Interesting stats at the half-way mark

--Evgeni Malkin is on pace for 126 points. Last year Alex Ovechkin netted 112 and in Sidney Crosby's year he got 120. Malkin's on pace for 96 assists which would be the most since Wayne Gretzky cracked a hundy in 1991.

--Malkin is ten points up on Ovechkin in the scoring race. Since the lockout the margain of victory by the Art Ross winner over the second closest scorer has been 6, 6 and 2.

--And just think what happens when Malkin (goal-less in nine games, without a PP goal since November 15th) gets heats up in that category.

--To what should be the surpise of no one, Eric Godard is #1 on the team in penalty minutes...But #2 (Crosby) and #4 (Malkin) on that list is strange.

--Brooks Orpik has 151 hits, good for second in the league to Boston's Milan Lucic (154). Thanks to an injury to Anton Volchenkov, Orpik is also in 1st place for the unofficial "black and blue" trophy with 234 combined hits and blocked shots. Columbus' Mike "Make it Rain" Commodore is second in that category with 200.

--Reliable Rob Scuderi is 5th in the league with 102 blocked shots.

--Not surprisingly with the long-term injuries to Ryan Whitney (22:26 TOI last season) and Sergei Gonchar (25:54) have seen some defensemen pick up some serious minutes. Kris Letang jumped from 18:09 of ice-time last season to 21:32 over the first half of this season. Brooks Orpik went from 16:57 last season to 20:40 this year. Rob Scuderi has seen an extra 1:22 per game this season and Alex Goligoski has been playing 18:41 (he played 13:56 per game in three games last season).

--Marc-Andre Fleury is one of the players looking forward to turning the page on the first half of the season; he's given up 68 goals in 24 games so far this season, while the entire last season he only surrendered 72 goals in 35 games. Hopefully for the Penguins though, Fleury will play well more than 11 games the second half of this season.

--In a moment to take a look on the bright side; Jordan Staal hits the midpoint with 21 points, whereas he only had 28 the entire sophomore slump last season.

--Pascal Dupuis and his rocket-laser slapshot have nine goals, but if he only doubles it 18 still won't be a career high; as Dupuis somehow hit 20 in 2002-03, the height of the trap happy Minnesota Wild.

--No idea if this is a a record or what, but Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have combined for 114 points (in 82 combined man-games played). Every other skater to wear a Penguins sweater this season has 167 points (in 656 combined man-games played). The difference in points per game ratio is 1.39 points/game for the Big Guns to .25 points/game for everyone else.

--Malkin and Crosby scoring 41% of all points scored by Penguins is a little skewered, of course, since they receive all the power-play time they can handle and often times assist on each other's goals or assists.