A win but a loss

This fuckin sucks....

All you need to know:

As [Buffalo forward Tim ]Connolly fell in the left circle in Buffalo's end, the 41-year-old [badass Gary] Roberts went down with him and struck his left leg hard on the ice, breaking his fibula.

A stretcher was brought out but Roberts did not use it.

Did you really expect him to?

Otherwise, a solid 2-0 win. Crosby with 2 assists, Colby and Geno tack on the goals and Ty freakin Conklin has, somehow, inspired conifidence with a shutout.

But at a moment like this, the upcoming weeks/months of not having a veteran warrior like Roberts in the lineup is going to be a challenge. Younger, physical players with experience like Ryan Malone, Colby Armstrong and even Brooks Orpik are going to have to step up and be physical....And in a big way.

Beat up Pens face Old Friends

Currently casualty list:
#1 goalie, #1 defenseman, 3rd line center, important PKing dman, shootout specialist, 4th line pest, pseudo-top-6 winger.

Although most of the latter names (Scuderi, Christensen, Ruutu and Malone) seem to be just minorly dinged up, the long list of casualties seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

Best guess at how the lines could look are as follows:
Malone*-Crosby-Kennedy
Laraque-Malkin-Sykora
Roberts-Staal-Armstrong
James-Hall-Ruutu**

*Malone had to see a doctor for a gash on his leg....Being as he's something of a tough customer and has been on the topline of late, I expect he'll be geared up to play in this game. It is a contract year for Taters, after all.
**Ruutu or Christensen, who knows.

For a ragtime lineup, that's not terrible...By the way, your eyes didn't deceive you, that's Georges Laraque in a top 6 role. It won't last long, I wouldn't be surprised if Therrien juggles that up before the end of the first....But that's how it will start.

To make matters worse, tonight's game starts off a pretty frantic 4 game in 6 night (at Boston, at NYI and then home for Boston) rush before the Christmas breather. During this stretch we're likely to see Ty Conklin, gulp, man a NHL crease once again.

My advice to you is to start drinking heavily

Sorry for no posts recently, I've been drinkin ever since learning that Marc-Andre Fleury is out for the next 6-8 weeks.

2 months of Dany Sabs and Ty FREAKIN Conklin?

If you'll excuse me, I'm going back to the bottle.

Fleury "day-to-day"

Marc-Andre Fleury's ankle x-ray were negative (which is actually a positive) and sportsnet is calling him "Day-to-day".

Still, he's probably not going to be dressed tomorrow night, as according to Wilkes-Barre beat writer Jonathan Bombule, veteran Ty Conklin has been called up.

The team isn't going to send Conklin cross-country and take him away from the AHL club if they didn't need him to dress for a game.

As I've mentioned in the past, not having goaltender depth isn't an issue, unless your guy gets hurt or struggles. Teams cling to their #1 guy nowadays in the NHL, and under the salary cap you won't, for long, have anything much more than a serviceable #2 guy.

Conklin, while not a great goalie, is at least a guy who's been around the block and, at times, can be a capable NHL level goaltender. He's not a player you want to see on the NHL roster for very long though.

All in all, the Penguins seem to have dodged a bullet with this. It seems Fleury just rolled or sprained his ankle a little and didn't do any serious damage. But, as some have found out, even though an ankle sprain may be a relatively tame injury; it can have quite a bite, especially if player returns to action before fully recovering.