Post Game Flower Power:

Marc-Andre Fleury was at times spectacular in last nights 4-1 win against the Carolina Tropical Storms last night. Stopping 24 out of 25, to give him #6 in save percentage #1 in saves (ouch), and #8 in save percentage in the league. In fact he was one Brooks Orpik brainfart away from a shutout. Just short of 3/4 of the way through a first period full of choppy, back and forth play, there was a 4on4. Why did E Staal and El Sid go to the bin? We don't know, because Error and Steggo were rambling about... something. But during the penalty phase, Brooks was betrayed by his stick when he whiffed on a cross-ice pass and hockey legacy Brandon Sutter picks up the gift and backhands a shot past the Flower. Brooks snaps the stick in half on the top of the goal, so it will never betray him again. Whalers: 1-0. Steggo (obviously frustrated at only being able to work 7 'Staal brother' mentions in the game so far) used this as a perfect opportunity to go into a long, rambling discourse on the history of the 9 Sutter brothers, the second generation now playing, where they all are now, what their cats are doing and something about... something. He was actually sounding like the adults in a Peanuts cartoon after a while, but the story took the rest of the period (and three shots of the 14 Sutter Brothers) to complete. (I know there were only 6, but it got a bit old after a while)
Leighton played a pretty solid game for the 'Canes and got some help from the Zebra Crew who seemed to have forgotten their whistles in the dressing room for the entire first period. The second was a much livelier period with The Tower of Flower Power making some impressive saves, getting help from Le-Tank on one Staal-Samsonov give and go play, stopping a one-timer through traffic, and making an incredible recovery, dropping his stick to stretch across the net and stopping a Samsinov wrap-around chance. What did we learn from FSN's on-ice reporter? Well we learned that Coach MT has opinions about officials not making the hooking call on El Sid's breakaway chance: "We always get an explanation, we just don't always agree with it." But what we mainly learned from the FSN crew was that Bob Errey thinks that Brooks Orpik is tougher than the boards. I like the 'folksy touch' in announcing hockey games, but sometimes this crew takes it a bit far. Where is Mike Lange when you need him? Oh yeah, he's on the TV without picture station.... I think it's time to scale back the 'Dumb down for the new fans' policy just a touch.
The third period? Crosby tips a Malkin slapper in, and keeps his mouth shut about it in case it was a high stick, Feds wrists a Staal pass into the net, Maximum 5-holes a defender and a goalie in the same rush from a Le-tank pass, and Malkin scores on an empty net off a Siddo pass. Oh yeah, and a certain Floral goalie takes a 184 foot wrist shot that bounces off line to miss the net by about 3 feet, driving the 17,000+ fans insane and nearly causing me to lose the toe my girlfriend stepped on while watching the shot. (medical report: Just a little redness, I think the toe will live)
Flower on the postgame:

Other Stuff: Mad Maximum thinks that the Igloo gives the Pens an unfair advantage, but he's cool with that. And last night saw the return of the 'French-Man-Chu' facial hair. Max probably stopped shaving at 3:00, by Saturday's game he'll look like one of the ZZ Top guys. Max also has a new car commercial. It's not quite as good as the Colby commercial, but when I find it, I'll post.
Seth, over at Empty Netters, has pics of the Student Rush line circling the arena and his usual comprehensive live blog thing going.
You can go to Cane's Country for the opposing perspective.
Milan Lucic can hit! Watching this vid of Lucic smashing Mike Van Ryn through the glass will help you understand what Maximum went through when Lucic was tee-ing off on him on Monday.

(Ed. Note: I will have something special in store for loyal readers when (not if) MAF scores his first goal. It WILL happen! -Chris)