Pens lose to Caps

At the end of the day the Penguins let too many early chances go…Sidney Crosby had a breakaway but couldn’t score. Jordan Staal came down on a 2 on 1 and was rebuffed. On and on, so it goes.

--Rob Scuderi caught a shot in the face and was obviously out for the game. Dropping to five defensemen for the rest of the night on back to back games may not be an excuse they’ll use, but it looked like it took it’s toll.

--Hold your breath on the Crosby injury front, looked like Sid was in a lot of pain. Hopefully we’ll hear something today and it will be good news…Remember with the All-Star break the Penguins only play three games in the next 13 days.

--For the chances the Penguins failed on, the Caps seemed to put them in. There were certainly no shortage of weak calls (for both teams) to give each other’s power-plays chances to separate. Credit the Caps on this night for doing that.

--The Malkin/Ovechkin angle is fascinating. We can’t remember two players so good just going after each other so personally. It elevates both of their games too, with three combined goals on 22 shots. This could be the angle of the Olympics, how the two countrymen interact and coexist.

--You still get the feeling this team is missing that certain something, but what is it? Sergei Gonchar can do a lot of things, but playing the wing is not one of them. Ray Shero’s inactivity is starting to hurt the team. No one wants him to make a move just to make a move, but at some point he’s gotta step up to the plate and make something happen. Is it fire the coach? Is it shaking the team up with a trade? Hey we don’t have the answers, but “do nothing” seems to be the wrong one. The season is slipping away.

--Finally, eye rolls on Ted Leonsis taking swipes at the Pensblog and then follow up by tooting his own team's blogosphere for being "sophisticated". (Side note: we still can't find the page in the sophistication manual where it says you can call someone a clown?) It's doubtful he'd be crowing like this if the Penguins had won yesterday. But the Caps carried the play so give the man his day.

Still, it's the Pensblog, what do you expect? They "job" everyone all the time, themselves included. The Pensblog is like a juvenile George Carlin--it's profane, it's shocking, it's loud. Japers Rink is like a hip network news show that's always a good read. Both are excellent in their own regards, but they have different ways and different methods. There's no shortage of analytical, even-handed Penguins blogs that offered accounts of the game that Ted would have found a little more mature, but it seemed like he wanted to target the Pensblog and get off a shot while he could at an entire fanbase while he was at it. Classy indeed.

Hitting Rock Bottom

Terrible loss today. Terrible. Nothing is going right for the Pens, no matter what lines or goalies they use, it's just not the right answer, pucks are ending up in the wrong net.

So what's it going to be? We're not advocates of calling for a coach's job, but it seems now that Michel Therrien is at the end of the line. His moves, which in the past have been right on the money, have now fallen flat. Guys are trying, but the shake up of a new voice, new energy behind the bench might be what the doctor ordered.

Like we said, the effort is there. Gregory Campbell was chirping at Sidney Crosby and battling him very chippy. Max Talbot made Campbell answer for the talk with a lengthy and good fight. After seeing that the very frustrated Crosby decided he had enough and jumped Brett McLean.

It's frustrating for them, it's frustrating for everyone right now. The next game is in Madison Square Garden, maybe a road matchup against a division opponent (and good team) is what it takes to get out of this rut.

But at this point maybe there needs to be something more drastic than that.