DiPietro hurts himself playing with his Johnson...out 4-6 weeks

Sadly, the little goofball who danced like a 15 year old chick when Crosby's point scoring streak ended will be eating dinner through a straw for awhile! DiPietro out for 4-6 weeks courtesy of Johnny Law! The guy is not only an arrogant cheap shot artist, he is more fragile than an egg it appears.........see ya in mid March Ricky!

Another quality win

The Penguins are now 7-1 in their last 8 games, all of which have been played without Crosby, and most of which have also been played without Malkin. Do not underestimate the value of this team keeping up their momentum despite missing more firepower than some teams have in total. I like the scrappy nature this team is starting to show, and especially how they work together. Watching Craig Adams continually set up Max Talbot for the empty netter, despite the fact that he gets a goal himself about as often as the NHL makes an intelligent decision. Team unity. In addition, watching Johnson get a little payback on that dickhole Dipietro was a thing of beauty, and forever made him a favorite. An overall gritty effort by the squad tonight. Kennedy scores a big power play goal tonight, after getting some extra coaching from Disco Dan Bylsma, Kunitz pumps in his 18th of the season, and Talbot gets his 100th point of his career. Kunitz has 6 points in the last 8 games without Crosby as his center. Now that you add goal scoring to his gritty wall play and puck retrieval, Kunitz has emerged as a key component of this team. The Penguins stay within sight of division leading Philadelphia(trailing by one point), and among the top teams in the league, again without the luxury of ever really having their lineup intact this season. Michalek and Martin have become a huge part of this defense on this team, now amongst the elite defenses in the league. Martin chipped in 2 assists tonight as well. The positives of this COULD factor in during the playoffs given the fact that their big 3 centers will have less wear and tear than normal, the team has had a chance to see some of their younger players prove that they can contribute at the NHL level, and the team is learning to adapt to play without one or even both of their big guns, and WIN. If they can remain as diligent in their puck management and hustle as the big boys round back into shape for the stretch, then they can turn the dark cloud into a silver lining. In other news, the NHL proves again that even the blind squirrel finds the nut occasionally by rescinding the match penalty assessed to Jordan Staal for his part in Brandon Prust's academy award winning performance last night. Next up, Buffalo! Let the Big Dog EAT!

Rick DiPietro vs Brent Johnson Goalie Fight

(Pittsburgh Penguins) - Black and Yellow

Gut check against a team that is climbing my hate ladder quickly

Ok, so it is only two points.........and there are 31 more games left.......BUT, that win showed that the Penguins have the heart of a champion. They came into this game, on the road against a strong divisional rival already missing Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, two world class star centers, one of whom is the best player in the game today. Then, they lose their current second line center in practice, Mark Letestu, then solid fourth line winger Arron Asham early in the game. Finally, they lose Staal to a bullshit match penalty near the end of the second period. They came out and fell behind 2-0. Yet somehow this very depleted team guts out a 4-3 shootout win in New York tonight. With three of the Four Horsemen out of the game, the fourth, one Marc Andre Fleury put this team on his back, and after a game full of spectacular saves, he stops 7 shootout attempts, and the Pens take the two points. Dustin Jeffrey has earned a permanent place on this roster, showing a scorers touch AGAIN tonight, netting a regulation goal, and the game winning shootout goal. He was 9 of 19 on faceoffs, and he now has 2 goals, 1 assist, and a shootout goal in his last three games on call up. Disco, leave Jeffrey on the team, give him quality minutes, and while you are at it, how about bringing up the Big Dog and let him play some quality minutes on a top line while we are so depleted at forward. They both could add some scoring to this team right now..........Now to one of my favorite subjects, the piss poor officiating in this garbage league. After Rangers pussy Brandon Prust cross checks Tyler Kennedy to the ice (no call), Jordan Staal stepping in for his teammate delivered a gloved shot to the face of Prust, who greatly embellished the blow spinning to the ice. Staal gets a five minute major and a match penalty, thus ejected from the game, and I believe getting an automatic suspension. First off, IF the referees do their jobs and call the obvious penalty on Prust, Staal never gets to engage him. As per usual, they decide to let a penalty go, and Staal comes to the defense of a teammate, and took it too far. He should not have punched Prust, and I have no issue with the five minute major as a result. The match penalty call is garbage, pure NHL incompetent garbage that sometimes makes watching a great sport tough to watch........... I guarantee you that you will find that same play called no penalty, a 2 minute penalty, a double minor, a five minute major.........and you will find far fewer instances where a match penalty is given, particularly when a player like Jordan Staal hits a punk like Prust, the benefit of the doubt would be given. Trust me, if Brandon Douchebinsky hits Matt Cooke in the same manner after Cooke cross checks Ryan Callahan, there might not be any penalty, but most likely he gets a roughing minor, at worst a five minute major. Anyway, big win, character win, and the type of win that can galvanize a team for the stretch.

Pens by the numbers at the break

Before we play the Rags tonight, thus ending the All-Star break, I wanted to give an accounting of the Penguins by the numbers at the break. After 50 games, the Pens are 31-15-4, good for 66 points, making them 4th in the conference, but just 5 points behind first place Philadelphia. The Pens are 17-9-1 at home, the fourth best in the NHL, and they are 14-6-3 on the road, good for 9th in the league. At 3.02 goals per game the Pens are 7th in the league. They are SECOND in the NHL in goals against at 2.24, behind only Boston at 2.16. The power play has come to the middle of the pack(14th), clicking at 17.9% overall, with 16.8% at home and 19.1% on the road. The Penguins are first in the NHL in penalty killing at 88.5%, and second in short handed goals with 8. The aforementioned Rags lead the league in shorties with 9. The Penguins are third in plus/minus at +28. The Penguins are third in the league in hitting with 1,361 hits as well. The Penguins are 22-5-1 when scoring first, and only 9-10 when they trail first. An alarming trend that is very DIFFERENT from the Pens teams I have loved the past few seasons is their lack of comebacks. The Pens are 0-10-1 when trailing after two periods!! Yikes. All of that being said, I believe that this Penguins team is built better for the playoffs than last year's version. First off, the penalty killing at 88.5% bodes well, given that the PK in last year's playoffs was a miserable 72.1%. The Pens being 2nd in goals against is another great sign, as they say defense wins championships, and the Pens high rankings in the penalty kill and overall goals against is a positive sign. Their current 2.16 goals against is significantly better than the 2.92 goals against they played to in last season's playoffs. They will have their challenges though as is seems that both Philadephia and New York are also strong in all key categories. That said, the Penguins thus far have played exactly two games this season with all three of their star centers on the ice, and one of them (Malkin) has again not played up to standard. Getting all three centers on the ice down the stretch should make the Pens a far more dangerous team regardless of any deadline moves or lack thereof. Buckle up buttercup, we are less than a month from the trade deadline, and only 32 games away from the best tournament in sport, the NHL playoffs! GO PENS!!

What does he have to do??

I am not going to waste any time on the NHL All-Star game, it is a waste of time. I do want to spend some time defending a guy that gets a bad rap from Penguins fans for some reason. It seems that many Penguins fans seem to think that Alex Goligoski is an expendable piece of the puzzle who should be dealt at the deadline for a scoring winger to upgrade our offensive capabilities. I read that he is a defensive liability, he is too small, he plays soft, he can't run the power play, he costs us goals, etc. etc. Well, Alex Goligoski is small, he doesn't hit much, and from time to time he makes some defensive mistakes that piss me off too. But let's step back for a second and forget for a minute about what Goose is not, and talk about what he is. And what he is to the Penguins is the fifth leading scorer on the team with 26 points, including 9 goals and 4 game winners, along with a plus 21 rating. You cannot be invloved in giving up too many goals and be +21, right? The Penguins are also second in the league in goals against, so they really cannot have too many guys on defense who are terrible. Not too shabby. In addition, Goligoski has played 167 games in the NHL at this point, barely more than 2 seasons, so he will only get better. It is not uncommon for NHL defensemen to take 4 or 5 years to really blossom into their roles. In those 167 games, Goligoski has averaged .508 points per game and registered a +35. He is a cap hit of 1.8M dollars, and logs 20+ minutes of ice time per game as the fifth defenseman on the team. He is 25 years old. Let's compare Goligoski to some other prominent defensemen who play similar roles. Kris Letang, who is on a possible Norris Trophy pace is second on the team in scoring with this year with 41 points, including 7 goals and a plus 22 rating. He has more overall points, but is similar in goals and plus/minus rating this season. And overall in 267 games Letang has averaged .71 points per game, and is an overall +12. But a lot of that extra production has come over the past season or so, as he has played 100 more games, or about a season and a quarter. If you look at Letang's statistics at the end of last season, he had played in 147 games, averaging .40 points per game and a collective -6. Many of the same yinzers wanted to see Tanger traded last season for a decent winger. That trade would look pretty bad right now, when you see what an extra season of maturity has done for Letang, who is a legitimate Norris Trophy candidate. And he is 24. So, Goligoski has better statistics at roughly the same point in his career in terms of man games than Letang did. Letang has had a breakout year offensively, and he is more physical, but if Goligoski would continue to improve along the same curve, he will be a hot commodity. Add to that, his 1.8M cap hit makes him an extremely good value for a young defenseman with that kind of output. Letang is now considered a bargain at 3.5M, so at half that money Goligoski is a real bargain. Now, some of these same people say well, Tomas Kaberle is available, a very good offensive defenseman, and we could get him at the deadline to step in for Goligoski, he is better too. Well, I looked at Kaberle's last couple of seasons as a basis of comparison. Keep two things in mind as you read this. First, Kaberle has been in the league since 1998, so he is in his prime, and second, he comes with a 4.25M price tag, more than twice the hit we take for Goligoski. In fact, in terms of cap hit, you could have Goose, Cooke, and Engelland for Kaberle. But Kaberle is WAY better, right? WRONG!! In his past 188 games, Kaberle has averaged .585 points per game, a bit more than Goose, but has been a minus player to the tune of about -16. What about another BIG name offensive defensman with similar stature, Brian Rafalski of the Wings? Well, his numbers are better, in the past 194 games Rafalski has averaged .68 points per game, and been about a +20 player. But he also has been in the league for a long time, and in his prime, and he comes with a cap hit of 6M per year, or more than THREE times that of Goligoski. The Pens have one more year of Goose at 1.8M, and given his favorable performance comparison to other prominent offensive defenseman, and the upside he has he is a bargain in my book. If you are going to trade Goligoski you need to have two things in return. First, you better net a top six winger who will easily pump in 25 + goals who is signed for 3M or less, has term left on his contract, AND you better find another solid OFFENSIVE defenseman in another deal with a cap friendly hit. Not likely. So, yinzers, the Penguins should not deal Goligoski at the deadline for anything that would seem realistic to happen. If they could land a young gun like Jamie Benn or James Neal those are deals that could lead me to move the Goose. They are cap friendly, young power forwards with a resume, so they are not likely targets. Instead, they can package any combination of mid round draft picks, one of their defensive prospects not named Despres, and/or one or two of their 3rd/4th line players who will be UFA after this season for a rental like Bill Guerin was, or for a young guy like Christopher Higgins, Kris Versteeg, or Ales Hemsky who has upside. I would think that next season it will be time to give Eric Tangradi and Dustin Jeffrey prominent roles on the team, so there is no need to panic for that winger. If you think at some point next season that Simon Despres is ready to step up and log big minutes at the NHL level, then you can trade Goligoski NEXT year IF you get the right value in return. Until then, why not applaud the guy for the valuable contributions he does make instead of killing him for his lack of physical play. You should not underestimate what he quietly contributes to this team now, and you should hope that he takes a similar step up in his next 100 games that Letang did. If he does, you may be talking about signing him to an extension for Letang type money, and moving someone else's salary for a winger. That would be a good dilemma to have.