted
  
• 16:20 - TORONTO GOAL (PP) - Pavel Kubina; assisted Nik Antropov and Tomas Kaberle

(Leafs lead, 3-1)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh -  6, Toronto - 16 

• 7:45 - TORONTO GOAL (PP) - Dominic Moore; assisted by Tomas Kaberle and Pavel Kubina
• 9:49 - PITTSBURGH GOAL!! Evgeni Malkin; assisted by Mark Eaton and Miroslav Satan
• 11:03 - TORONTO GOAL - Jeremy Williams; assisted by Jason Blake and Tomas Kaberle
• 12:56 - TORONT GOAL - Jonas Frogen; assisted by Nik Antropov and Matt Stajan
  

Monday, December 22nd @ 7:00 PM (Buffalo Sabres)

Pre-Game News

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LIVE STREAM of tonight's game

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MAX TALBOT
Talbot will be in the lineup tonight against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“I’m ready go,” Talbot said. “Definitely, I’m going to play tonight.”

“You come back from a little injury and you want to play,” Talbot said. “You want to perform when you play against Toronto, which is always fun games. It’ll definitely be good.”

EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS is that Talbot was signed to a 2-year extension yesterday taking him through the 2010-2011 season (the first season in the new Consol Energy Center)!

“I think there’s no better place to play hockey than in Pittsburgh,” Talbot said. “It’s so fun to be a part of this hockey team and to be a part of this town. It’s a great place to play. It’s a great place to live and I made it my second home.”

MIKE ZIGOMANIS / PASCAL DUPUIS
Zigomanis remains out of the lineup with an undisclosed injury he suffered on December 3rd and Dupuis will miss his first game since leaving the game last Thursday against the Atlanta Thrashers with an undisclosed injury. He is currently listed as day-to-day.

JEFF TAFFE
Taffe is expected to replace Dupuis on the top line with Sid and Satan for tonight's game.

RYAN WHITNEY
Whitney was sent down to the Penguins AHL affiliate Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Baby Pens to rehab before returning to the lineup. He'll debut tonight against the Albany River Rats before making his NHL debut on the "target date" set for Tuesday, December 23rd against the Tampa Bay Lightning (and I'LL BE THERE!!)!

"We're targeting the game against Tampa Bay," Therrien said. "We'll work with that plan."

“It’s good to get back playing,” Whitney said. “You just get sick of watching and just coming in and practicing every day. It’s good to get back into games.”

BABY BLUES
Today is the second game that the Penguins will be wearing their baby blue alternate jerseys / uniforms (the next game date will be Saturday, December 27th against the Montreal Canadiens).

ALTERNATE GOALIE GEAR
Fleury will be starting in goal tonight for the Pens, but will not be wearing his new mustard yellow goalie pads, blocker and gloves since he said he feels they're still too stiff and wants to break them in a little more. He'll have another week for doing just that before the next alternate jersey game date on Saturday, December 27th.

On this Date in Pittsburgh Penguins History

December 20, 2006

The “PITG” group, headed by Don Barden, won the slots license for the city of Pittsburgh; "Plan B" went into affect for the Penguins and everyone was certain that the team would be leaving Pittsburgh.

To read more about it, CLICK HERE to visit the PPG article.

THANKS to the guys at Pensblog and Tony from "The Confluence" for the little reminder!!

WWGRD? Retire!

Former Penguin Gary Roberts told St. Petersburg Times beat writer Damian Cristodero that he plans to hang up his skates at the end of this season.

"I don't think there's any doubt, I'm gone after this season," Roberts said. "I'm going to retire. I'd like to finish on a god note. I'd like to come back and prove I can play and hopefully stay healthy enough to finish the season and finish playing a stretch of games and at least have some success. I'd like to finish on a high note."

Inside Penguins Hockey on PensTV

If you happened to miss either of the first two episodes of "Inside Penguins Hockey," the Penguins just uploaded them to PensTV (I've been checking for these for a while now and they're finally up)!! I've posted links to both below:

Episode 1 (Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill)
Episode 2 (Ruslan Fedotenko and Miroslav Satan)

Episode 3 isn't up yet and the next one will air this coming Saturday, December 20th @ 10:00 PM. Full a full schedule of the show, CLICK HERE!!

Pens Win Big Against the Thrashers

Penguins - 6, Thrashers - 3

Evgeni Malkin

Marc-Andre Fleury

Jordan Staal

(Pens win 6-3)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 5, Atlanta - 12

• 14:55 - ATLANTA GOAL - Colby Armstrong; unassisted
• 19:33 - PITTSBURGH GOAL (EN)!! Evgeni Malkin; assisted by Sidney Crosby and Rob Scuderi
  
  

(Pens maintain lead 5-2)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 9, Atlanta - 10

• 3:30 - PITTSBURGH GOAL (PP)!! Jordan Staal; assisted by Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby
• 5:54 - PITTSBURGH GOAL (PP)!! Miroslav Satan; assisted by Jeff Taffe and Ruslan Fedotenko
  
• 7:32 - ATLANTA GOAL (PP) - Bryan Little; assisted by Todd White and Vyacheslav Kozlav
  
• 8:04 - PITTSBURGH GOAL!! Philippe Boucher; assessment by Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora

(Pens lead, 2-1)
SHOTS ON GOAL: Pittsburgh - 6, Atlanta - 9

• 5:32 - PITTSBURH GOAL!! Matt Cooke; assisted by Tim Wallace and Jordan Staal
  
• 9:40 - PITTSBURGH GOAL!! Evgeni Malkin; assisted by Petr Sykora
  
• 19:21 - ATLANTA GOAL - Marty Reasoner; assisted by Ilya Kovalchuk and Chris Thorburn
  
  

Saturday, December 20th @ 7:00 PM (Toronto Maple Leafs)

The Pens are SPOILING Me!!

I've had a crummy week so far, so when I came home to a metallic gold cylinder package with a shipping label from the Pens on my porch, I was ecstatic.

I opened it to find a really sweet commemorative poster (made of a really nice, thick cardstock with a "canvas" texture) for Sidney's 100th career goal, 200th career assist, and 300th career point as well as Malkin's 200th career assist. This was sent to all the season ticket holders as well as those on the STH waiting list and came with a letter stating "Tis the Season to be Thankful for Our Fans" (the pictures doesn't do the poster justice - it's beautiful and the letter includes a 60% coupons for Michael's to get it framed)!




















THANKS again, Pens!! What more could a girl ask for?!!

Pens Add Three Additional Promotional Games

Yesterday, the Penguins announced the addition of three games / items to their promotional schedule in January and February.

Here are the items along with the date they will be given away (and photos are below):

• Trib Total Media Penguins Vintage Rally Towel (January 3rd vs. Florida Panthers)
• Consol Energy Penguins Knit Cap (January 28th vs. the New York Rangers)
• Verizon Wireless Penguins Vintage Pennant (February 6th vs. Columbus Blue Jackets)
  

CLICK HERE to view the complete promotional schedule.