Saturday, November 28, 2009

Peepin' Foes: Pittsburgh Penguins

The Blueshirts are right back in action Saturday night in Pittsburgh to faceoff against Cosby and company at 7:30 on MSG.

Where We Are: Coming off of a horrific, disappointing loss, so either a team with a shattered confidence or with something to prove. From all indications in recent history, I would say the former.

Where They Are: Pittsburgh too either has a shattered confidence or with something to prove after losing to the Islanders - the Islanders - Friday, 3-2. Granted, it was their second loss in their last seven games so perhaps they won't be too despondent. Damn.

Who To Watch For: You know the names, they are obnoxious just the same. Crosby, Malkin, Guerin, Gonchar, Cooke, Fedotenko ... even that idiot former Devil Mike Rupp. Doubtful we will face the injured Chris Kunitz, Kris Letang, Alex Goligoski or Jay McKee. Check that, Goligoski and Letang will be back. Dammit.

What To Watch For: Chris Bourque, Ray's older son, has three assists in 18 games this season; the Rangers being the Rangers, he should score. Brent Johnson started vs. the Isles so we will get the Day Glo smile of Marc-Andre Fleury. See if Prospal/Gaborik can take advantage of the new parts to the Pittsburgh blueline kids Deryk Engelland and Ben Lovejoy and former Colorado Cup winner Martin Skoula. Brashear to battle Eric Godard in a foolish attempt at revenge for Godard's win in the season-opener.

What We'll (Hopefully) See: The Blueshirts to leave the laziness in the sunshine of Florida and play hockey. The trend of Rangers standing up for each other to continue. Someone to knock Crosby out for the season. Bobby Sanguinetti to play better - he clearly looked nervous in his debut, although he had the team falling apart around him so it wasn't entirely his fault. Ryan Callahan to score again. Sean Avery to out-Avery Matt Cooke. Our Staal to be better than theirs.

Also Check Out: With the bandwagon as big as it ever was, the Pens blogosphere is booming but the best of the best is Empty Netters (the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's stellar link-happy blog), the snarky photoshop-heavy awesomeness of The PensBlog and SBN's Pensburgh.

3 comments:

Faraway Fan said...

Here's hoping they got a good night's sleep - what a goddam mess.

Andrea said...

Optimism!!!

I'm contractually obligated to be the optimist around here. Let's see how it goes . . .

Anonymous said...

Scotty your blog is awesome, it entertains me daily but I would completely understand if you just declined to comment on this last game. If you just went out drinking and forgot all about it, that would be the responsible thing to do at this point.... FUCK!!!!