M*A*S*H Unit

The PG reports the residual damage, and it's not pretty. 20% of players that pulled on a uniform last game aren't able to go due to injury (that's four players for you non math whizzes). Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, Rob Scuderi and Maxime Talbot, all out with various non-disclosed upper (Scuderi, Talbot) or lower (Crosby, Letang) body injuries.

Add them to Pascal Dupuis (leg/groin injury), faceoff king Mike Zigomanis (shoulder?), Ruslan "Ivan Drago" Fedotenko (hand) and Sergei Gonchar (shoulder) and that's 8 players (or 44% of the non-goalie lineup) that would be out there, if healthy.


Earlier this week the Columbus newspaper blog Puck Rakers compiled a list of man-games lost to injury. Pittsburgh came in fifth on the list for quantity and would have to rank higher than that for quality of players missed. As an example, Philadelphia had 213 missed man games to injury but that includes the entire seasons for human pylons Mike Rathje and Derian Hatcher, two players stashed away on long-term injured reserve that the Flyers are not exactly missing.

Regardless, there's still a game to play with the players that are left. The seven minute man, Janne Pesonen, is back in town...Will Therrien be forced to give him a chance to sink or swim? At this point, why the hell not. It's not like any other winger is showing any offensive prowess (save Petr Sykora of course). Pittsburgh's Own Bill Thomas is back in the show as well. Thomas only has 14 points in 33 AHL games, unusual for a guy who scored 52 points in 75 AHL games last season. We think that they have been using him in more of a checking role and he probably is going to have to switch his game around in order to make it work at the highest level. It'll be interesting to see if he could have anything to offer.

Something we've been thinking about
--If you want to fire the coach, what are you going to do better? Here's how we'd line 'em up tonight:

Pesonen-Malkin-Sykora
Kennedy-Staal-Satan
Cooke-Jeffrey-Minard
Bissonnette-Thomas-Godard

Whitney-Orpik
Gill-Goligoski
Eaton-Boucher (shudder)

Yeah this is asking a lot of a guy like Pesonen to go from riding the buses in the minors to playing with the NHL’s point scoring leader, but Pesonen was a point scoring leader in his league last year, it’s not like he doesn’t have skill. Obviously if it’s clear Pesonen is out of place an adjustment to move someone else up (like Tyler Kennedy or Miroslav Satan) could be made.

For that very reason, it's time to end the Satan banishment to the lower lines. Sure he's been largely invisible in recent weeks and worthy of demotion. But on a night like tonight where so much firepower is out of the lineup, it's not a time for that. He's got to get more ice and he's got to make something happen with it.

And how much confidence do you have knowing that every member of the bottom four defensemen has been healthy scratches for multiple recent games. Hope the Whitney/Orpik combo is ready for big minutes, they’re surely going get them in all situations.

At least one team in the organization is winning..

Wilkes-Barre downs Hershey 6-2 yesterday afternoon:

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton rallied for the final five goals of the game – including three on the power play – to take a 6-2 win over visiting Hershey on Sunday before 6,475 fans at the Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza.

Rookie Nick Johnson tallied a pair of goals for the Penguins, and Janne Pesonen racked up a game-high four points (1-3-4) in the winning effort.

As Jonathan Bombulie points out, the Baby Pens (24-13-3) have defeated the mighty Bears (28-11-1) three times in a row following opening night's beat down. Also, anything that puts Mark Letustu and Mario Lemieux in the same sentence has got to be worth a read.

Pesonen was the #1 star of the game and rookie winger Luca Caputi notched three assists. It would be great if one of them could make an impact in the NHL this season, but don't hold your breath.

The Penguins are 7-2-1 in their last ten which is solid, but even more impressive considering that a number of their best players (Chris Minard, Tim Wallace, Dustin Jeffrey and Paul Bissonnette) have been in Pittsburgh for some or all of this stretch.

1 for 9 doesn't spell success

Tough loss tonight, playing without four of the top six defensemen on the team is tough, but not converting on the powerplay (1 for 9) was too much to overcome. Penguins fans love to try and call for Mike Yeo's head, but it's hard to argue the chances the Pens got. 12 shots on the powerplay, several of them great chances. Many more went just wide or were blocked. Tonight, Ryan Miller was awesome and he was the difference.

• It looked like "trick night" at the rink for Evgeni Malkin. A lot of crazy dekes and moves all around the ice, perhaps the best being pulling the puck between his legs, leaving a defenseman in the dust and throwing a perfect cross-ice pass to Ruslan Fedotenko for the game's first goal.
• Speaking of Rusty, the guy is nothing if not a very streaky goal scorer. When he's hot he's hot (remember the 12 goals he scored in 22 games to lead the Lightning to a Cup?)
• Janne Pesonen has his share of apologists...Err, supporters. But he's not an impact player at this level. Is he getting a ton of minutes or opportunities? No, he's not. However, what has he done? Absolutely nothing. He's generated nothing and looked lost. The cream rises to the top, even at getting 6-7 minutes a night if he was the real deal he'd be showing flashes of brilliance. He's shown nothing. He got six shifts and 2:55 tonight. But give Malkin 2:55 of time and he'll show something. Give Sidney Crosby 2:55 and he'll show something. That's tough competition to measure yourself against, but the bottom line is you have to show something. Pesonen, right now, has nothing to offer, whether he got 2:55, 12:55 or 22:55 it'd be hard to argue for him.
• Thought: if you didn't know this was Ben Lovejoy's first NHL game, could you have guessed it? Probably not, but you'd still think he was a rookie though. A couple times we noticed Jordan Staal making a conciseness effort to get back and help out. Lovejoy did get a "welcome to the NHL" moment when Paul Gaustad lined him up around the endboards with a thunderous (but clean) hit. Malkin, stepping up, checked Gaustad and then cross-checked another player.
• Nice to see the Penguins help Kris Letang get the monkey off his back by giving him a lot of powerplay goal....Still not a good night for the improvised Letang/Brooks Orpik top pair, as they were on the ice for four Buffalo goals, two off of Orpik turnovers, the other off a careless Miroslav Satan entry to the zone.
• When Max Talbot looks like a giant in a post whistle scrum, you know the opponent is tiny. Nathan Gerbe, listed at 5'6" (possibly with skates on) might be even smaller than Martin St. Louis. He's still a good player though.
• After going 1 for 7 on the powerplay through two periods you just couldn't feel good about the Pens chances, huh?
• As we alluded to at the top, Pittsburgh threw a lot at the net..The Pens got 54 shots on net, 32 on the target. Miller was huge in keep out what he could and it was enough.

The Pens looked a little sluggish last game, but that could be reasonably excused by playing three games in four nights in three different cities. But tonight began another stretch of four games in six nights (in three different barns). The road is going to be tougher before it becomes easier.

At the end of the day the finger pointing can go around. The Pens were sunk tonight not just by the inability to convert powerplay chances, but by sloppy turnovers. Orpik, Orpik and Satan made three plays that resulted in the puck being in the net. Letang and Dany Sabourin had chances to make great plays to cover the mistake but couldn't. At the end of the day the Pens just need to buckle down, make smarter decisions and better plays and execute. They didn't do it tonight, and the power-play couldn't cover that up this time.

Banged up Brigade

After last night's 3-2 gimmick loss to the Rangers you can add Tyler Kennedy and Mike Zigomanis to the band of injured players quickly piling up on the Pens...And apparantely Phillipe Boucher is on the IR now as well. Add that to franchise goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and top defensemen Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney.

Both injuries are undisclosed, but rumor has it Mr. Kennedy has already flown back to Pittsburgh to have a leg examined and could miss several weeks. Zigomanis is listed as "probable" so perhaps he will be able to win faceoffs tonight.

There will certainly be no empathy coming from the Carolina Hurricanes and old/new head coach Paul Maurice tonight, but hey, it's worth pointing out. Janne Pesonen and Chris Minard have gotten the call.

Tonight's projected lines, from the main site are:

Talbot-Crosby-Satan
Fedotenko-Malkin-Sykora
Dupuis-Staal-Cooke
Pesonen-Minard-Godard

---
Minard and Pesonen have played and played well all season long (no one in the AHL has more goals than Minard so far). But why keep Pesonen on the 4th line? We can tell that Mike Therrien doesn't trust Pesonen, doesn't know him well enough to give him the added responsibility of playing much. It's something that pretty much all new players to Therrien have to do; prove themselves on the ice, especially defensively before more icetime is given.

Another wrinkle to watch: Kennedy was being used on the top power play. Who gets the call now to join Crosby, Malkin, Satan and Alex Goligoski? We'd bet Staal and Fedotenko are the likely choices.

Fedotenko's had a great game, a lot of effort out of him. The recent benchings and line-demotions seem to have upped his game in recent days, hopefully something he can continue.

Pesonen sent back to the farm

After tonight's game, the Penguins decided to assign Janne Pesonen back to the AHL. Not terribly surpising, as Na-na-na played just 6 and 7 minutes in Pittsburgh the past two nights.

Detractors will say that Pesonen didn't get the chance in this latest stint to establish himself, playing so few. And that's a good point. But you have to look at what Pesonen did with the minutes he got. 0 shots on goal, and though he did draw a penalty in both games, he did little to show that he might have produced much even if he got 15-17 minutes a night.

Now we're not going to say the guy is Vladimir Vujtek or Lasse Pirjeta just quite yet, but it's clear that Pesonen has nothing to offer for this version of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Look at the guys the Penguins are using as top line wingers on even strength or on the powerplay. You got Miroslav Satan and Petr Sykora, clearly more skilled and established players that are simply better options than Pesonen at this point. Then there's gritty hustle players like Max Talbot and Tyler Kennedy that can bring more to the table than Pesonen in the realm of digging up pucks, killing penalties, taking faceoffs, etc.

Pesonen's getting top line minutes in the AHL where he's an impact player. He's just there yet for a high quality team such as the Penguins. Hopefully Pesonen goes back down, keeps his attitude up and works at getting better.

Game 10: Pens get Sharked

There are no sure goals with Sabu

Sorry for the late recap, we've been battling illness. Anyways onto the thoughts...

• First of all, gotta give props to Dany Sabourin who again played excellently and held the Penguins in the game for much longer than they deserved to be in it.
• The Sharks are now coached by Todd McLellan, who was a Detroit assistant. And it showed because the Sharks sure did show some shades of Red tonight, controlling the puck for most of the night, limiting the opponents shots to a measely figure (and the shots allowed mostly came from outside non-prime scoring areas). The Sharks are an elite regular season team, especially at home and it was on display tonight.
• Describe Sidney Crosby's night in a word? Frustrating. Mr. Sid went 4-20 in the faceoff circle as "Jumbo" Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau pretty much had their way winning clean draw after clean draw all night long. Crosby, like so many of his teammates, also failed to get a shot on goal (though he did ring one off iron) and slammed the puck into the boards showing his frustration after a borderline penalty.
• From the "how the heck does this happen department", the official scorer credited the Penguins with 10 giveaways but then awarded Shark players 13 takeaways. Does that make sense to anyone?
• Further, the Sharks were hit for 21 giveaways but Penguin players were only credited 7 takeaways. Were San Jose players going Ilya Kovalchuk and stealing pucks from their own teammates?
• When the number of minor penalties taken (6) is approaching the number of shots you get on goal (11) you just know it wasn't a fun night....But at least the penalty kill went 6 for 6, right?
• The last five minutes of the game the Penguins showed some real effort, got some good cycling shifts and Ruslan Fedotenko took advantage of playing with Crosby and Evgeni Malkin by popping Crosby's rebound in. So also at least Crosby and Malkin could push their duel scoring streaks to now six games and counting.
• This team needs a skilled winger. Janne Pesonen has points in every AHL game he's played so far. Of course they're probably not going to fly him out for the West Coast trip, but just sayin'...
• In the end, definitely a game the Penguins didn't deserve to win and now go to 0-1-1 on this road trip. But the toughest two games of the trip (at NYR, at SJ) are in the rear view mirror with two relatively easy opponents the Coyotes (3-4-0) and then St. Louis (a surprising start of 5-3-0).
  

Finally, thank you to the Arlington County street construction guys out there for starting jackhammer and other heavy machinery work at 6 AM sharp this morning on the street in our neighborhood directly behind our house. That is really lovely after a West Coast game that keeps us up until 1 AM.

Putting down the Bears

Wow, it's almost as if starting the season on a 5 game streak of killing teams would inflate a team's confidence or something...

John Curry's back stiffened up when he was making a save midway through the second period and Adam Berkhoel had to come on in relief. As he skated to the
net, Berkhoel said the Bears reminded him about how his previous two outings went against them. (Not good for him.)

That's some quality chirping by the Bears, nice to see the relatively unheralded Berkhoel keep them at bay, if only for once.

Chris Minard and Ryan Stone led the way offensively for the young Pens, two veteran guys that should be offensive factors in that league every night.

Also if you were wondering how prospect Janne Pesonen is doing in the AHL, the answer is pretty well, he's second on the team in scoring (behind Minard) with 1 goal and 5 assists in four games. Pesonen had a breakout game Friday night with a breakaway goal and two assists.

Pesonen cut?

The rumor going around is the Penguins have decided to make Janne Pesonen the final cut, meaning the last forward spots are going to be claimed by Paul Bissonnette and Pittsburgh native Bill Thomas.

Though Pesonen hasn't looked out of place in qausi-NHL action (3 points in 4 preseason games), it does make sense to let him go to Wilkes-Barre and get some time in on the first line where he'll be playing in all situations, as opposed to being relegated to 4th line minutes with guys like Eric Godard and Jeff Taffe. Once he adjusts to the smaller rinks, increased physicality and gets the feel for North American hockey he'll be better off and ready to dive into the speed of the NHL game.

Hopefully Pesonen's attitude is this way, many European players balk at the lower salary and increased bus rides of the minor leagues, especially when they can be major players in their own country. The hockey playing JP (not to be confused with the blogger JP) is still in the Penguins plans, and hopefully he will take it that way and go to WB/S with the intentions of working hard to be a better player and keep his dream of playing in the NHL alive.

A future as bright as the mouthpiece?

Credit Empty Netters with the picture of Pens practice yesterday.

Newcomer Janne Pesonen certainly has a flair for the dramatic. In his youtube videos he celebrates goals in a way that would make Alex Ovechkin blush. He's seemed very comfortable wearing a bright yellow helmet. So how will Pesonen express himself now?

We're not sure if this version of the image does it justice, but that's one bright mouthpiece. Hopefully Pesonen's play in his jump to North America will be as bold as the mouth guard.

28 profiles in 28 days....The Finnish Wildcard

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
Eric Godard....The Goon
Tyler Kennedy....The Sparkplug
Evgeni Malkin....The Showstopper

Basics
Player Name: Janne Pesonen
How Acquired: Signed as a free agent 7/08

Position: Winger

Age: 26
Contact Situation: Signed thru 2008-09 season.

History
Last Season Stats: (Karpat of the Finnish SM-Liga) 56 games played, 34 goals, 44 assists = 78 points (league's leading scorer and MVP
Last Season Write-up: Pesonen dazzled the SM-Liga, leading his team Karpat to their fourth championship in the past five years and picking up league MVP and playoff MVP along the way. A good measure to judge a player is their stats compared to their teammates. Last season the only two players other than Pesonen to score more than 50 points for Karpat were two career European players in their mid 30s and Pesonen had more goals than all but three others on his team had points. Those are two pretty good indicators that Pesonen was a vibrant offensive player in Finland. The million dollar question, of course, is how will that translate to the NHL?
Career Year Stats: Last season


Outlook
Player progressing, in prime or regressing: Pesonen will be thrown into the deep end of the pool in a couple of weeks. It remains to be seen if he has the chops to swim or if he'll sink.
Potential line-mates: Pesonen could be on either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin's scoring lines if he shows he can keep up with the stars,has the hands to finish and the strength to fight through North American checking. Or he could be on a lower line providing the classic Finnish effort and grit with other checking players.
"Best case scenario" stats: 82 games played 30 goals, 40 assists, 70 points...Best case, Pesonen steps right in and looks like he's been playing NA style hockey all his life and is a 30 goal guy for Crosby or Malkin. That case seems unlikely, but that's where the bar is set.
Notes: Is Janne Pesonen the next Vladimir Vujtek? Long-time Pens fans will remember Vujtek, dubbed the "best player not in the NHL" by many was given a chance with the Penguins. He didn't work out. Pesonen didn't come to play in the AHL but he'll have to prove that despite his modest size (listed at 5'11, 180 pounds) that he has the strength and all-around ability to play at the highest level in the world.
Interesting fact: A lot of pixels have been devoted to Pesonen since he splashed on the scene in early July. But anytime you have a "cult song" in Finnish or have a youtube highlight reel like this it's going to be posted. The celebration of the goal scored :38 seconds in still kills us.

Roster dogfight shaping up

Now that things have settled down quite a bit for the Penguins, the roster has started to take shape.

Today, with the official signings of Kris Beech, Bill Thomas and Ryan Stone, the Penguins have pretty much rounded out most the candidates to start the season in Pittsburgh. The team still has restricted free agents Tim Brent and Jonathan Filewich to deal with, however neither of those players have much leverage or incentive for a holdout and ought to sign contracts well before training camp opens.

Let's take a look at the forwards, as a roster battle to make the trip to Sweden..

Safe bets (11):
Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Petr Sykora, Miroslav Satan, Rusty Fedotenko, Maxime Talbot, Matt Cooke, Pascal Dupuis, Tyler Kennedy, Eric Godard

Wild card* (1):
Janne Pesonen

Bubble players (7):
Beech, Brent, Filewich, Connor James, Chris Minard, Thomas, Stone


Don't forget, the Penguins currently have 8 NHL level defensemen on the roster, and that omits prospect Alex Goligoski. If no moves are made--and given Ray Shero's mentality of having about 10 NHL capable defensemen in the organization--it seems likely the Penguins could start the season with 8 blueliners on the roster. Add the two goalies to the standard 23 man NHL roster, and by our math roster and that just 13 forward positions (only 1 scratched a night).

So it's pretty clear a lot more players bubbles will burst, sending them back to the AHL in early October then dreams realized. Also, it's probably important to note that while Godard is listed as a safe bet to make the NHL roster that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be in the lineup on opening night.

To say the least it'll be interesting to see which players in the log-jammed group of fringe players can elevate their games in camp to bring the amount of speed, toughness, skill, responsibility away from the puck that management will look for in filling out the lineups.

*Some Pens fans and observers have already pencilled Pesonen into a role playing Crosby or Malkin's wing. We're not comfortable enough to plug in a 25 year old who's played his entire career in an inferior league into such expectations. Don't get us wrong, we're intrigued by the idea of adding the Finnish scoring champion, but as of now, he's a wild card. Perhaps a skill winger, perhaps he can add some customary Finnish effort (and a little skill) to a 3rd line, perhaps his overall skill set or smallish size won't be able to measure up to the different rinks and playing style of the NHL. At this point, any scenario could be possible.

Penguins sign Janne Pesonen

..To which should immediately asked "who the f is Janne Pesonen".

Well, he's 26 year old Finnish player that's played in Finland his whole career. He plays for the powerhouse team Karpat (along with former Penguin property goalie Andy Chiodo] and has won the champion four out of the past six seasons. Last season Pesonen lead the Finnish league in goals [34], points [78] and plus/minus [+39]. He's listed as a 5'11, 180 pound winger.

Thanks to the magic of youtube, here's a Pesonen highlight reel. The guy is definitely Ovechkin-esque when it comes to celebrating goals--we especially like the "drop to your knees and slide" routine when the score of the game is now 4-0 at the 0:41 second mark. (Warning: there's a funky sounding Finnish song in the background, check your speakers..)



Who knows is Pesonen will be able to hack it in the NHL, a highlight reel from the Finnish league doesn't necessarily mean future success in the difference of style of the North American game. However skilled wingers don't grow on trees and the guy did just win a scoring title, so he has to have some amount of talent. It'll be interesting to see if maybe the Pens scouts have pulled a rabbit out of their hats on this one.