Surovy, Hines Ward help break Pens Losing Streak

About 12 minutes into the 2nd period, Pat Parrish interviewed Hines Ward, Steeler MVP, who had been sitting behind the glass wearing a Sidney Crosby jersery. It was at this point that I knew the Pens were probably going to get a win.

Despite being badly outshot the Pens got two goals and an assist from Tomas Surovy, two goals from Crosby and goals from Jackman and Recchi to hand Mike Therrien his first victory as Penguins head coach.

MAF was spectacular stopping 44 of 46 shots from New Jersey to claim the number 1 star.

Colby Armstrong was solid in his NHL debut.

Crosby Snubbed by Canadian Olympic Team

ESPN Reports Yet thuggish forward Todd Bertuzzi made the team. Evidentally you can cheapshot another player and break his neck and still be able to represent your country in Canada. I understand that there are plenty of talented players in Canada...still seems odd he wouldn't be named.

It will be interesting to see how the snub motivates him. A full NHL season and a deep run in the Olympics is probably a lot to put on the 18 year old.

2PM News Conference Regarding Pens Arena Financing

AP Reports the Pens have called a 2PM news conference to discuss arena development financing plan.

Lets hope this is good news so the Pens can concentrate on losing more hockey games.

Somewhere a Kansas City hockey fan weeps.

SRV

Don Cherry, 71 Criticizes Sidney Crosby, 18

AHL lifer and Canadian hockey's resident bitter old man recently attacked Sidney Crosby for allegedly backing Edzo's firing, getting named assistant captain and "yapping at the referees, doing the whole thing, golden boy,".


LA Times Article details Cherry's apparent grudge against the rookie that has done nothing but work hard and draw badly needed fans and media attention to the NHL.

Crosby is taking the high road against this ratings desperate tool.

Pens lose again

The Pens lost again tonight. They almost tied the game in a deju vu situation with lastnight, but this time Biron caught the puck and didn't let it cross the goal line.

The defense was at it again taking bad penalties. This time it was "Smelly" Melichar and Orpik. There were about 5 horrific give-aways that almost resulted in goals. Thibault should have played better, but it was a shooting gallery in the first period - and he was the target.

The injury bug struck Recchi in the 2nd period. Not sure what it was. Tarnstrom didn't come out for the 3rd period either. Maybe Mr. T. kicked him off the team. Mario missed the game because of another irregular heartbeat. He should just hang it up now. He contributes nothing to this team and he is going to end up dying if he keeps trying to play. John "chocolate" Leclair missed another game because of whatever ails him. He has been a big bust.

Gongchar played another solid game by his standards. He looked motivated and skated hard. He didn't take a penalty. He was shooting the puck. The young guys played well. Crosby was spectacular. We need to get our defensemen jumping up into plays because Crosby makes all these moves and then the D don't come late to get a scoring chance.

We have a couple days off now and hopefully Mr. T. gets his system installed in this minicamp coming up. Rumor has it that he is going to install the system of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether after the failure of Edzo's "soothing" system. Only time will tell who is sane and who isn't on this team.

Maybe it wasn't all Edzo: Pens fall in OT 4-3

Michel Therrien got a good look at what he is up against tonight as the Pens sabotaged themselves with sloppy line changes, defensive breakdowns and stupid penalties to lose in overtime (after they took a penalty and had to try a PK 4-3).

The Penguins can't defend without taking a penalty, and their penalty kill isn't good enough to beat good teams when they take 8 penalties.

I did like the new line combinations, I thought the Ouellet looked good and they did seem to do better on puck possession.

But overall disappointing

At least they managed a point.

Sid the Kid gets the 'A'

Read the article here

Crosby gets 'A'

Recchi is the other alternate captain. I think Leclair was the other 'A' before, and I know I saw Gonchar wearing it for a game or two.

Crosby deserves the 'A'. He is a take-charge guy who is a leader. Therrien is going to challenge him to be the best and he is expecting him to work hard and be a role model for this team. I expect Crosby to step up his game and play much better.

Olczyk Out..Therrien In

TSN reports that the Pens have fired Edzo and his entire staff. Michel Therrien from the WBS Baby Pens will take over. A press conference has been called this morning.

This is sad news, not because the Pens didn't need a change, but because Edzo by all reports is a good person and worked extremely hard and was ultimately done in by a poor mix of players who didn't give him the effort he deserved.

More later...

Therrien was interviewed by Stan Savarn on earlier today. Highlights from the interview:

- The first thing that he stressed was that the Penguins cannot allow the opponents as many shots on goal as they have been allowing.

- Players have to have the will to execute his system. Those that don't won't last too long.

- It will definietly help that 9 players from the club have played in his system in the past.

- They have to change the attitude of this hockey team

- Mario will play on a line with Crosby

Olczyk allegedly "not fired" according to Sportsnet.ca

A Sportsnet Article speaks of a supposed meeting between Edzo and CP but his future as coach of the team was not discussed.

I guess if you are punting the season it doesn't make sense to fire the coach and pay out any contractual obligations that are associated with that.

This won't sit well with most of the fans who are threatening to gather at the Mellon Arena with torches and sticks if they see another performance like the 3-0 laugher in St. Louis last night.

KDKA reporting Possible Deal To Keep the Pens in Pittsburgh

KDKA in Pittsburgh is reporting that an "agreement in terms" was reached yesterday with city and county leaders to give the Pens development rights to the Mellon Arena site.

Lots of questions need answered but this is more optimistic than the reports early this week.

State of the Pens...

After the excitement of winning the Crosby lottery and the flurry of free agent signings in the pre-season, its been a steady stream of disappointing news and poor performance for our favorite NHL team.

First, there is the team's inconsistent effort from night to night (some would say from shift to shift). The last three games have been a microcosm of the season. After the debacle of the game against the Wild, they follow up with a mostly consistent and hard fought effort against the Colorado Avalanche, then follow THAT up by squandering a 39 save effort by Marc Andre Fluery by just standing around and watching the Red Wings shoot. They seemed to have solved the problem of who their goal tender is, but they haven't figured out how to get a consistent effort from their players night in and night out.

Second there is the problem of the free agents not working out as advertised. Gonchar is the most glaring example, a goalscoring defenseman who has been neither a goalscorer nor a defenseman. He makes poor plays that wouldn't be acceptable for an emergency AHL call up, let alone a $5M a year star free agent. His play in the Detroit game was atrocious. In addition guys like Leclair and Thibault have ranged from disappointing to abysmal. Aside from Ziggy Pallfy, and to some extent Mark Recci, everyone they signed in the offseason hasn't worked out.

Third, health problems have plagued the Pens early. Gonchar, Ziggy, Roy, Leclair and Caron have all spent significant time on the bench with injuries. A flu bug effected some of the team. And Mario Lemieux's irregular heartbeat has kept him out for a few weeks. At a time when the Pens are scrambling for points, not having a full compliment of players has been devastating.

And if all this hasn't been depressing enough, this week brought the comments that the prospects of the Penguins getting a new arena and staying in Pittsburgh were slim at best. How much of this is posturing by Mario to get the local and state officials to take some action is hard to say. But as a Pens fan, I've grown tired of always having to worry from season to season whether my favorite team will even exist from year to year. I long for the days when they were a consistent franchise and the only concern was what seed they would be in the playoffs and what round would they eliminate the Washington Capitals.

So where are the Pens? With 30 games played, they have 8 wins, 22 points (fewer than all but 4 teams). Their power play has actually gotten worse as the season has gone along (this may have much to do with their injuries), and their effort is questionable on most nights. People are calling for their coaches head and most expect at least one major trade before the year ends.

On the plus side they have found their franchise player in Crosby, a player with skills and leadership ability beyond his years. And possibly their franchise goaltender in Fluery. There is also the promise of Malkin, who is tearing it up in Russia, joining the team next season. And young players like Chistensen, Whitney and Talbot have show brief flashes of potential.

However with 52 games to go, there is real doubt about this season. Can they get on a roll and find their way to a playoff spot? Will Edzo survive to tape the next episode of "The Edzo Show" on FSN? Will the people of Pittsburgh get to see the Pens young talent mature? Or will we be ordering our #87 Las Vegas Penguin Crosby Jerseys in 2007.

The coming weeks should answer these questions.

Poapst Blue Ribbon traded to St Louis

The Pens traded the first of possibly many today sending defenseman Steve Poapst to St. Louis for RW Eric Boguniecki. No word on what Bogey(?) did to deserve this fate.

PBR was mostly harmless. We'll miss his 4 assists and 10 penalty minutes.

More details

Live Blogging the Wild @ Penguins

Period 1

Shane Endicott had a terrible turnover at the blueline resulting in a breakaway goal unassisted for the Wild's Marion Gaborik in the first two minutes. Thibault settled down after that, because he had too as the majority of the play was in the Penguins zone including having to kill three penalties. Shots were Min 17 Pit 5. And those 5 came towards the end.

Vandenbussche fought with the Wild's Alex Henry toward the end of the period...well he mostly stood in front of him and blocked his punches with his face.

Overall first period was, yuck.

Period 2

The ghosts of Penguins past return to haunt the Pens as the enigmatic Alexander Daigle shoots a one timer past Thibault who has been as under siege as Falluja in this game so far.

Maybe Evgeni Malkin knew what he was doing when he chose not to join this team. He'd rather be freezing his ass in Magnatogorsk than be a part of this mess.

And just when you thought it couldn't get uglier...someone named Wes Walz scored a goal even though the Pens had 5 guys at the net.

Even Bob Errey is criticizing the Pens now. He's dead on in stating that the Pens aren't getting to any pucks. The Wild have already put 25 shots in front of Thibault and there are still 11 minutes in the second.

Edzo has called a time out, presumably to check the job postings in the Post Gazette.

...So with just over 3 minutes to go in the 2nd the Pens have almost no offense to speak of. This is really just poor. The Mellon Arena faithful were booing loudly after the 3rd goal. The team just looks really unprepared to play a professional hockey game tonight.

Period 3

So hopefully Edzo recorded the speech he gave between periods to fire up the team. So that they can destroy the tape.

Two minutes into the third, Brian Rolston puts goal number 4 behind Thibault. If you've been waiting for the Pens to hit rock bottom we may be approaching it. The next two games for the Pens are the Avalanche and the Red Wings.

I think I saw Manny Fernandez ordering a hot dog and an IC Light from a vendor...during play,

Daigle makes it 5-0. I hate that his name is spelled Daigle ryhmes with bagel but is pronounced Day-ga ryhmes with vague.

Well the Raging Bull, Manny Fernandez gets the shut out... and then his ingenious manager Paul Jones came down to the ice with a metal folding chair and ....wait that's a different Manny Fernandez.

This is as poor as the Penguins have played and given this season that's saying alot.

Mario Released from Hospital

His condition has been diagnosed as atrial fibrillation, which team General Manager Craig Patrick characterized as "a relatively common condition that can be treated with medication."

Full Story from PPG