Thursday, October 30, 2008

But It's a Dry Heat:


The Pens, (for all of you staying up into the wee hours) take on the Arizona Desert Dogs tonight. Marc-Andre Fleury is slated to guard the net, but from there? To quote the song, it's a long and winding road. Therrien is shuffling lines like a Vegas black jack dealer, in the hope that someone (or more than one someone) will actually score a goal.
The lines, in no particular order:
Crosby-Feds-Kennedy,
Malkin-Cooke-Sykora,
Staal-Satan-Minard,
and Talbot-Ziggy-Goddard.
Defense--
Orpik-Scuds
Eaton-Le-tank
Sydor-Go-Go
Also in the same article, Pascal Dupuis was hurt, and left practice after being hit by a puck, so we're still waiting for updates on that. Mad Max is still out, and they're still not telling us why. Chris Minard was just called-up from the Baby-Pens, so that may tell us something about Maximus right there. Or it just may say something about an embarrassing 11 shots on goal tues. night. (I think the less said about that, the better)
Later Edit: Seth at Empty Netters and PP.com are reporting that Gill, the human sequoia, and Mad Maximum are playing, but Dupuis is out. Also Chris Minard is wasting no time jumping into the Sanbox.. PP.com is saying that he'll play, and that Biz will sit. Of course that's just their guess. I guess Therrien has added juggling to his shuffling..... sheesh.
I was told that some 'Burgh station somewhere was forwarding the rumor that Jordan Staal (did you know he has brothers?) was on the block to be traded to the Thrashers for Ilya Kovalchuk. This is rumor crammed together with speculation. While it is true that there are rumors that the Thrashers are looking to trade Ilya and speculation that the Pens won't be able to cover a 4-5 mil offer sheet if Staal goes RFA, no one has stuck these two together other than this one radio station that shall remain nameless. (but I think it rhymes with 105.9 The Tex).
Forbes-ish news: More than half of the teams in the League are worth more than that Flightless Arctic Bird team you hear so much about. The Pens came in 18th in projected worth. But it's had the highest percentage increase in value, 26% increase over last year.
Other League News: Daniel Alfredsson, hero of stage, screen, song and ... Sweden, will be staying in Ottowa for the next few years after signing a four year extension today. I only mention this because TFS is strong in the Swedish polls... or meatballs, I get those confused.
If you're in the mood for Irish sounding hockey players, Brendan Shanahan is now on the market to whichever team will pony up the dough. After waiting for 3 months for the Rags to get off their butts, Shanny has had enough, and has told his agent to solicit offers from other teams.

6 comments:

ali said...

I'd rather have Staal than Kovulchuk...

The same thing will happen with Kovulchuk that happened with Hossa --

The game last night -- what I saw of it, since GameCentre Live was playing it free last night, their servers were a piece of crap and couldn't handle the pressure... paying customers like myself were left out to dry -- was horrible. Something needs to change. Ugh.

Jill said...

Nothing quite like staying up until 1 AM to watch them lose 4-1. Thank god its only October.
give Staal some time Im not jumping on the trade staal bandwagon yet. Were what 11 games into the season..

Solid work here, go fleury. go pens

stagerat said...

October is the time to be full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing. (classical reference, cool huh?) I see Staal in a similar boat as Malone was in last year. If he and the Pens do well, he'll have some big offers and the Pens won't cover the offer sheet, mostly because they know to the penny how much he's worth to this team, and they won't go over that.

Nulpher said...

Its not just Staal, but most of the team. If the problem were only Staal, we would not have a pitiful SOG count/high Shots against stat.

Right now, the only players that are playing lights out is our goaltenders. Fleury has been playing on acid, and Sabourin so far is playing lights out. Our nettenders are trying to keep us in it and the rest of the team isn't taking advantage.

stagerat said...

sad but true.... I don't think anything will actually come of it. But it will all depend on how they finish the season. I imagine that's partly what Staal is waiting for before negotiating his extension.

stagerat said...
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