Godard dropping Orr

Silence from the MSG broadcast is always a good sign...



Kudos to Eric Godard for setting the tone literally right out of the gates....He's half the price of Georges Laraque, and actually drops the gloves*!


*14 times to BGL's 5, though Laraque has been sidelined with a nagging groin injury.

Out of Gas...Pens lose

Usually out-shooting a team 12-6 in the second period would be a good thing. Usually.

• Frustrating game, the Penguins really looked like they've played three games in about three and a half days. They looked like they were skating in oatmeal.
• Nice to see Yukon Cornelius (aka Scott Hartnell) show his face around the holiday season. It was especially nice to see him try to fight Eric Godard behind a visor. Really tough guy, good luck finding that gold.
• Sometimes when the Penguins get one goal, they usually can turn things around. But when Jordan Staal tipped in a goal, to make it 2-1 it seemed to awaken the Flyers more than the Pens.
• Godard scored an almost identical goal to Staal, taking advantage of a shift with Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora while Ruslan Fedotenko was smarting.
• Mike Richards acted especially like a douchebag in taking exception to Matt Cooke finishing a check on Kimmo Timonen. Nice to see the scrum ensue and then see Sidney Crosby tackle Timonen. When Richards and Cooke went to the box the astute lip reader could see Cooke say "I'll fight you when we get out" while pointing outside the penalty box...Guess Kramer didn't want to take him up on the offer.
• Another rough night for Brooks Orpik, a -2 effort. He did have four hits and two blocked shots, but Orpik doesn't look that effective with Rob Scuderi.
• One team goes 4-6 on the powerplay, another goes 1-4. The difference is your ballgame, among other things.

That's about it, a tough pill to swallow but at the end of the day there is a light at the end of the tunnel--and he was sitting at the end of the bench wearing #29. Next comes a needed four day break before a sprint of 18 games in the 34 days before the all-star break.

SABUUU....Pens win

Image courtesy of the Pensblog

Another night at the office huh?

New feature here for re-caps, three up/three down..


3 UP

1- Dany Sabourin: 35 saves on 36 shots and after giving up the opening goal in the gimmick he shuts the door for four straight attempts. The surprise starter--most had thought Marc-Andre Fleury would get the go-- but Dany Sabs did the trick and more.

2- Evgeni Malkin: Got the assist on the Penguins lone goal, led all Penguins forwards with 24:58 in icetime, had four shots on net and one hit....OK so he went 0-for on faceoff (on five draws) but a small decline. Plus the shootout deciding goal too.

3- Brooks Orpik: Tons of other candidates but we're going to give the nod to Orpik, who like most the defensive players did his job there-- with a game high five hits and four blocked shots and led everyone not named Zdeno Chara in ice-time with 26:32.

***Honorable mention***
--Max Talbot went 12 for 14 in the face off dot. That's worth at least a mention. As this Penguins team that's relied on almost exclusively young centers (Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Talbot, Jordan Staal) have aged in the past few years, it's been nice to see in action their numbers all gradually improve.


3 DOWN

3- Ruslan Fedotenko: OK maybe this is a little picky, Rusty only got 14:37 in even strength ice-time, 11 seconds of mop up power play. But what did he do with it? 1 shot on goal, 1 hit and 1 giveaway. This adds nicely with his 0 goals and 0 assists on the year in now seven games.

2- Eric Godard: Minor nit, but Godard is taking too many minor penalties. As it stands he's only going to be playing 6-7 minutes a night, so there's no reason he should be backing his team against the wall if possible.

1- Jordan Staal: Took the penalty that led to the Bruins only goal and took another one in over-time to negate a power play the Pens were on. Got 18:47 and only put two shots on the net, didn't produce any offense and was under 50% in the faceoff circle.

To be sure all of today's 'downers' didn't perform that poorly, but in most cases they didn't perform. It's hard to be find too much negative to work with when there's no goals against at even strength, a superb goaltending performance by the #2 and an exciting finish.

When teammates fight

A report from the Lets Go Pens message board:

"Godard-Letang fight in practice

saw it on Savran on Sportsbeat

No punches thrown, but Godard's gloves came off and had Letang in a head lock"

Now it is never really a good thing when teammates scuffle, but it's not to be unexpected. These guys are forwards and defensemen lining up against each other every single day in many grueling, physical drills that Coach T even admitted he wanted to see more intensity.

There were reports last year that Rangers defensemen Marek Malik got into an actual fistfight on the ice with Sean Avery (gee, how could anyone get angry at him?) and that didn't seem to hurt the Rags. All that has to happen is Godard and Letang don't hold any grudges, move on and sweep the whole thing under the table. If that happens, no probs.

If not, a fight among teammates can be a distraction and bring down a team. That's one of the factors of Ottawa's collapse last year after tough-guy Chris Neil duked it out with problem child goaltender Ray Emery. Let's hope the Pens can be rational enough to take care of any problems before they start....We're sure they will.

28 profiles in 28 days...The Goon

Welcome back to TST's 28 profiles in 28 days. Here's the backstories of players previously profiled:
Kris Beech....The Unwanted One
Matt Cooke...The New Ruu
Sidney Crosby....The Chosen One
Pascal Dupuis….The Iceman
Ruslan Fedotenko….The Battletank


Basics
Player Name: Eric Godard
How Acquired: Signed as a free agent on July 1st
Position: Right Wing
Age: 28
Contact Situation: Signed thru 2010-11 season, $750,000 cap hit per season

History
Last Season Stats: (Calgary Flames) 74 games played, 1 goal, 1 assist for 2 points, 171 PIMs (17 fights)
Last Season Write-up: From the sound of what Calgary fans said, Godard played his role fairly well last season....He only played about 4:42 a game, so not much offense was expected or given....Godard ran into the man he'll replace (at about half the price) and did reasonably well.
Career Year Stats: (2004-05 with Bridgeport Sound Tigers [AHL]) 75 gp, 7g, 11a = 18p 295 PIMs. We use this year because it was the lockout and the AHL was of strong competition. Well that and Godard has 3 goals and 5 assists in 200 career NHL games, so there isn't much of a high point there

Outlook
Player progressing, in prime or regressing: Godard is in his prime. He's 28 and as strong as he'll ever be.
Potential line-mates: Kris Beech, Jeff Taffe, Ryan Stone, any other 4th line winger
"Best case scenario" stats: 82 games played 2 goals, 2 assists, 4 points, 170 PIMs (hey we don't expect much offensively but how Godard can keep the heat off the skill guys will be important and interesting to watch now that the ultimate deterrent, Laraque, is gone.)
Notes: Here's Godard's fight card for last year, of which hockeyfights voters say Godard was 5 wins, 8 losses and 4 draws....Much different than Laraque's flawless record, but if you look at the quality of competition that Godard dropped the mits with (Derek Boogaard twice, Laraque, George Parros twice, DJ King, Scott Parker) it's clear that he's willing to stand up to the tough customers. And that's more important in most cases than a win or a draw.
Interesting fact: Not really that interesting compared to some of the links we have above, but Godard was traded from Florida to the New York Islanders in 2002 for a draft pick that turned into NHL'er Greg Campbell....Also, the only goal Godard scored last year (against Nashville) turned out to be a game-winner. So there's that.