Sad But True Fact

Any forward not named Crosby, Malkin or Sykora hasn't scored a goal since back on Saturday October 20th against the Capitals (Jordan Staal). This streak is going on 5 games.

Darius going back to the motherland

Well it's official, the New York Rangers have "loaned" Darius Kasparaitis to the Russian Super League team St. Petersburg. Russia will pick up what's left of his $3 million paycheck this year, and Rangers will get an empty roster spot in the AHL to develop a player instead of shielding an NHL caliber player and contract.

At 35, this might be the last North America sees of DK in a hockey jersey, who played a crucial role for the Penguins from 1996 to 2002, truly my formative hockey years.

So remember the good times, the smiles, the long blond hair flowing in the breeze as he skated and all those hits. The Kasparaitis Krunchers; both big hits and the pickles! Remember rocking Eric Lindros's world and all those times opponents hated him, and Game 7's OT winner stunning Dominik Hasek.

Kasparaitis gave a lot of great memories and put smiles on a lot of faces. The Sweater Ted wishes him luck in whatever comes next.

On Deck: 9 Straight Division Opponents

Starting Saturday, the Penguins start a stretch of 9 games in 18 days. (That's an average of a game every other day for you non-math majors out there). All of these games are divisional games.

Let me repeat: ALL OF THESE GAMES ARE DIVISIONAL GAMES.

Coaches and players often stress the importance of facing their divisional rivals, since it's basically a 4 point swing in each contest. That means, 4 points a game for 9 straight games is 36 point swing in shaping the division.

The next 9 games of this season will basically shape the way it's going to be for the Penguins. If they struggle, they will lose a lot of ground in what figures to be one of the toughest and most competitive divisions in the NHL. If they play about .500 hockey like they've done all season then things will like be clustered.

But if they can turn in solid efforts every night, get some goals from a forward not named Crosby, Malkin or Sykora (which hasn't happened since Jordan Staal scored his only goal of the year on 10/20) and rattle off a big win streak then this could give a little breathing room and instill in the confidence needed to feed off of for the rest of the season.

The upcoming schedule looks like this:

Sat Nov 3, 2007
Penguins at Islanders
A trip to Long Island for a game against the scrappier than predicted Isles.

Mon Nov 5, 2007
Penguins at Devils
A first look at the Devils new home.

Wed Nov 7, 2007
Flyers at Penguins
This game will be slightly more intense than the average game.

Thu Nov 8, 2007
Penguins at Rangers
3rd game in 4 nights and a decent amount of travel too.

Sat Nov 10, 2007
Penguins at Flyers
The Flyers are tops in the division right now, but a lot of hockey to go.

Mon Nov 12, 2007
Devils at Penguins
The start of a 4 game homestand and a rare 2 day break after this game

Thu Nov 15, 2007
Islanders at Penguins
Yet another game against the Isles.

Sat Nov 17, 2007
Rangers at Penguins
Yep, it's these guys again

Wed Nov 21, 2007
Devils at Penguins
Seriously this is 4th time in 35 days the Pens and Devils will have played

Avalanched, Pens fall in Game 12

Apologies for no gameday post for the 12th game, the Penguins up in Colorado for a 3-2 regulation loss. Some thoughts:

• Sidney Crosby is all of a sudden 3rd place in the NHL scoring race. He's now on a career high 11 game point streak after scoring both the goals for the Penguins in the first period. Crosby is also currently rocking a 4 game goal streak.
• Ryan Whitney left the game with a groin injury, no timetable on his return.
• Obviously the Pens collapsed in the 2nd period, giving up all three goals and not being able to recover. Disappointing, but things like that happen in a long season.
• Sergei Gonchar, in large part due to Whitney's injury had to log 28:19 of ice-time. I continue to be amazed at the time he puts in, night in and night out. All the other healthy Pens defensemen played between 18:02 (Eaton) and 18:52 (Scuderi), so that's very even. Except for Lord Gonch who had a +1 rating while playing almost half the game.
• Crosby's biggest improvement this year is probably in the faceoff circle and it is going largely un-noticed. Last night he was 13-9 in faceoffs for a solid 58%. For the year he's at 55.6%, good for 25th in the league right now. Last season Crosby was under the 50% mark, so it just goes to show how Sidney continues to round out and improve his game even further.

Not much else to say about this one. The Pens bring back 2 out of a possible 4 points from a quick trip west, which is about the same .500 hockey they've played all year. As I'm about to point out, the next stretch of games will be crucial in shaping the season.

A nice surprise

I was pleasantly surprised to see the results of this poll, I had no idea how it would look.

Should the captain of the Montreal Canadiens be fluent in French?

[Current results]
Yes - 9%
No - 91%

I wonder if the results are swayed because it's on TSN, the English speaking Canadian sports channel that is more Ontario-centric.

I'd be interested to see how the results look on their French speaking sister channel, RDS. The poll is also up there, but unlike TSN, you can't see the results unless you register and since I don't have a Canadian address (or know French) it's difficult for me to register. If anyone knows, please throw it in the comments.

I say I was pleasantly surprised because I couldn't see this poll on ESPN.com ending the same if the question was: "Should the captain of the New York Yankees be fluent in English?" assuming their captain wasn't Derek Jeter but if it was a Spanish speaking player.

Interesting stuff.

The Curse of Greg Malone

Greg Malone was a serviceable NHL player. Pittsburgh drafted him in the 2nd round (19th overall) in 1976. Greg would go on to score 143 goals in 495 games for the Penguins from 1976-77 to 1982-83 before moving on to Hartford. Nice to be sure. When Malone's playing days were done in 1987 he settled in Pittsburgh were soon a young son of his, Ryan, was playing hockey and doing well.

In 1988, former Pens GM Tony Esposito (no relation to Angelo) hired the elder Malone as a scout. Malone worked his way up the ranks and eventually was made into a head scout. He was let go when Ray Shero came in to town and Malone now is working for the Phoenix organization in a scouting capacity.

The Penguins haven't had a meaningful 2nd round pick pan out yet. Breaking it down year by year, here's the kiss of death that is becoming a Penguins 2nd round pick:

Total Busts
1978 - Mike Meeker (25th overall) 4 games, 0 points, 5 PIMs
1985 - Lee Giffin RW (23rd overall), 27 games, 4 points (1g + 3a), 9 PIMs
1988 - Mark Major LW (25th overall) 2 games, 0 points, 5 PIMs
1991 - Rusty Fitzgerald C (38th overall) 25 games, 4 points (2g + 2a) 12 PIMs
1992 - Marc Hussey D (43rd overall) 0 games
1996 - Pavel Skrbek D (28th overall) 12 games, 0 points, 8 PIMs
1997 - Brian Gaffaney C (44th overall) 0 games
1998 - Alexander Zevakhin LW (54th overall) 0 games
1999 - Jeremy Van Hoof D (57th overall) 0 games
2000 - Shane Endicott C (52nd overall) 45 games, 3 points (1g + 2a) 47 PIMs
2002 - Ondrej Nemec D (32nd overall), 0 games


At least they kinda made it
1977 - Jim Hamilton LW (30th overall) 94 games, 32 points (14 g + 18 a), 28 PIMs
1979 - Paul Marshall (31st overall), 95 games, 33 points (15g + 18a), 17 PIMs
1981 - Steve Gatzos F (28th overall), 89 games, 35 points (15g + 20a) 83 PIMs
1982 -Tim Hrynewich LW (38th overall), 55 games, 14 points (6g +8a) 82 PIMs
1983 - Todd Charlesworth D (22th overall), 93 games, 12 points (3g + 9a) 47 PIMs
1986 - Dave Capuano LW (25th overall) 104 games, 56 points (17g + 38a) 56 PIMs [only played 6 games with Pittsburgh for 0 points]
1987 - Rick Tabaracci G (26th overall), 1 game played with Pittsburgh
1993 - Dominic Pittis (52nd overall), 86 games, 16 points (5g + 11a) 71 PIMs [1 game with Pittsburgh]
1999- Matt Murley LW (51st overall) 59 games, 8 points (2g, 6a) 38 PIMs


These guys are a heartbeat away from getting relegated to the bust club
2001 - Noah Welch D (54th overall) 33 games and counting, 7 points (3g + 4a) 33 PIMs...Florida has only used him for 4 games this season
2003 - Ryan Stone LW (32nd overall) 0 games and it's not looking good
2004 - Johannes Salmonsson LW (31st overall) 0 games and probably won't be in the organization much longer


Too early to tell
2004 - Alex Goligoski D (61st overall) 1st professional season
2005 - Michael Gergen RW (61st overall), still Minnesota-Duluth, will he get a contract?
2006 - Carl Sneep D (32nd overall), sophomore season at BC
2007 - Keven Veilleux C, (51st overall) 10 points in 14 games in the Q so far


Possibly the exceptions to the rule
1989 Paul Laus D (35th overall) 530 games, 72 points (14g + 58a), 1702 PIMs [All games played with Florida Panthers]
1994 Richard Park LW (50th overall), 459 games and counting, 134 points (61g + 73a) 172 PIMs [58 games with Pittsburgh for 11 points]



Since Greg Malone there hasn't been one NHL'er the Penguins have drafted in the NHL that's made an impact for them. The only ones with somewhat decent careers (Laus and Park) found them in other cities and aren't exactly household names themselves.

So will the drought end soon?

• There were high hopes for Ryan Stone, but he hasn't been able to crack the lineup and is now going on his 3rd full season in the AHL. Not many NHL contributors often spend that much time in the minors.
• Salmonsson might never be back in North America and it doesn't seem like anyone in the organization is that concerned about whether or not Gergen will join the lineup.
• Sneep looks promising, but he's light-years away from the NHL, probably at least 3 to 4 more years of college or the minors before pencilling him into the lineup.
• Veilleux has the size but it truly is to early to tell how he could handle the professional game.
• So there's one choice left: Alex Goligoski. He's looked, well, like a 21 year old rookie playing in the AHL for the first time. There have been some praise for him, like how he's manned the point on the powerplay but also some shaky reports about his work in his own zone. It'll take a little while to get acclimated to the speed of the game. But you'd think in a year or so we're about to find out if he can hack it (like Ryan Whitney) or if he'll flounder and join the likes of Noah Welch.

Aces Wild: Pens Win

Big 4-2 win on the road tonight against a Minnesota team that's been one of the NHL's strongest over the first month of the season (7-3-2 record good for 2nd in the West). Even better though, this was the first time of the season that the Penguins really put in a solid 60 minutes of effort and played well at both ends of the ice. Game notes

• Obviously this game was all about Sidney Crosby (1g, 3a, +3, 4 SOG, 3 hits, 68% faceoffs (15-7), 21:30 TOI) and Evgeni Malkin (2g, 1a, +3, 3 SOG, 4 PIM, 19:40 TOI). I was against using them on the same line long-term, but on a night like this why not? They were dominant and it showed.


• Ryan Malone deserves a lot of credit too. He's played really well this year and opened up room on the top line. If he gives this type of effort every night this team is going places...Malone's knock has always been consistency and periods of no production over long stretches but he's answered the bell so far this year...It's almost like he's a UFA at the end of the year or something...


• The defense played very solid as well. As usual, Sergei Gonchar led all skaters on the Penguins with 24:38 in icetime. But the defensemen with the least amount of icetime was Darryl Sydor and he had 16:25. Most fell into the 19-20 minute range. Good balance. And, if I'm going to go on forever with Sid and Geno's statline it's worth mentioning these unsung heroes: Mark Eaton (20:28 TOI, 8 blocked shots), Brooks Orpik (3 hits, 4 blocked shots). That's not a typo, Eaton really did block 8 shots.


• Petr Sykora showed why he's a slick goal scorer with his powerplay goal. Dude has a heck of a release on that shot. Hopefully he keeps getting a lot of PP time, he's notorious for scoring slumps so it's good to see him producing.


• Michel Therrien must have gotten the message loud and clear: Old Man Recchi had but 13:30 icetime. He's good in that role. His line with Adam Hall and rook Tyler Kennedy play well as a lower line unit. And that's basically the same role Recchi played for Carolina when they won the cup.


• Is there a goalie controversy? Sabourin was great. He made the saves he need to make, the Wild were frantic but Sabs was strong. Really, if you took the numbers off both goalies backs (and, I suppose the identifying yellow pads away), you'd probably have to say Sabourin deserves the next start. But this team is not going to go places with Sabs, it's going to have to be Marc-Andre Fleury taking them places....Stay tuned.

Now it's off to Colorado for a game against a team with a pretty fair home record so far (5-0-0).

Oh yeah, don't forget Sidney Crosby is now up to 5th place in the NHL in scoring with 17 points. He is on a 10 game point scoring streak. Malkin is tied for 7th in the league, right behind him with 16 points.