Voodoo Curses and Pulled Flowers:

Desperate Penguin:

Through a strange mix-up in schedule (ie: not looking at mine) I missed the game this afternoon. By all accounts, I didn't miss much but another humiliating loss to a pitiful team. Marc Andre Fleury was pulled in the first period after allowing 2 goals on 5 shots.... Sabu allows 3 goals on 12 shots in the second and Flower comes back in the third and allows 1 goal on 7 shots. That just ain't gonna cut it. Many times early in the season the Pens could pull a win out of their butts, but that just ain't happening recently. I'm not going to be one of those 'Fire or trade (insert player or coach here), and that'll fix everything' guys. The Pens are slumping, no one needs to tell you this, but there's no one thing that's going to fix everything. The Flightless ones are going to have to start winning games, and they're probably not going to win games until they believe they can. Either that, or we need to get a Witch Doctor in here to break the curse that someone has evidently put on the team. I think I can help with that:

Don't worry, she's certified, I've seen her badge.

I'm sending her right over to the Igloo, and she'll break the curse, I'm sure of it. But if anyone happens to be missing a chicken between here and the Igloo I had nothing to do with it. Now that that's taken care of, we can move on to other things.

Other Things: Sid the Battling Crosby and Geno have been named starters at the All Star Game Jan 2o-something in some Canadian city that I've never been to, but I understand they play hockey there. I turned my back on the standings for 5 minutes (I thought the voting was over) and Carey Price beat out The Tower of Flower Power for the starting goalie job. I'm sure the voting governing body (Florida State Voting Commission) had their eyes on the standings the whole time, and no hanky-panky was allowed. (I REALLY thought the voting was already over with Flower 5000 votes in the lead) I would demand a recount, but that would be just silly.

Sergei Gonchar (Sarge) started skating with the conditioning coach. There's a long way to go yet before he'll skate with the team, let alone return to the line-up, but it's a start. And let's admit it, we're looking for all the good news we can get right now. HCMT says that Sarge's return won't be for at least another month, which means next week Bob and Stogie will be speculating every game about his return for 'the next game'. Sheesh. TK did return to the line-up, but as I didn't see the game (Bad Blogger! No Doughnut!) I couldn't tell you how he did.

I was going to put in some post-game videos or some highlights, but I couldn't find anything that wouldn't make my little cartoon Penguin touch off the gasoline. Maybe after my Zombie Voodoo Witch Doctor (certified professional) has done her work. We'll see. Then again, maybe not, the Stagepenguin has already been sent over the edge:

Mr Miyagi is Not Pleased:

No, Mr. Miyagi is not pleased. Not pleased with the total breakdown of officiating in the last several games. Blatant calls missed (translate: muggings) in front of either net, phantom calls on Penguin players. I've always considered blaming losses on referees to be a cop-out. I'm not blaming the loss on the refs. The Pens lost, and the way their PP is going 5 or 6 correct calls wouldn't have changed that. But when a team, or series of teams gets the idea that calls will be edged their way, a kind of 'level the playing surface' type of officiating, then bad things are eventually going to happen. When more teams get the idea that it's ok to deck Penguins in front of the net (Chara and Wade) or that you can take advantage of an already frustrated team by slashing, interfering, or cross-checking in retaliation, and not only not get called, but get a Power Play then players are going to get injured and possibly careers are going to get cut short. (I'm not trying to sound like a drama-king, it's just the facts) There are always going to be missed calls. That's a part of every game with rules and a referee. That's not the issue here, if there were ever a perfectly called game, then people wouldn't have anything to bitch about between games. But something's not right about penalties happening right in front of referees and no calls. It's like asking one team in a game to play play-off hockey for the entire season. I don't care how talented a team is, no one can play that kind of a season. You'd best be listening Bettman, your League's meal ticket is at stake here.

Enough ranting, on with the Awards.

Assistant Goalie of the Game Award: Goes to, you guessed it, Rob Scuderi. Scuds blocked three shots in one 5 on 3 PK along with his usual tough defensive style.

First Goal of, Well, Ever Award: Dustin Jeffery on a classic wrist/rebound/stuff shot in the first period. Just like the coaches drew it up in practice.

Hardest Working Man in Show Business Award: Is the sole property of Pascal Dupuis. Super Duper has been just that in the last three games. Working his ass off and whacking that impressive slap-shot at the hapless goalies at every opportunity.

Honorable Mentions for Hardest Worker: Tim Wallace for his desire to hit everything with a heartbeat not wearing a Penguin on his sweater. And Dustin Jeffery for being a willing participant with Tim in his campaign to embed his logo in the skin of the opposing team, and with the same feckless abandon.

The Maxwell Smart "Missed it by That Much' Award: Goes to the entire Penguin offense for scaring the crap out of goal posts every time they crank up a shot. Sidney Crosby and Jordan Staal will accept the award for the Forwards.

Other Stuff: Rumors abound about the return of Tyler Kennedy, the spark plug for the third line (and the team). The FSN crew of Error and Stogie announced that Therrien mentioned that TK would be good to play sometime next week. That of course led to further speculation on their parts that it was possible that he could be seen as soon as Saturday's game against the Panthers. Tough guy Eric Godard has been mentioned about as many times in the last week as a mother's threat "The Boogie-man is going to get you' is used on an unruly child. (I have some experience there) Either could be one reason HCMT is dressing Defensemen in stead of calling up another forward from WBS.

Remember NHL refs... Mr. Miyagi will be watching you. Do not displease him.

Captain's Courageous:

Kung-Fu Penguin ready to kick Bruin butt tonight:

Dany Sabourin will be defending the net tonight, and Alex Go-Go is still shown as a 4th line winger, in what PP.com is calling a 'grudge match' at the Boston Garden. Let's check... whooped our butts in our own Igloo, phantom penalties, (which I was ready to blame Error and Stogie for missing, but I couldn't even see them on the replay), cheap shots with a lead and no time remaining in the third period. That should be enough for a totally demoralizing loss... you think there might be a bit of a grudge?

The Pens held a players-only meeting after the game Monday night. The main issue seemed to be player responsibility. By MAF: " We have a good team, and we know we can be better than we are right now. We have to find a way to win." By Brooks Orpik: "The coaches don't play. Coaches can't score goals or keep the puck out of the net. They can only give you so much." El Capitan refused much comment: "That will stay in there. That's our team and it's a closed-door thing. I don't think it's necessary to share." I just hope it wasn't just an excuse to bring dancing girls and pinatas into the dressing room for a 'Cheer Us Up' party.

Actal Hockey Stuff: The Pens announced that Ryan Whitney and Petr Syko-ra were named Revolving Alternate Captains for the month of January. Also, tucked in at the end of that article is a rather unimportant announcement that Kris Le-Tank will return to the line-up for tonight's game. I'm not sure how PPG.com could get this news out before PP.com, but there it is. The line-ups don't match... I don't know who to believe... I'm pretty sure (sort of) that the Pens won't dress 8 defensemen, but stranger things have happened. If this is true, and someone sits, I'm still going with my last prediction and guessing they'll sit Eaton. Update: PP.com finally caught up to the media and announced that Kris Le-Tank will be starting in tonight's game, and that Pens-bully Eric Godard would be a game-time decision. No word so far on what this'll do to the lines.

Update: Dustin Jeffery scored his first NHL goal tonight! Of course the Bruised turned right around and scored the tie up 2 minutes later.. but Congrats DJ!

Flower Power and Pen-kids: I can't guarantee anything about the next 5 minutes, but as of 2pm EST The Tower of Flower Power, Marc Andre Fleury was over 16,000 votes ahead of Carey Price in the All Star voting. I've seen this before... someone says MAF is in the lead, and by the time I check he's 4000 points down. So 'roll your dice and move your mice' (that's Rat-speak for 'who knows'). Voting is over tomorrow at some strange time of the day... (translation: didn't check) so get out there and Vote for Flower! (that's the most campaigning I'm gonna do)

The Trib seems to be sending out a plea to militant Pensaddicts to lay off the guys, they're just kids. They mention the fact that it's easy to forget that Jordan Staal isn't legal to buy beer in the US yet, and that expectations may be a bit large for a group of kids that averages somewhere around the same age as most colleges. Personally, I don't know what Rossi is talking about. Just because I want them to win every game I watch (ie: all of them). I don't think I'm expecting too much, am I? I only want the Pens to crush the hopes of their opponents and dominate the League in every standing. That's not unreasonable, is it? I didn't think so.

Evgeni Malkin is settling into Pittsburgh, the NHL, English and his new house. "Big house." Geno said. He likes having some hometown things with him in da Burgh, like his girlfriend, Oksana, who's staying with him and his parents, who are coming over for several extended visits. And who does the clean-up? "My girlfriend, not me. My Mom when she comes." (I know, men are men all over the world) Even though he'd still rather not do any on-camera interviews he's spending more time with the English speaking members of the team and relying less on the 2 Russian speakers in the group. (Syko and Feds). He still thinks that El Sid can have all the media attention, "Sid is good at talking English, and talking to the media. I just play hockey." I'm glad the big goof is continuing to find his comfort zone. It's already doing good things for his playing, and I'd just like to see Geno happy here. (cause that means he'll stay)

World Hockey Stuff: The Canadian Junior Hockey team trounced the US team last night, 7-4. Two empty-net goals ran up the score a bit, the game was looking like a rout the other way until Canadia stormed back in the second period. All this means so far is that Canadia gets a first-round bye and the US has to play Slovakia on Friday. But the stats are not good. I hate stats anyway.