One Down, ? to go:

UPDATED: The NHL has suspended Carcillo for his asinine hit on Maximus during the last minute of Wed. game 1. It seems that having the Commish in the stands during a mugging might be a good thing after all. It's clearly a statement to the Phlyers not to pull this kind of crap at the end of a game just because they're losing. Long live Dur HockeyFuhrer!... .

Marc Andre Fleury and the Penguins can do the Happy Dance of the First Game after defeating the Phlyers 4-1. The Flower stopped 26-27 and he and his well trained posts made some spectacular saves. The Phylthy's came out to try to establish their game and ran straight into Chris Kunitz.... several times..... hard. In the battle of imposing wills the Pens won hands down. Not even the notorious 'if you're winning we'll just try to beat you up' strategy did them any good. Unless Hartnell and Lupul just needed some alone time and so rushed out to get a penalty. The end of the third period was ridiculous with the Phlyers taking 5 penalties in the last two minutes including one game misconduct (Hartnell) and one fighting major( Coburn). If this were any other team there would be talk of suspensions, but 'It's just the way the Flyers play' is used as a get out of trouble free card. And they're pulling this crap in front of Herr Betman, Hockey Fuhrer. Someone needs to take Hartnell aside and calmly explain to him that's not the way hockey is played around here. I nominate Eric Godard as our professor of hockey etiquette. Don't be too surprised to see God-ly in Friday's line-up, and if that happens Mrs. Hartnell's baby boy had best be absent from class that day. I know that was spiteful and vindictive, but I'm ok with that.

Think about this: You watch Evgeni Malkin do something spectacular, the camera pans into the stands and there are Mamma and Pappa Geno up there having a blast. The folks all around them all know who they are and treat them so nicely. As if to thank them for combining their DNA to form a hockey hero. Here they are, 10,000 miles away from home, and they're treated like hometown folks. Every time you see them in the stands it looks like the people around them have already invited them into their homes for some after-game perogies and an Iron City. When I moved here I had some trouble convincing people that Mario Lemieux wasn't actually born in Pittsburgh, so he couldn't technically be called a 'Pittsburgh's own'. I foresee the same difficulty in a few years with Geno. He and his family have been adopted by the town and that is so cool. 4 years ago no one in da'Burgh could even pronounce Magnitogorsk, and now quite a few of them even know where it is.

Mort to come as vids are updated and it occurs to me to do something with them....