Mr. Kennedy to sit one out, Caputi called up

Quick hits:

--For the second time in under a week, NHL disicplinarian Colin Campbell rung up a Penguin; this time it's Tyler Kennedy one game for leaving the bench to engage Toronto's Luke Schenn in a fight. It's unknown if Mr. Kennedy would have gotten a longer timeout if he hadn't gotten wiped on the ice by Scheen.

--In personnel moves, the Penguins have called up their brightest prospect from the minors; Luca Caputi. Paul Bissonnette has been re-assigned. Caputi has 13 goals (and 35 points) in 46 games down in the minors, not bad stats for a 20 year old. It will be interesting to see how he fares, here's to hoping that Michel Therrien doesn't give him the usual 6-7 minutes for most young callups.

--Two interesting tidbits from Pensburgh: Sergei Gonchar takes another step on the road to recovery by being cleared for contact in practice. And Ray Shero indicates the "expectation" management has for the players to "make a push". It sounds like a trade could be coming soon, possibly when Sarge can return. As we've mentioned before, signs are pointing that Alex Goligoski could be the bait.

--Sad story from Montreal, as former Penguin Robert Lang suffered a pretty gruesome career threatening achilles injury. The surgery was said to be successful, so that is a good thing. Here's hoping that Lang, an avid golfer, is back to the links at some point when the weather gets warm. And back to the NHL too.

--It would be a shame if Lang's career ended in this eye-popping jersey, eh?


--Congrats to Sidney Crosby, who was named the NHL's second star of the week...Penguin killer Jamie Langenbrunner was named the league's top star.

--A quick check of the standings don't show much progress, as a 1-1-1 record out of the break woud indicate. The Pens are in 10th in the conference; Florida is in 9th--one point up on the Pens (with two games in hand). Carolina is clinging to 8th place with two more points than Pittsburgh.

--James Mirtle's update shows the Penguins need to go 19-12-0 to ensure a playoff berth.

This and that

Random thoughts from here and there...

--Jeff Taffe and Ryan Stone got the call from Pittsburgh. Taffe is not surprising, he’s shown he can be a decent and serviceable player in a NHL capacity, but Stone is. He’s a prospect that’s never panned out and has seemed to spin his wheels. He’s not the best skater but has decent all-around skill and the willingness to throw his body around. It’ll be interesting to see if he’s given the opportunity to catch on. A couple years ago though, hell maybe even before this year, it would be hard to imagine that Stone would be the sixth AHL level forward to get the call to the NHL (or to have stuck originally like Bill Thomas and Paul Bissonnette did).

--Dany Sabourin has almost the same number of minutes played as Marc-Andre Fleury this season…Sabourin’s GAA is notably better (2.47 to 2.86) and his save percentage is slightly higher than the Flower (.911 to .907). Will there be controversy? No, of course not, but the interesting thing is to watch if Fleury can come back and play as lights out as he did last season under a similarly long layoff.

--Speaking of injuries and layoffs, it’s been 196 days since June 4th; the day the Penguins watched the Red Wings skate the Cup and the last time Ryan Whitney and Sergei Gonchar played meaningful games. Isn’t it weird how such an occasion can seem so distant yet so near at the exact same time? Whitney ought to be back in a week’s time, which will be interesting to see how quickly he gets up to speed himself. And what does it mean for the Penguins blueline? Mark Eaton figures to sit 8th on the depth chart at that point, and what of Phillipe Boucher and Hal Gill, are they still in the lineup every night? Whitney’s return, though a blessing, also brings with it several tough questions.

--Don’t pay too much mind of Alex Kovalev’s 20+ game goal-less streak. What we can’t get over is how good he and old pal Robert Lang look out there. As 2/3 (with Martin Straka) of what the best 2nd line of this decade, Kovy and Bobby Lang have gotten the band back together and are playing some nice music. Lang, has 22 points in 30 games, not bad for a guy who’s gonna turn 38 years old in two days.

--In fact, if you think about it, few players who seem so inconsistent have actually been quietly steadier than Lang over the past decade. Since he established himself in Pittsburgh in 1998-99 with a 21 goal 44 point season, Lang has hit averaged 68.88 points a season, hitting the 50+ mark every time. Sure he’s bounced around to five teams and owes a lot of his stats to playing with supremely skilled wingers like Kovalev and Jaromir Jagr, but Lang’s staying power has been impressive.

--Something interesting caught our eye from the Post-Gazette yesterday and has stuck with us, so we’ll share…What names stick out to you (hint: the first two)

Still, 10 players -- forwards Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Pascal Dupuis, Eric Godard and Tim Wallace, defensemen Ryan Whitney, Kris Letang and Alex Goligoski and goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Dany Sabourin -- went on the ice with assistant coaches Andre Savard and Mike Yeo and goalie coach Gilles Meloche for the better part of an hour [on Monday].

When the two leading scorers in the league are showing up for an optional practice that a lot of the team didn’t strap ‘em up for, that says something. The team understandably needed and deserved a maintenance day after a grueling schedule. But when the best players are out there constantly working, constantly showing up, that’s leadership and that’s a good sign.

Well the four day break is over tomorrow and the Pens are back in Atlanta for the second time in a month. In a bit of a programming note, it’s going to be a little slow over here during the weekend, we’re making a pilgrimage back to Pittsburgh to visit family and watch the Penguins break out the third jerseys in person against the Make Beliefs.

Bozo hanging up the floppy shoes

Another pre-internet dinosaur bites the dust:

I began at the Press on June 30, 1969 covering high school sports.

It basically ends today with this column.

I had been considering retirement and when the Post-Gazette offered a generous buyout, my mind, after some debate, was made up.

What a wonderful career it has been. I've been on the front line of sports history, Pittsburgh and otherwise.

In a way it almost feels sad to see Smizik fading away, he's certainly been no friend to the blogger, and personally we haven't agreed with many of his stances, but his voice has been out there and it's been relevant for a long time.

What a fine time to be on the Pittsburgh sports scene from 1969 to the present, one couldn't ask for a better time to be covering a city, we think. Clemente, Stargell, all the Steelers of the 1970s, Cowher, Bettis, Bonds, Leyland, Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, Malkin and so many more. What a ride indeed.

But if this opens up more opportunities for people at the PG like Seth Rorabaugh, then, at the end of the day, maybe this is a good thing.

(hat-tip to the Pensblog)

News and notes

Apologies for the slowness around here lately, an illness has literally zapped all energy out of us. We're going to try to get previews out for the key players left (Gonchar, Fleury, Orpik, etc) but it likely won't be up to the 28 of them in the next few days. Especially now that the new toy is out.

Anyways, in an effort to make up for it we'll invite our readers and friends to email us at hooksorpik at gmail dot com. We're taking on people for a Yahoo fantasy hockey pool. If you want in, drop us a line and say why and we'll send you the sign-up information. Winner of the pool (probably us) will be entitled to some sort of yet to be named cool prize.

Knights of the Round-table

We will continue our 28 profiles in 28 days (hey, no one ever promised it would be one a day) but first here's everything you need to know about the Pens season-to-be....Tony over at The Confluence had a bunch of voices come together for a round table discussion and he honored us with a chance at participating. Here's the thing in it's entirety. Thanks again to Tony and the folks at the MVN for having us.

Schedule is out, schedule is out

View it here on NHL.com

Things that jump out

• Last year the NHL had all the teams end the season with a string of division games that set the stage for close finishes and exciting play. That is not the case this year, as just 4 of the Penguins last 20 games are against division opponents.
• So you'd think there'd be a huge chunk of divisional games somewhere in the middle, but there's not. Pittsburgh's longest streak of division games is just 3. By contrast, they'll host 3 straight western conference teams once over the course of the season. The idea to de-emphasize divisional matchups and let every team play every other team atleast once seems to have inserted some color and excitement in the schedule.
• Starting Sunday February 8th with the Red Wings coming to town, the Penguins are scheduled on Sundays six of the next seven weekends with matchups against Washington (twice), Dallas, Boston and Philadelphia. Any of those could be targets for nationally televised NBC broadcasts.
• The Penguins were lucky to play all but 5 games the Eastern time zone last season. That will not be the case this year. Throw out the Sweden trip and they're making west coast jogs to San Jose and Phoenix (in late October), Colorado (in January) and Dallas (in March). Nothing that will make the West coast teams cry, but the Pens will certainly earn some frequent flyer miles this season.
• Perhaps as a reward, there's a stretch of games starting March 8th (at the friendly confines of the Verizon Center in DC) to April 1st where the Pens play 10 out of 12 home games. The only other roadie during that time is the short trip over to Columbus.
• We touched on the European trip, last year we thought the NHL did Anaheim the injustice of making them play three more road games before going home, after they'd already been to England. That seemed excessive and perhaps took it's toll on them. This year the Penguins get almost a full week off after their Euro trip and then don't have an away game for another 10 days. Much more favorable, we'd say.
• The season finale is a game IN Montreal on Saturday night. You think the NHL is thinking that maybe it could be to decide the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference?

There will be plenty of time to pour over the schedule and offer oberservations, but that's what jumped out for the nowbeing.

Schedule details released

The full schedule is officially announced tomorrow, but the NHL has released some highlights for teams

For the Pens:
--They open the season with games in Sweden against Ottawa. Not exactly news
--The home opener at Mellon Arena is set to be Saturday October 11th, against Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils
--This year there are "at large" teams from the Western Conference that the Pens will play twice. It's going to be San Jose, Columbus and the treacherous Marian Hossa led Red Wings.

The preseason schedule was also announced:
Saturday, Sept. 20 TAMPA BAY 7:30 p.m.
Monday, Sept. 22 at Tampa Bay 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 24 TORONTO 7:30 p.m
Friday, Sept. 26 at Toronto 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 2 at Jokerit (Finland) 11:30 a.m. (Eastern time)

Nice to see a home and home with Pittsburgh South.

Full details of the 2008-09 schedule and analysis tomorrow.

I'm skating on blades like Sidney Crosby

Title of the post comes from a reference we found on Pensblog. If nothing else, consider it a good indicator for hockey when the biggest rap star in the game today drops a Sidney Crosby reference in a song. Hey, the sport must be on the radar a little bit, right?

Yeah, it's July and free agency has settled down. If you've looked a little on the internet today, scrounging all corners to get your hockey fix, you've probably already seen or read about the new information about EA Sports video game NHL 09. Puck Daddy thinks it could be G.O.A.T (greatest of all time).

Speaking of hockey video games, one player we picked up in a dynasty mode was Adam Henrich, a 6'4, 220 pound winger that's a former 2nd round pick in 2002 and a good minor league scorer. Well the Penguins followed our lead and signed Henrich today to a one year deal. He'll play in Wilkes-Barre to start the year, but this past season seven forwards that started the year in the AHL (Connor James, Jeff Taffe, Chris Minard, Ryan Stone, Jonathan Filewich, Nathan Smith and Tim Brent) combined for 98 man-games in Pittsburgh. So you never know.

Speaking of James, he re-signed with the Penguins too. Pittsburgh also added a big 6'6 26 year old defenseman Joey Mormina (who played one game with Carolina and the rest with their farm club) and TJ Kemp, 5'11 puck moving defenseman who scored 46 points in 73 AHL games last signs. These moves were all designed with minor league intentions, but the point again being one never knows in the dog days of summer which players a team may be forced to call upon during a tough stretch in the following winter.

That's about it for news on the home front.

News and Notes

From a combination of different things we've heard lately:

• Expect Sidney Crosby to be back in the lineup tomorrow night. His ankle is stronger, but he wanted to give it as much time as possible for the playoffs. More immediately, Crosby didn't want to return to the lineup until he was conditioned enough to play the 20-23 minutes of high intensity play that we're accustomed to.
• It’s pretty clear that Michel Therrien let his displeasure with Ryan Whitney be known by putting the defenseman as a 4th line winger last night…They also did this to Brooks Orpik before giving him a shot to redeem himself, which he seems to have done. Surely a young, talented player like Whitney will get the chance, it’ll be up to him to make the most of it.
• Bad coach but good analyst Eddie Olczyk made a good point on Versus the other night…For the playoffs you’ve got a Crosby/Marian Hossa combo and a Evgeni Malkin/Petr Sykora duo. (Fans tend to think too much in trios when they think about forwards, when really it’s about adding a third piece to a talented duo). Anyways, suppose you’re an opposing coach; what unit do you send your best defensive unit and/or checking line to match against? Edzo then proposed Ryan Malone be the swing-man to rotate to which-ever line is given more space. A guy like Pascal Dupuis could be the other swing-man.
• That could be a complicated, but interesting theory. It remains to be seen if Therrien would employ it. He’s not too keen letting the opposing team dictate Pittsburgh strategy based on matchups. Therrien believes (and we do too) that it’s better to concentrate on just having your players focus on playing their games. Guys like Crosby, Malkin and Hossa have long been targeted by the opposition’s best defensive players their entire careers, it’s not like they can’t produce.
• The last time the Penguins had seven healthy defensemen (as they do now), Therrien decided to employ a rotation in which everyone but Sergei Gonchar and Mark Eaton would sit a game. The rotation lasted all of about two or three games. It will be interesting to see what choices the coaches make now that Rob Scuderi is healthy. Orpik has played well as Gonchar’s partner on the top unit, but do they put Scuds back there? Whitney’s been struggling but is a talented player with a lot to offer (like creating the only goal of consequence last night). Darryl Sydor hasn’t been outstanding, but unlike Kris Letang, this aint his first rodeo, so to say.
• We think, that Gonchar, Scuderi, Orpik and Hal Gill should be in the lineup every night, Whitney should be too, if he can get his act together. This leaves a choice between Letang and Sydor, we’d lean towards Letang for now, but obviously there’s going to be times when Sydor’s going to play.
• Gary Roberts was re-evaluated and while they didn't find anything else wrong, it's not that encouraging either...Sad to report that Mr. Gary's triumphant return is not in sight. So much for the couple of tune up regular season games he was hoping to get in for.

Finally, after a lot of searching we finally found something leaner than Marc-Andre Fleury's recent numbers:

Kate Bosworth used to be pretty hot before turning into a human stick figure