The Train Kept A-Rollin'

No Malkin, no problem.  No Letang, no problem. Backup goaltender versus an elite Boston team, no problem.  Just what can stop the Pittsburgh Penguins in their current march through March?  As the team's current winning streak has reached nine games, practically one fifth of the abbreviated 48 game season, hockey experts across the land are taking notice of our flightless birds. 

With a perfect four point weekend, culminating with an impressive 2-1 win over a very good Bruins team, the Pens opened up a staggering twelve point lead over the Jersey Devils for the divisional title.  With only 18 games remaining in the shortened season, the Penguins are looking like a true cup contender this spring, with captain Sid Crosby looking like he may need to make some more room in his already crowded trophy case.

The recent wins have been of all types - high scoring end to ends, shootout wins, exciting come from behinds.  Oh, and as Ron Cook of  FM 93.7 The Fan just reported, the Pens became the only team in NHL HISTORY to come from behind by two or more goals and win a game in regulation after being shut out through the first 40 minutes of play, when they did so against Bruins on March 12th.  Impressive...

BACK CHECKING:

• despite my second sentence, an extended loss to Letang could prove costly.
• so just who has turned in the most delightfully surprising season thus far: Paul Martin or Chris Kunitz?
• with just nine wins to go, Marc Andre Fleury is set to join a quite exclusive club of netminders who have notched career win #250 prior to their 29th birthday.  Can you name the others?
• Beau Bennett, future Penguins star or trade deadline bait?
• when do the Mark Eaton jerseys go on sale again?

The Circus Comes To Town

What a great night of entertainment an NHL matchup of two Stanley Cup candidates can bring.  It's doubly entertaining when the game can be preceded by a bona fide circus show.  It must have been an amazingly triumphant feeling for reigning clown prince Scotty Hartnell and his throngs of orange and black clad cheese steak drooling minions last night as the buzzer sounded ending the first act of the show. The Wells Fargo faithful were treated to a big top spectacle that could rival any Ringling Brothers performance.  Not only were the Philly Flyers drubbing the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-1 on the scoreboard, they were doing it in a way that was eerily familiar for us chagrined flightless bird backers.  The unjustly dubbed Sniveling Sid Crosby was the tamed cowardly lion, netminder Marc Andre Fleury looked as graceless as the dancing bear, and James Neal in a fight, well, let's just say that a bearded lady is far more appealing (and southeastern PA has plenty of bearded ladies).

Sure, it was quite the freak show.  Unfortunately for those Philadelphians that follow the NHL's most classless act, the game is actually 60 minutes in length, not 20.

The lion hearted Crosby and his pride roared out of the visitors' locker room to start the second frame with a renewed focus and drive.  The outcome that the scoreboard revealed 40 minutes later was the reality that our Philadelphian brethren deny confronting - the Penguins are simply a more talented hockey team.  The 6-5 victory will go a long way in cementing a basic concept in the Penguins' minds - stay grounded and play solid hockey and the results will be there.  The Pens are not the outfit best suited for a rumble in the Broad Street gutter, and we all learned that lesson painfully last April.  Guys like Neal are paid to launch laser beam slapshots not fists, and certainly not at rogues like Hartnell.  The bullying needs to be left to those who have perfected the science, as Pens' coach Dan Bylsma must continually remind his squad that talent and fundamentals can and will prevail.

The circus left town last night with the lion again confirmed as jungle king, and the clown again confirmed as the lovable loser...

 

the jubilant Hartnell celebrates with the Philly crowd after first period