A PENultimate season.....Congrats Red Wings

(this post best read while listening to this song)

Hardest blog ever...

"Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on." -Blow

In the end the Red Wings made it happen. They did what they had to do to win and they're champions. They earned it and they deserve it. As we like to say, the great thing about the NHL playoffs is the better team doesn't often lose a seven game series. The Pens were badly outmatched in Games 1 and 2 but threw up a hell of an effort in the last four. They won two and didn't get the bounces to win the second two, but God knows they tried.

So that's it.

Thank you Sid, Gino, Bugsy (aka Taters), Flower, Sarge, Orp, Hoss, Max, Syki, USS Hal Gill, Conkblock, Staalsy, Mr. Kennedy, Dupper, Scuds, Whitter, Ruuts, Big Georges, Sydor, Hallsy, and the 'tang. Here's to the guys that helped us along the way: Army, Crusher, Rex, Taffe, Eaton, Dany Sabs, Minard, Smith, Naz, James, Golly, Filewich, Stone, Brent...and yes, Lord yes, Gary Roberts......Thanks for everything, boys. For a team that won just 22 games two seasons ago we've made a hell of a lot of progress. Salary cap be damned, if it were possible to bring you all back in October and do it again, everybody knows you wouldn't fall two games short of being on the happy side of this season...

Just as much kudos goes to the head coach Michel Therrien and his assistants Mike Yeo, Andre Savard, Giles Meloche, all the trainers, the scouts, and general manager Ray Shero....Not to mention Craig Patrick and his staff that laid the groundwork for this whole thing.

Defeating for the first time a team from Canada in the playoffs or finally knocking off Philadelphia in the post-season (ask a Pens' fan who remembers the '70s or '80s how huge that is).....It was tremendous. It'd be one thing if they didn't lay their hearts and souls on the line every night and every shift. They did all they could, just came up a little short to a better team, and as much as it hurts, there's no shame in that.

What a ride. All these guys won't be back next year and it won't quite be the same. But there's something to say for what they've accomplished, before we think to look what lies ahead. At this hour it's small consolation, but in the big picture a hell of an impressive body of work this year. Losing sucks but we've never been more proud in our lives to see these particular men wear the black and gold.

As for this blog, we have to say thank you to all the readers. It's been a tremendous ride and we've enjoyed every moment of this remarkable journey. It started small, just about 20 hits a day in October (minus the Darcy Robinson coverage) and in November. But it took off and we've enjoyed the interaction and the emails. The Sweater Ted is just a 24 year old kid looking for an outlet to give our opinions and analysis. We don't break news or pretend to know inside secrets, but in less than a year we've found an audience and we write to you and for you. Thank you all, especially everyone that's had more exposure took the time to link us a lot (starting with Adam and Derek at The Pensblog, Seth at Empty Netters, aol's nhl fan haus, Greg Wyshynski, Japers Rink, The Peerless, James Mirtle, plus apologies anyone we missed)...You guys really are the very best and we're honored that this humble blog is even on your radar.

We have a bunch of ideas for this off-season, so don't think this is the end at all. And if you'd ever want to drop a line, please do so at hooksorpik at gmail dot com. So don't be a stranger, a lot of good stuff is on deck.

It's been a memorable ride, thanks for everything boys....

Note to our intrepid readers: the title of this post was the PENultimate season, not meaning Pen-ultimate but rather, this penultimate....Not that you didn't know it. Just making sure you don't think we think anything was ultimate about this year...

Not so fast my friend

Hope has been a big factor of the Penguins run.....Fans of a team can only hope a team can do so much. What the Penguins showed tonight, from top to bottom was an unbridled effort of soul and refusing to say die. And they made the play to win in triple over time.

What a ride, where do we start...

• Ryan Whitney. Often a goat for most Penguins fans. But after Sergei Gonchar was injured (while hustling back to successfully break up an odd man rush) the Penguins leaned on Whitney heavily for all three overtime periods. And he did his part. Whitney lead skaters on all teams with an amazing 50:46 of ice-time (out of a total of a total of the game-clock of 94:41) and was a +2 with 3 shots, 2 hits and 2 blocked shots.
• Three other Penguin defensemen (Rob Scuderi, Brooks Orpik, Hal Gill) played over 40 minutes picking up the slack from Gonchar's absence. Will that take it's toll on Wednesday? For now, that's a Wednesday problem...
• Marc-Andre Fleury. His detractors are pretty much silenced now. Fleury made 55 saves on 58 shots and did about everything possible to keep the Penguins in it. A team doesn't make it through 5+ periods without their goalie answering the bell. Should the Penguins lose (if it were tonight, or Wednesday or Saturday) it's nothing against MAF. He stood on his head and kept the puck out of the net on several sequences when Detroit was pressing.
• "How does that Marian Hossa deal look now in Pittsburgh?" was last week's thoughts of Capitals blog onfrozenblog.com. Well Hossa has 11 goals and 13 assists in 19 playoff games. No doubt the Pens swung for the fences, but it's paid off. We'd pull the trigger on that deal in a heartbeat. And something tells us the Hoss aint done just yet either.
• You can't tell us that Evgeni Malkin and over-time hero Petr Sykora aren't hurt. Malkin got taken down innocently and stayed down after the whistle. We're buying into Dave Molinari's theory that it might have happened when Philly's Mike Richards plastered Geno into the boards, possibly causing a rib injury. But the big boy aint doggin' it, he's tryin' his heart out. There's just not much left to dig deep into. Luckily, there's only a maximum of two more games left.
• We agreed with Coach Michel Therrien's call of a timeout halfway through the third period. We said to a buddy if we were coach we would call a TO the next whistle and sure enough Therrien did. Detroit had Pens on the ropes and even though they went on to score the tying goal soon after, the coach did his part to break the momentum and give his boys a breather. Just another example how Therrien will get no credit for the victory but discreetly played a part in keeping his finger on the pulse of the team and doing all he could to keep them in it.
• Another decision that we agreed with that Therrien made (before the goal happened, btw) was putting Maxime Talbot on the ice for the final minute of the game. He could have gone with Sykora or Gary Roberts but he put out there a guy he knew had the heart and the hands to make it happen. Talbot rewarded that trust by firing in a shot from in front of the net with :35 seconds to go to keep the dream alive. Few players out there play balls to the wall like Talbot, he just makes things happen when they have to. Good things happen to good people that try hard, and Max Talbot is proof of that.
• 2 assists and a boatload of chances for Sidney Crosby. He had a lot of jump in his step and was able to create a lot of offense. Plus he got back to break up several great chances for Detroit. As the old adage goes "your best players have to be your best players" and Crosby was definitely very dangerous all night long. He refused to lose and you have to believe a lot of that attitude bled over on the other guys, which is what captains do.
• Speaking of trying hard, Pascal Dupuis busted his ass all night long. He was great at digging up loose pucks. The first goal by Hossa was primarily assisted by Crosby but Dupuis made it possible by doing the dirty work. "Dupper" was the guy who looked the most desperate of any player out there and gave a very, very respectable effort.
• Few players have more heart than Ryan Malone. After taking a slapshot to the face opening up a nasty cut we feared for the worst. You know it's bad when the referees immediately whistle the play dead while the puck is in the open. Malone was cut bad and was in trouble. Luckily it was well under his eye (which no visor would have protected) and he was able to shake it off and nary miss a shift. Heart like that is what win championships. Malone earned a lot of respect here.
• Jordan Staal played over 34 minutes and was the only regular center (other than Adam Hall) to break 50% in faceoffs. Staal had 3 takeaways to 0 giveaways and played 3:40 of short-handed icetime. Did we mention he's 19 years old? What a solid, solid player.

As you've noticed, we've mentioned nearly every player in the lineup. Because it's a team effort when you win a Stanley Cup Final game in triple overtime. The boys get a well deserved day off and we'll see if there's anything left in the tank for Game 6. Sergei Gonchar told NBC that he'd "absolutely" be in there but we wonder how banged up he might be. He took a nasty spill into the wall and if we put a speculating cap on that could very well be a separated/dislocated shoulder. And the rest of the D is no doubt tired from picking up the Sarge's slack. But it's a team and when one falls the rest step up. That's what happened tonight. That's all we need. One game at a time, boys, let's go back home and win there.

14 down, 2 more to go.....

Tough road to climb, Pens lose

Game 2 saw much of Game 1: the Red Wings dictated the tempo of the game, took away time and space, covered their end well and sat on their lead. Their execution was flawless, very machine-like.

But before we all say the sky is falling, consider:

• First of all, it doesn't matter if you lose the first two games a combined 7-0 or 7-6 or 17-16. All that matters in the end is the result. Detroit won. Won convincingly. Sure, that's undisputed, but the home seed is pretty much supposed to hold serve in a series like this. Detroit was up 2-0 on Nashville early but when they came back for game 5 the series was 2-2.
• It's not the Pavel Datsyuk's and Henrik Zetterberg's that are running around unchecked and scoring at will, it's been guys like Mikael Samuelsson, Brad Stuart and Valterri Filppula. Detroit's skill players have played well, but they're not the ones primarily skating circles around the Pens or producing points.
• To that point, the Red Wings' powerplay was 0 for 8 this game. The Pens have been outclassed, but they haven't been totally outmatched.
• Michel Therrien has tried a lot of different personnel combinations, but none has paid off in goals. Several times tonight guys like Jordan Staal, Gary Roberts, Ryan Malone and more had great chances with pucks on their sticks in prime scoring areas. They just didn't execute well or didn't get the bounces to convert.

It's been very clear that Detroit is excellent at pressuring the puck, clogging the area between the bluelines and forcing mistakes. So you have to adjust. The Penguins showed a lot of signs of adjustment. Several times when they tried to breakout down one side Detroit would play their system and overload it with defenders. In that situation you have to play the puck back to the other side (usually back to a defenseman) and quickly play the puck around. This worked, to varying degrees of success, but none resulting in a goal.

Pittsburgh has gotten several favorable calls, but not much in this series. The refs called a bunch of fairly unreasonable penalties, especially with Chris Osgood doing his impression of JFK a couple of times. Still, in instances when the Pens showed frustration, like Ryan Whitney or Roberts' 3rd period roughing penalties the refs were right on it. There's nothing wrong with calling penalties at the end of the game to keep things from spiraling out of control, but it seemed like the Pens were slapped with more infractions then really what was warranted.

In the end though, it is an 0-2 deficit to climb out of. There is bright spots, like the play of guys like Staal and Sergei Gonchar (28:35 played, 4 hits, 1 takeaway 1 blocked shot) that gives a little glimmer of hope....If Nashville beat Detroit twice in their own barn, so can the Penguins. Give the Red Wings all the credit in the world for just humming along like the well oiled machine that they are.....But if the Pens can score the first goal of Game 3 on Wednesday night, this series could be very far from over.

Series Preview

We don't know about you esteemed blog reader, but we're about sick of reading previews around the web. By this point we all know Detroit has the experience, puck possession and a guy named Nick Lidstrom. The Penguins will counter with size, youth and skill.


Who knows what will happen. Neither team has ever been behind in a series, which won't be the case after Game 1. This, combined with the seemingly even nature of the two clubs, lead most to believe that it will be at least a six game.


In the end, as always, the Cup will come down to execution and desire. We'll see who wants it more, who puts themselves in a position to succeed and then actually makes it happen.


Anyways, you know where we're going with this...

Pens in 5

That's right, 5.

All that needs said...

We find ourselves wanting to write something, anything about this upcoming series....But just can't. You know the players, you know the storylines, you know the experience vs. youth debates. It's as if we're so worked up we don't know where to begin. That will probably all change at about 8:15 Saturday night.

So until then, we give you this most excellent NHL commerical (dug up by Wyshnyski!) that sums up pretty much everything that's running through our minds and yet holding the words back at the same time..