Second Stars and Flower Children:

Marc Andre Fleury grabbed the 2nd star of the week with a 3-0-0 record 92 out of 97 saves, 1.63 goals against, and a .948 save percentage. What all those numbers mean is that The Flower kicked some serious enemy ass this week to keep the Pens in the Play-Off race. Some Carolina dude named Staal (did you know he has brothers?) took the first star, and some other guy in Columbus named Nash rounded out the top three. I know


Flower's the important one, but they insisted on adding those other two guys for some reason.




Flower Power 1/2 Hour: For those of you that missed Saturday's showing, or Sunday's re-run of Inside Penguin's hockey, I'll post it, probably next Monday when it's put on PP.com. Flower was having a good time answering the kid's questions, and frankly I thought they were better than the usual run of questions they get from the adults. But the crowning event of the night was The Tower of Flower Power in blond fright-wig and cheap shades at the drums with 4 kids, calling themselves the 'Flower Children' (I didn't think he had any... ) playing Guitar Hero. Flower isn't going to challenge any of the Titans of the game, but it looked like he was having a blast. The kids looked like they were having fun too, except that one kid playing the bass, he was very serious about the game. I think it took away from his style points, but what do I know? (Oh yeah... STAGE-ratt, I do know something about it)


Time at the Tone Will Be...: Bill Guerin has played 1,170 games as of Sunday, but he thinks he might have a few more left in him. I think so too. After the last two games I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, anyway.

Don't Look Ethel!: Remember when I said I wasn't going to look at the standings anymore? Well.... I lied.(you didn't believe I really wouldn't, did you?) The NY Raggers and the Hurried-canes play tonight and I'm just baffled who to root for, ya know? If the Rags win, that puts them 2 points ahead of the Pens, but if Carolina wins they're ONE POINT AHEAD ! You see my dilemma. Of course that will take away the game-in-hand that the Rags have and keep the Pens in 8th place because we have more wins. And if Carolina loses in overtime, they'll be tied with Florida and the Pens, but the Cats will have 2 games-in-hand, and the Pens will have 1 game-in-hand so the standings won't change. Are you confused yet? I know I am.... sheesh.

Don't Unpack Quite Yet: In the ever-widening black hole that appears and disappears behind NHL benches and sucks down coaches, yet another 'winning' coach has been canned by his team. Guy Carbenneau of the 5th place (at least for the next couple of hours) Montreal Canadiens has been sacked by the guy that is replacing him behind the bench. GM Bob Gainey, who played his entire career for the Habs fired Carbonneau today and will host his first practice tomorrow morning. Guy, I tried to tell ya not to unpack, didn't I? Those HC contracts should read: "3 years, or until we need someone to blame a couple of crappy games on." They're dropping like flies, folks.