Game tonight at Edmonton, 9:30

Go Pens

]]> http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/were-so-lazy/feed/ 0 insherowetrust Wild Flames http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/the-philadelphia-flyers-are-terrible-pens-lose-7-4/ http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/the-philadelphia-flyers-are-terrible-pens-lose-7-4/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:34:41 +0000 thechitofchat http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/?p=629 ]]>

The Pens played the Flyers tonight for the fourth time this season. They lost 7-4. Ehh.

1st Period:

At the beginning of the game, the Flyers and Pens traded chances and both Fleury and Leighton stayed strong. I remember seeing some Flyer just fall over for no reason and laughing at him.

Letang gets some revenge on Hartnell by plowing him over and then crushing Briere. Letang keeps improving as this season continues.

Sid is about to get the puck for a breakaway but Timonen sticks out his leg and trips Sid. Pens get like 20 seconds on the power play then Caputi interferes on someone and makes it 4-on-4. Letang and Sid get a 2-on-1 and Letang shoots but Leighton never gives any rebounds. Ever.

The Flyers get the rest of their like 17 second power play, and Carter scores. 1-0 Flyers Less than a minute later, van Riemsdyk scores? 2-0 Flyers

Fleury makes a toe-save somewhere in here and I remember thinking, why are the Flyers full of terrible people?

The Pens get into the Flyers’ zone, and Letang brings the puck in to the high slot and lets off a shot. Sid gets the rebound and lets off a wicked slap shot. Leighton probably crapped himself. 2-1 Flyers

Fleury stops Gagne and Carter is offsides, blah blah blah. FSN informs us that Philadelphia leads the league in penalty minutes. Does that surprise any of us? No.

Timonen takes a weird-angle shot at Fleury and it gets stuck in Fleury’s equipment…I think.

Daniel Carcillo. Okay, he looks like a petty criminal that would stake out your local convenient store and try to rob it. Actually, he probably has.

Hartnell tries to come in the zone, get past both of our defensemen, and go five-hole on Fleury. But he’s reminded that he’s not good enough for that move when Fleury simply makes the save.

The Pens get back in the Flyers’ zone and, after some passing and stuff, Billy goes past Leighton and waits until the last second to go above his left blocker. Leighton gets the glove save. Meh.

Godard takes a hi-sticking penalty and the Pens kill the majority of it. But the Carle gets the PP goal. 3-1 Flyers

Eventually, Jordan storms into the Flyers zone, probably letting off some battle cry, and gets the puck to Cooke. GOAL. 3-2 Flyers

Letang slips up and the Flyers get on a 2-on-1. Brooks lays down and poke-checks the 2-on-1. Good choice, Team USA.

2nd Period:

Pronger sucks. 4-2 Flyers Fleury gets pulled.

Letang breaks his stick trying to poke-check van Riemsdyk on a breakaway. 5-2 Flyers

Carcillo gets a puck to the face and I laughed.

At this point, I thought “A world in which the Flyers are doing good is a world that I don’t want be a part of” and “ADJLASNFKLFSD HARTNELL.”

Caputi gets the puck in our zone and passes it up to Malkin at the Flyers’ blueline. Malkin brings the puck in and somehow passes it over to Sid who goes around the net and banks the puck off of like 7 Flyers. GOAL. 5-3 Flyers Caputi with 2 pts in 2 games so far.

Letang and Hartnell both take penalties. Nothing on the 4-on-4.

Gagne definitely scores on Brentson, except the referees don’t have a clear view to call it a goal. After a review, it still is called a no-goal. Hahahahhaha.

Brentson stops like 8 shots by Hartnell and Briere and the entire Flyers team.

3rd Period:

Pens get a power play but Sid doesn’t make it back from the lockerroom in time to play on it. Potash and Steigy talk about what their going to wear on this road trip. Carter scores 6-3 Flyers Rupp scores his 11th goal of the season 6-4 Flyers Richards with the empty netter 7-4 Flyers

Let’s Go Pens

The Penguins ended their losing streak last night with a 5-2 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers. No matter how pathetic the Thrashers are, it felt great to get a win.

This is trash. Here goes…

- Kris Letang scored his second goal of the year. Good for him. He played an outstanding game. I have not been one of the many people criticizing Letang (Okay, that’s not true. I criticize him every time he steps on the ice, but that’s only to make TheFifthStaal angry). The fact of the matter is he is a defensemen first and the kid is a +6. He will start scoring. There’s no question.

- Jordan Staal had two goals last night and did basically everything to try to get the HT. Staal has been insane. Your loss, Team Canada. Your loss.

- Fedotenko also scored last night. He crashed into the net sometime later and it looked extremely painful.

- In his first game with the Pens, Luca Caputi notched his first goal. We all remember last season when Caputi scored on his first shift in his first game. Once again, he’s quick to impress. When I heard he got the call, I knew Caputi wouldn’t waste any time making an impact. Therefore, I put him as my Extra Attacker before the game. x14. Boom.

- Incase you were wondering, Letang and Staal were also in my Extra Attacker. Successful night.

Other crap…

> Team USA won the gold last night in their game against Canada. Trying to flip back and forth between the Pens game and the WJC was NEARLY impossible. It was an amazing game and I’m unbelievably thrilled for the U.S. It makes the wait for February 12th seem even longer. With the U17 also winning gold, completing the gold medal hattrick would be insane. No pressure.

I could watch this video every day. Hurry up, February 12th.

> From what I’m hearing from my twitter feed, Alyonka is no longer working for the Penguins. This is unfortunate because unlike every other girl with Alyonka’s job, she at least knew and loved hockey. And she speaks Russian and that’s pretty sweet. Thanks for the awesome music video, Alyonka.

> Obviously Chris Kunitz is out of the line up. We probably should’ve mentioned that earlier. He’ll miss 4-6 weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a torn abdominal muscle. Gonchar has also been out of the line up, but is due to return shortly.

> Our thoughts and prayers go out to Eric Staal and his family during this difficult time. (Canes)

> Pretty sure there’s nothing else to say…

Go Pens

To be honest, every writer of this blog was watching Avatar as the Pens slowly got beaten down by the Florida Panthers.

Should this loss and the fact that we chose a theater showing that started halfway through the game sit heavy on our conscience?

It could, but it doesn’t.

I’ve had people come up and say to me that the Pens suck. Granted, losing 6 of the last 7 games, I understand why they may feel that way.

That being said, this is only a small portion of the season. And the Pens have the talent and the ability to easily bounce back. If we do continue with this garbage play, look what happened last time we went through a slump. We came back, raped a whole lot of teams, and became very well acquainted with Lord Stanley.

So am I worried? Not at all.
We have two of the best players in the world.
We have an unreal coaching staff.
We’re the defending Stanley Cup Champions.

Back to the game:

Being up by two goals seems nice. And it is as long as the team doesn’t sit back after scoring those two goals. As Bob Errey has told me time and time again, you have to keep putting pressure on after those two goals or the other team will take advantage of you.

This is the only part of the game I watched (Avatar).

The only way we’re hearing about this game is through mobile alerts and tweets so bear with this awful recap:

First goal — Kennedy shot slips passed Vokoun  – 1-0 Pens

Sid picked up a loose puck and wristed one from the right circle – 2-0 Pens

With about a minute left in the first, Leotard gets one past Fleury – 2-1 Panthers

…then it starts going downhill…

Here, we are watching supposedly one of the best movies of all time and all of a sudden…We get like 20 mobile updates. Every one being about another Panthers goal:

2-2 (Dvorak), 3-2 (Olesz), 4-2 (Reinprecht), 5-2 (Dvorak)

Then, Dvorak put another one behind Fleury (for the hatty) and I put my 3D glasses back on and vommed a little bit.

It sucks to lose.  Whatevs.

OTHER CRAP

- So excited for the Olympics. Here are some of the rosters:
USA, Canada, Finland, Germany, Czech, Sweden

- Danny B on the Pens play:
“The guys in that (locker) room, the coaching staff, we are the guys who are going to get out of it,” Bylsma said. “We have a clear understanding of what that’s going to look like. Right now, it has to be us together. You have to focus on doing that over and over again, to play a certain way, executing a certain way. That becomes who you are regardless of what the score is. It’s a perspective we have to understand.” (.)

- I wish I lived in Pandora. And that I had a Mountain Banshee.

Congratulations to Brooks Orpik for being named to Team USA.

December and January are pretty exciting months for me. Obviously there is Christmas and New Years, but my birthday is also in January. This year, I couldn’t have cared less for any of those. I was anticipating Team USA’s roster more than any of these days combined. After going to bed at 5AM last night (this morning, whatever), I woke up numerous times thinking of different things. One of them being “I wonder who Burke will name captain and alternates?” Being that I wasn’t nearly sane at this time in the morning, I was unable to come up with any rational ideas.

Incase you weren’t aware, Brooks Orpik is my favorite Penguin (And basically favorite player in the entire NHL. Plus Teemu). I am unbelievably thrilled for him. I am also thrilled for the Team USA in general. Although it’s not Team Canada or Team Russia, we do have some talent. It’ll be great to watch them play.

There’s a very, very good chance by the end of February we will have some players with gold medals. What an unbelievable accomplishment it will be for any and all of them.

My Orpik jersey order goes in tomorrow.

Go Pens.

We forgot about this blog.

Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas.

TheFifthStaal was supposed to take care of the game on Thursday, but we were too distracted by taking both games from the Flyers this week, so we forgot about this. Just go re-read the last post and pretend it was about Thursday. It’s good enough for us.

So on to tonight…the Pens took on the Buffalo Sabres for the first time this season.

Also– Talbot in, Godard out.

1st Period:

Kaleta gets things going by interfering on Fleury about 2 minutes into the game. The Pens did go 3-for-9 on the powerplay in the last two games against the Flyers, but this powerplay was dirt because the Sabres defense isn’t as terrible as the Flyers.

Orpik takes a penalty for interference, but the Pens penalty kill is reliable and can always create some shorthanded opportunities. Before the Pens can kill this, Letang gets out on our PK and takes a hooking penalty. But the Pens survive the Sabres 5-0n-3.

The Sabres pummel Fleury with some shots and get the rebound to Pominville who puts a wrist shot past Fleury.  1-0 Sabres

Just as we have come to expect, the Pens go crazy in the last minute of the period. Billy gets the puck to Sid who almost dekes around Lalime. Sid goes to the boards to get the puck out to Kunitz, who’s waiting to score from around the left faceoff circle. 1-1

2nd Period:

Nothing really happens until Kunitz gets a quick shot off at Lalime. And even that wasn’t really anything.

Mike Rupp and some Sabre run into Lalime and almost decapitate him, so we have to wait to make sure he’s okay.

The Pens twitter alerts always have something to say about every play: “Fleury with a great save on MacArthur! Remember that one in the 3rd period.” So, remember that save in the 3rd period, guys.

Cooke comes up the left wing, and passes over to Letang who loves being a forward. Letang almost goes five-hole on Lalime.

Rivet runs into Malkin (maybe? i dont remember) and takes a tripping penalty. And even though the Pens look much better on this powerplay than last period, they still don’t come out with anything.

Staal comes into the Sabres’ zone with Talbot and waits until the last minute to make a play with him. They get THIS CLOSE to scoring, ahhh.

McKee takes a penalty for roughing and then Tim Kennedy takes a penalty for tripping. Nothing happens on either.

Kunitz comes up the left wing with Staal on a 2-on-1. Staal takes a pass from Kunitz and hits the post. Pens are getting great chances this period.

I don’t remember at which point, but Eaton went into the boards behind Fleury and was out for the remainder of the 2nd period.

3rd Period:

I don’t know in what order most of this stuff happened because I was making food so…

The Pens and Sabres swap chances for the entire 3rd. Malkin takes a penalty for _____, and as soon as the Pens kill it, Malkin gets called again for 2 minutes for touching the puck before his feet were out of the penalty box. As expected, Staal gets 54 shorthanded chances.

Rupp draws a holding penalty (furthering the theory that he’s our franchise center), but the Pens can’t get anything.

Sid checks Grier into the boards. Grier almost died or something.

Orpik with a penalty for holding, MacArthur with a penalty for high-sticking, and Cooke with a penalty for interference. Pens and Sabres kill their penalties and Coach Dan even tries to argue Cooke’s hit on C____ (whats his name? no idea)…

OT:

Not a lot happens until 3:17 when Go-Go takes a penalty for high-sticking. Am I the only one that always envisions out-of-the-box breakaways whenever we get a penalty? Even if it’s someone like Brooks Orpik? Example: Hal Gill.

Staal, Adams, and Gonchar on this 4-on-3 is insane. Period. The Pens kill this and Sid almost redirects a Malkin slapshot past Lalime. T reminded me of that Sabres game last season when Go-Go scored twice in the 3rd to tie the game and Sid redirected the OT winner from Malkin. Anyways…

Shootout:

Letang gets the lone shootout winner, and Fleury stops all three shooters (including an incredible poke-check) for the Sabres. WIN. 6-0 in shootouts. Wooooh.

]]> http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/pens-beat-sabres-2-1/feed/ 0 thechitofchat Sabres 12-19 Sid Running Sabres 12-19 Staal Sabres 12-19 Flower Sabres 12-19 Letang http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/philadelphia-sucks-pens-beat-flyers-6-1/ http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/philadelphia-sucks-pens-beat-flyers-6-1/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:05:10 +0000 temoosalami http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/?p=571 ]]>

Tuesday night marked the first time this season that the Flyers would enter the Mellon Arena. This was a game that no one needed to say anything to get excited about it. They already were. Playing Philadelphia, you always no you’re going to get a rough, hard-hitting, dirty game. But then sometimes they forget to score goals and you’re ahead by five in the end.

Jordan Staal was once again unreal for the Pens tonight. In conversation with someone recently, they mentioned how we need to trade Staal. Obviously I punched them in the face, but before that, I explained that Staal is such an asset to our team that it’s actually unreal. To have Crosby, Malkin, Staal centering your top three lines is frightening for me, let alone all opposing teams. Not only is he an outstanding two-way player, he has a ferocious yell in his goal celebrations that, if standing too close, would probably attack you and steal your soul. Scary, but true.

Max Talbot was scratched for tonight’s game. This was controversial to some, but really what do you do? Everyone is playing great. And scratching Eric Godard in a game verse barbaric animals is pretty much out of the question. Whatevs. Max got to rest and the Pens owned.

First Period

The Penguins quickly got their first Power Play chance a few minutes into the game. The unit they sent out was without Matt Cooke which is what they have been practicing. Didn’t matter. Gonchar got a shot off that was blocked by a body and rebounded right to Sid. Sidney Crosby capitalizes on everything and makes the score 1-0.

Listening to Mike Emrick literally makes me want to kill myself. I’m sorry. I just can’t stand him.

Then, as we all expected, our first fight of the night happens. Mike Rupp drops the gloves with Arron Asham.

Not to be out done, literally eight seconds later Godard drops the gloves with stupid Riley Cote.

The only problem I had with this fight was that I wasn’t the one punching Riley Cote in the face. That’s what I want for Christmas.

Next play, Adams decides to join in on the fun and drops the gloves with Daniel Carcillo. Props to Adsies for this one. Carcillo is disgusting. I wouldn’t have wanted to touch him. He should probably get tested for STDs.

Okay.

Back in our zone, Richards’  shot is turned away by Fleury. Orpik gets the puck and passes it up to Crosby, Sid gets the shot off, Boucher can’t keep it under his pads as Billy pokes it through. 2-0.

The Igloo is pretty much crazy at this point.

Later, Carter hits the goal post. Haha, Carter. Haha.

At some point, the Flyers had numerous chances in a row. Hartnell gets a shot off that’s blocked by Fleury. Then Gonchar makes a great defensive play and pokes the puck away from Briere. Take note, Mike Green. OFFENSIVE DEFENSEMAN.

Carcillo scores on a while Malkin was in the box for the Pens and then continues to jump onto the glass like an idiot. 2-1. A crew of people came out to scrub that sheet of glass with bleach before any play continued.

Then, soon after, Malkin goes off once again. Orpik gets the puck to Cooke who then hands it off to Staal. Staal skates through the neutral zone into the Flyers end and rips it past the glove side of Boucher. 3-1.

This is Jordan Staal’s 2nd SH goal of the season, 10th of his career.

Second Period

Second period starts and the Penguins had quite a few chances.

Danny Briere had a chance somewhere in there. But Danny Briere sucks.

Later, Goligoski has a nice chance, but nothing. Then Staal makes Hartnell look like a joke, gets the puck and passes it up to Sid. Sid gets it in front of the net to Tanger. Letang shoots, rebound Staal. 4-1.

Fedotenko goes off for boarding Carcillo. Hate hate hate.

Carcillo then forgets that he’s playing hockey and kicks the puck into the goal. No big celebration after that? Idiot.

Third Period

Stuff happens that isn’t worth writing about. Rupp and Dupuis each had a chance. Story of their lives. Always creatin’ chances.

Then Godsies flips the puck up to the neutral zone, Malkin grabs it and drop passes to Feds. Slapper. 5-1.

Find your own picture.

Then with little time left, Godard went to the box for roughing. A shot was deflected wide and rimmed around the boards to Malkin. Malkin decides Staal wasn’t the only one scoring a SHG tonight and gets it past Boucher.

6-1 Game.

Random Crap

> Orpik killed Giroux sometime after the Malkin goal. He was also the 3rd star(2A). USA.

> Billy Guerin went off after blocking a shot off his skate. He said he’s fine. Good.

> The Capitals scored six goals in their game against the Avalanche. Alexander Semin, you worthless human being. You couldn’t even get ONE POINT!? Your one shot on goal and two penalty minutes did BARELY ANYTHING for my fantasy team. Stupid.

> The Penguins play tomorrow night in Philly. I’m disgusted even thinking about it. Go Pens.

]]> http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/philadelphia-sucks-pens-beat-flyers-6-1/feed/ 1 temoosalami Flyers 10-15 Staal Short Handed 2 Flyers 10-15 Fight Flyers 10-15 Guerin Flyers 10-15 Staal Bench Flyers 10-15 Staal Goal Flyers 10-15 Sign http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/genooooo-pens-win-3-2/ http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/genooooo-pens-win-3-2/#comments Sun, 13 Dec 2009 05:33:26 +0000 thechitofchat http://insherowetrust.wordpress.com/?p=563 ]]> The Pens beat the Panthers tonight at Mellon Arena, 3-2.

For the third time this season against Florida, it took overtime to decide the game.

The Pens wore their blue jerseys tonight…whatever.

Jeff Jimmerson didn’t sing the National Anthem. What’s that all about? Get these other girls out of here.

Also, Kunitz was in and Godard was out.

1st Period:

Cooke, Staal, and TK take the opening faceoff with a decent shift.

ICING. Sid comes out with Billy and Malkin, and Malkin creates some offense.
But the Panthers get the puck and bring it back for Brentson who gloves it.

Rupp gets out for a shift and I obviously expect him to score a goal.

Malkin, Fed, and Dupuis come out for a great shift. I love watching this line.
Fed has been THIS CLOSE to a goal for the past half a dozen games or so.
Naturally, I have been calling a goal by Fed for every one of those games. Including the one tonight.

Sid gets out with Billy and Kunitz. Sid has some legitimate chances, but one shot goes wide of the net and Vokoun gloves the other.
I forget how much I hate Vokoun’s glove until we play the Panthers.

Rupp gets called for hooking at 11:28.
Is it a coincidence that when Staal finishes his shift on the penalty kill, the Panthers score? No, it isn’t. Reinprecht with the goal from Olesz and Dvorak. 1-0 Panthers

Malkin, Staal, and TK come out for a shift.
Malkin lets a Panther win the faceoff to skate past him for the puck. I love that move.

Goligoski gets the puck from the Penguin’s zone and passes it up to Adams.
Adams passes the puck over to Dupuis coming into the Panthers zone on the left wing.
A Panther falls over (hahahaaa) and The Duper gets past him to put one home. 1-1

Phenomenal work these past few games, Dupuis.

A few shifts later, Sid gets a nice pass to Billy who gets a shot off that leaks through Vokoun’s pads.
No ones there for puck. Whatevs.

The rest of the period, a whole bunch of crap happens.

Sid and Ballard start getting pushy and Sid slashes him (what else is new?).
But they stopped because Sid probably didn’t want to get his head whacked off.

With 3:09 left in the 1st, Duco gets 2 minutes for cross-checking while Malkin gets 4 minutes for a double minor high-sticking.
TK serves 2 of Malkin’s penalty minutes. Nothing happens.

Allen takes 2 minutes for interference near the end of the period.

2nd Period:

The penalty from Allen carries over to the second but the Pens can’t generate anything.

Malkin gets on somewhat of a breakaway sometime around here but gets nothin’.

Kunitz takes a penatly for hooking at 15:00. Pens kill it.

Orpik nails Dvorak, and I smile.

Pens still keep getting chances, but Vokoun’s glove continues to ruin my life.
Fedotenko soon takes care of this.
Rupp gets the puck to Malkin who passes it across the crease for Fed to tap it in backdoor. 2-1 Pens

The Panthers continue to put up a fight.
Olesz misses a wide open net that would have tied the game.
McKee saves everyones’ lives when he lays down to block a shot. What a player.

At 4:38, Repik takes a penalty for high-sticking and the Pens get on the power play.
The Pens still can’t get anything going. The Panthers kill it.

Once again, Orpik nails Dvorak. And once again, I smile.

3rd Period:

Only about 2 minutes in, McCabe cross-checks Rupp’s face into the glass, putting us onto yet another power play.
Pens still got nothin’.

McCabe gets an out-of-the-box breakaway, but Brentson makes the save.
The rebound goes out to Weiss.
Brentson tries for the poke-check, but Weiss finds the back of the net. 2-2

At 12:37, Frolik takes a penalty for hooking.
Pens are now 0/5 on the power play this game.

Orpik levels Frolik in front of the Panther’s bench.
That had to have been the sandwich of the game.

Someone gets on a breakaway and Brenston makes the save to keep the game tied.
Goligoski displays some nice puck management to get the puck out of the blue paint.

McCabe gets called for interference and the Pens are now 0/6 on the power play this game.
Gonchar gets called for holding. Gonchar getting called for a penalty should be illegal.

OT:

Staal drives to the net and draws a holding penalty from Leopold.
He leads the Pens in penalties drawn.

The Pens go on the power play 30 seconds into overtime.

GENOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 3-2 Pens

MISCELLANEOUS:

- Orpik led the team in hits tonight with 7.

- Dupuis and Malkin both scored their 9th goals of the season, tied with Rupp for 2nd most on the team.

- Toronto came back from an 0-2 deficit to beat Washington 6-3 tonight. Thank you, Toronto.

- Pens had 41 shots tonight, giving them 128 shots in just 3 games against Florida this season. Awesome?

- I could complain about our power play right here, but I’m not going to. The Pens will work it out.