Happy Birthday Flowers:

For those of you that don't know (and if you don't, where have you been?) today is Marc Andre Fleury's 25th birthday. And what do you get the goaltender on your list who has almost everything a goaltender could want? Kris Le-tank and Alex Go-Go Gadget Goal for his defenders. That's right, tonight against the NY Raggers two of the much beleaguered FPL are back in the line-up. Which, I think tips the scales in the Penguin's favor.


I took a look back at some of the stories I've accumulated over the last year and PPG writer Dejan Kovacevic said just about everything you need to know about Marc-Andre's personality back in 2003, and I thought I'd dig that back up for ya. And for you stat-mongers out there, here's about every stat you could ever want on the Tower of Flower Power.


I'd like to take this opprotunity to thank Andre and France for getting together in a biblical way 25 years and 9 months ago (give or take a few days either way)
BTW... thank you Ginette Bibeau for being Flower's first goalie coach and shooting pucks at him up against your garage.

Thanks to Craig Patrick who drafted him and Mario Lemieux who let him stay at the Les Magnifique Inn for the first couple of years. (he already got you guys something nice last year)

More to come after the game:

Slashed and Thrashed:

2 steps forward, one step back. Get Sarge and Maximus back in the line-up and loose our Super-Secret second goalie, Mc-keester. Guys were out of sinc, Flower run out of the net Eaton was out of Doan's Pills, it was just a slow-motion nightmare train wreck of a game and I'm just going to act like an ostrich until this kind of thing stops happening.

Thrashed on Sat. The Moose and Colby and Kovalchuk and Kozlov. They're on a winning jag and we're..... well, we're not. Something's got to kick that power play in the ass. I've got it! Someone get me Il Poppa's number and we'll have him bless El Sid's stick again. Gotta do something, I'm running out of MOM and the liquor store's all out of Stoli.

Thank you, Your Holiness... There are no Pagans in Penalty Boxes.

Ouch! That Hurts! Ahhh, That's Better:

It's getting to be especially difficult tuning in to Penguins games recently. Not just because they've lost four in a row, and not just because it seems like somewhen around the last Ice Age since the Pens scored 2 goals in the same game. It's just that it seems like every time the guys take the ice, someone leaves early and we don't see them again for 2-3 weeks. Maximus, Sarge, Geno, Kennedy, Orpik, Le-tank, and now Kunitz. You could add a couple of boozed up Parking attendants, 2 Giant Iggle bag-boys and a third grade class from any local grade school and field a team that has a good shot to make the play-offs. Geno will play tonight and Max and Sarge are skating with the team and should be back in the next couple of weeks, but I don't have a large enough supply of antacids to go through the same kind of slump that the team went through last Dec-Feb. There's been a run on them for some strange reason. Oh, and to add to the fun-ness the Pens are playing the Broons tonight, a team that shut them out not 4 days ago. (Where's that MOM and break out the Stoli) I think we've all noticed the weakness of an offensively minded system. It's tough to 'plug-in' substitutions when this many of your major weapons are sidelined. There's no 'system' in the world that can stand up to having basically a line and a half of your top players sitting in Mario's box during the game. Flower told NHL.com's Sam Kasan, "I think we have the players in here that can turn this thing around and get some wins. Last year we had a tough stretch and we made it through and went all the way. It's a long season. We've got to make sure we deal with it well. We come to the rink. We practice hard." That, and getting some of these guys back should do it, I think. Now on to Other Things:

Other Things: Last week CTV's Olympic page was reporting that Stevie Y is seriously considering adding a Tower of Flower Power to his Oly line-up. It seems as though Yserman considers Flower's 'stock' to be on the rise especially with Luongo having his ribs BBQ'ed a couple of weeks ago and then Flu on top of that, limiting his playing time and with Mason and Ward both having their problems this season. Steve was busy with that Hall of Fame thing and a meeting with his Oly committee, but that didn't keep him from reminding everyone at least twice that he doesn't really have to say anything until late December.... Thanks Steve, we were hoping you'd forget that one.

Kunitz' replacement tonight will be Mark Letestu, and for those of you who don't remember (or can't pronounce) his name I've combed Faceoff Factor's Player Bio section to give you some insight. Basically he's touted as a Kuni-like player without the same disregard for his own personal safety. Although how a guy could wear Scary Gary's old number and not automatically be considered tough is beyond me. Also here's a YouTube of him scoring a goal playing for the Baby Pens.

So, I've asked the priesthood if they would say a few words about tonight's game and what I got was.....

I'm sure the Scotch had nothing to do with that...... LET'S GO PENS!!!!!! See? I did it and I can't even stand scotch. lol

I'm going to put the 'Let's go Pens!' pic up on every post from now until the next ice age.

0.4 SECONDS LEFT BILLY GUERIN YOU ARE A HERO!!!!!!!!! And Jordan Staal is one sneaky Canadian. Sliding up the boards and swiping the puck that Thomas left like a used hamburger behind the net. Oh wow what a game.... I'm completely out of Milk of Magnesia and Stoli.... wow what a win....

The Nameless Post:

I know they can't win every one, but damn, I hate when they lose. I REALLY hate when they lose like that. If ever y'all wondered how all those other teams' fans felt when the Pens blew them out of the water in the third period.... now you know. It was like watching a Pens game through some alternative-universe space/time vortex. I'm going to bed and hoping this all is a bad dream that the team will wake up from Saturday night when they face the Sharks.... mmmmmm seafood.