Slugger Ruslan Fedotenko out, Minard up

(image from the Pensblog)

The look on the Penguins faces on the bench is priceless. Miroslav Satan doesn’t seem too impressed though. But then again Satan hasn’t really been that much of anything inside a rink in quite a while.

Ruslan Fedotenko out 4-6 weeks on a broken hand from Colby Armstrong’s beak? Ouch. Rusty should leave the fighting to the big dogs. The shame too is Fedotenko was playing good hockey on the “European line” with Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora.

To replace Fedotenko, Chris Minard has been re-called. Minard’s scoring at an Ovechkin-esque rate: 26 goals in 30 games. Unfortunately when he’s been in the bigs Head Coach Michel Therrien—in all his wisdom, has given Minard 8 minutes a night, primarily playing with guys like Eric Godard. This time it should be different, Minard has been a pure goal scorer at every level. During the NHL lockout he scored 49 goals (in 69 games) playing with a playmaking center in Scott Gomez. Sure it was the ECHL, but still, if you can play with talented players it shows, despite the level of competition. With such few Penguins winger actually acting like they know how to play hockey, why not give Minard (now seasoned with 22 career NHL games) a legit shot at a chance on a scoring line.

If Therrien is smart, he'll make it happen. If he's lucky, Minard will somehow pinball around and end up on a top line with all the combination of switches. It's bound to happen, right?

The latest Crosby-gate

Surely by now you've seen what we're referring to. Mirtle agrees with Nick Boynton (who's no saint himself) by saying it's embarassing. Puck Daddy thinks Sidney Crosby earned it and throws in a few jabs like only he can about the merits of jumping a man ala Jerry Springer. Some clown at AOL acts like Crosby's the first guy to ever fight while wearing a visor.

As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle and there's a lot of reactions from people that probably didn't watch the game in it's entirity (as we had the unforunate pleasure of doing). Most probably undetrstad the context of the season right now, the Penguins have put up several clunkers at home and can't seem to catch a break right now. Everyone is frustrated and pissed off, no one moreso than the leader of the team.

What most probably don't get if they didn't see the game was how this specific game unfolded; it' not like the lowly Panthers were all the utmost of gentlemen and were innocent bystanders. Gregory Campbell was chirping all game long, getting in Crosby's face and the two exchanged pushes, cross-checks and punches behind the play earlier.

Max Talbot decided he had enough and challenged Campbell to fight. The two fought a lengthy and honorable bout within the contexts of hockey's rules (both written and unwritten). Talbot clearly had no reason to fight Campbell other than for how the Panther was treating his captain.

On the next faceoff the infamous Crosby/Brett McLean fight went down. For those that didn't watch the game, and didn't realize that McLean apparantely agreed to a fight with El Sid, it does look a little raw to see a guy get pummeled.

But if you didn't think that maybe McLean threw in a little comment about Talbot doing Crosby's dirty work by fighting Campbell, you haven't played too much hockey. McLean wasn't a bystander who just got jumped, he surely had a handle in it. It's not like Crosby beat the hell out of someone like Michael Frolik or Richard Zednik or anything. The antigonist was, well, antagonizing him at one point and the frustration boiled over.

So if you hate Crosby this is a perfect excuse to let it out with some keyboard courage. Go right ahead, it makes no difference. It's a game of hockey. Tempers get out of control when you care about the outcome. If you don't get mad, you'll never get back in it.

Mark words, in the long-run this might be the turning point of the season. Sure, Crosby took himself out of the game with 19 minutes worth of penalties, but if you watched the game you would know that even though the score was 4-1, it might as well have been over. The Pens, as usual these past couple weeks, weren't doing anything with the puck, and their goalies were offering only shaky attempts to keep pucks out of their own net. If Crosby was in the game, maybe it's a 5-2 or 6-3 loss at best. Sometimes standing up for yourself and making a point is a little more important than the result of the game. We think on this day it was.

The end of the world as we know it?

Don Cherry agreed with us about Saturday night's fights (hat-tip to Empty Netters)




Ukranian, Russian, ahh what's the difference. Could you imagine the orgasm Cherry would have had if it was his boy Jordan Staal fighting instead of the Russian?

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.

"You have the right to remain silent"

If hockey doesn't work out for Aaron "Derek's little brother" Boogaard, perhaps a career in law enforcement could be in the works...