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NHL Trade Deadline Predictor Extraordinaire Contest

Shero Don’t Be A Hero

By Phil Krundle

Friday, February 5, 2010 1:58 pm

With all of the trades around the NHL right now, most by two “Old School” GM’s Brian Burke & Darryl Sutter, it would be easy for Ray Shero to get caught up in the madness and trade away the Penguins future for another shot at winning the Cup. A little Pittsburgh Penguins history lesson might cure him of that and hopefully he will keep together what could be an incredible Pittsburgh future. These young players should be deemed Untouchable: Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, Letang, Goligoski, Staal

In 1991 Craig Patrick made arguably the best trade in Pittsburgh Penguins history getting Ron Francis, defensemen Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings for John Cullen, winger Jeff Parker and defenseman Zarley Zalapski. Whether or not this was what enabled the Penguins to win the cup in 1991 is open for speculation, but most around the league deemed it to be the reason. As a matter of fact Hartford Whaler play by play announcer Chuck Kaiton had heard all the talk about how Eddie Johnson was going to put together a Stanley Cup team “He didn’t tell us it was going to be in Pittsburgh.” Chuck Said.

At the time of winning the Cup in Pittsburgh the Penguins had on their team what would be an unprecedented 6 players that would finish in the top 15 All Time Scorers in NHL history. Five of them in or before their prime. Ron Francis, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Paul Coffey, Mark Recchi and Brian Trottier. The only team anywhere close to this was the Edmonton Oilers dynasty with Gretzky, Messier and Coffey.

Riding high off his 1991 trade with GM Eddie Johnson of the Hartford Whalers, who by the way seems to have a lifetime job with the Penguins go figure, Craig Patrick on February 19, 1992 made by far the worst trade in the history of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Patrick traded away Hall of Famer & #12 All Time Scorer Paul Coffey and soon to be Hall of Famer and #13 All Time NHL scorer Mark Recchi for right wing Rick Tocchet, defenseman Kjell Samuelsson and goalie Ken Wregget.

Before you get all in a hissy, I am aware that the Penguins won a Stanley Cup in 1992, but I have news for you…
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Goligoski on Olympic Short List

By Phil Krundle

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:56 pm

Injuries to the US Olympic Hockey Team’s defensive squad have left one or two open positions on their roster. Defenseman Paul Martin of the New Jersey Devils withdrew yesterday and Mike Komisarek has been injured and did not play yesterday even though US GM Brian Burke thought he would. Komisarek has been out since January 2nd with a shoulder injury and as anyone who knows hockey, knows that Komisarek was a political pick for GM Burke so he would not look bad with to his Toronto Maple Leaf fans for not selecting a player from his team.

Alex Goligoski is once again a front runner to be selected and has the numbers to back himself up. The US Team is short on offensive defensemen to the point that even though Goligoski has missed 12 games this season he still leads all of the players selected to be on the roster in points this year. Anyone who has seen Goligoski’s last two assists on Sidney Crosby goals knows that this kid deserves the spot.

NHL.com’s – Managing Editor – Shawn P. Roarke had this to say about Goligoski: “Injuries have taken some luster off this youngster’s star, but I still like what I see. It is his versatility — as well as his offensive potential — that buys him the final spot among the defensemen on my roster”

The US Olympic Hockey team has

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Penguins Come From Behind to Beat Sabres

By Reg Dunlop

Monday, February 1, 2010 11:08 pm

First off, I want to say nice work to the boys for the nice victory yesterday afternoon. They played a wonderful game. It could have ended sooner had they capitalized on one or two more of the many chances they had, but a great game nonetheless.

I thought for sure the Penguins would steamroll the momentum from yesterday’s victory into tonight’s game. Unfortunately, they did not necessarily do that. Not until the second period, anyway. The Pens started very sluggishly. This may be the most frustrating thing about the Pittsburgh Penguins. They can play awesome one day and play horribly the next. In the case of tonight’s game, it was a period-by-period change. I understand that they are human, and humans have good days and bad days, but these are highly paid professionals. It just seems to me that there should not be such large swings in the level of play. Enough with that tangent. The boys were able to fight their way through the sluggish play they began the game with, and go on to get the victory. 2010-02-01 21.06.22

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Gameday Poop: Pittsburgh Penguins vs Buffalo Sabres – February 1

By Phil Krundle

Monday, February 1, 2010 1:20 pm

The Pens chased Buffalo Sabre’s goaltender and most likely Team USA’s Olympic starting goaltender Ryan Miller from the game on December 29th by scoring 3 times on 11 shots just to have ex-Penguin Patrick Lalime come in and shut them out the rest of the way. The Pens are looking for a little revenge tonight and Crosby, Malkin & Gonchar are looking to get some preliminary shooting practice in on Miller tonight as a warm-up for the Olympics.

pp0167 Speaking of… Crosby, Malkin, Gonchar & Fleury among others did not skate in this mornings optional skate, the notables this morning that did skate were Goligoski, Kennedy and goalie Brent Johnson who is penciled in as the Penguins goaltender tonight.

Buffalo’s rookie defenseman Tyler Myers is a Calder Trophy candidate for rookie of the year. At the beginning of the year everyone just assumed the trophy would automatically go to John Tavares. Tavares is only 2 points ahead of Myers in the rookie point race and Tavaras is 3 points behind Matt Duchene of Colorado. Toss in the fact that Myers is a plus-8 and Tavares is a minus-10 and Duchene is a minus-8 and I would say Tyler Myers who will be celebrating his 20th birthday tonight at the Igloo is currently the leading candidate.

Jaromir Jagr had a goal and 3 assists for “Team Jagr” at the KHL All-Star Game over the weekend. Ex-Penguin Sergei Zubov and ex-Penguin Alexei Morozov each had a goal for “Team Yashin”. Jagr’s team won 11-8, Zubov was named one of the games 6 stars. The game was attended by Wayne Gretzky & Mark Messier. I sense maybe a little revenge by “the Great One” for the NHL purchasing his team and removing him as coach.

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Gameday Poop: Pittsburgh Penguins vs Detroit Red Wings – January 31

By Phil Krundle

Sunday, January 31, 2010 10:58 am

Game time is 12:30PM and can be seen in Super HD at the Igloo or on NBC

When the Penguins knocked off the reining Stanley Cup Champs last June, Detroit started to slowly fall apart. It started with Marian Hossa saying he wanted to keep playing in Detroit and then jumping ship for Chicago (sound familiar?) along with the Red Wings Tomas Kopecky, then Detroit lost ex-Penguins Ty Conklin & Mikael Samuelsson and had a huge kick in the nuts when Jiri Hudler opted pp0166 for the KHL instead of staying with the Red Wings. By the time it was all said and done Detroit had lost players that had accounted for over 1/3 of the goals they had the previous season.

The injury riddled Red Wings are currently not owners of a playoff spot. Mike Babcock the Red Wings coach is also Canada’s Olympic hockey team coach, and you have to wonder why Olympic Hockey GM’s wait to the last minute to pick the players on how well they are doing currently, but they do not wait last minute to pick the coaches. Is it possible the players confidence in the coaches ability will be undermined by the fact that Babcock can’t coach with a little adversity? We will see in two weeks.

The injury riddled Penguins are currently owners of a playoff spot. Can you name how many Penguins regulars have not missed games because of injuries? If you said three you would be correct. You get 12 1/2 PenguinPoop Bonus Points if you can name the three, the answer is at the very bottom of this post below info Darius Kasparaitis’ purple sofa.

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NHL Trade Deadline Predictor Extraordinaire

By PenguinPoop.com

Friday, January 29, 2010 11:14 am

The NHL Trade Deadline this year is March 3rd, and as you know Ray Shero the Pittsburgh Penguins GM has been very active this time of year the last few years landing players and “rental” players to help the Pens make it to the playoffs. Everyone seems to have a prediction or idea about who the Penguins will be or should be acquiring and who the Penguins should and will trade.

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This is your big chance to shine. What we want from you is a list of 3 players from any league that you think the Penguins will be acquiring before the deadline and 3 Penguins Players or prospects that the Penguins will be trading away. Please do not list upcoming draft picks as your picks.

All picks should be in by February 10th, if a trade is made before the 10th and you pick a player after the trade was already made, we will disqualify you. If you pick the player before the trade, it counts, so get your picks in fast. No changing picks once they are made.

All you need to do is leave your list in the comment section below, it’s that simple.

Anyone who gets all six will be crowned PenguinPoop Trade Predictor Extraordinaire and have your picture pasted on our front page for a week.

Good Luck.

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Gameday Poop: Pittsburgh Penguins vs Ottawa Senators – January 28

By Phil Krundle

Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:30 am

Game time is 7:00PM and can be seen in Super HD at the Igloo or on FSN

The Pens take on the red hot Ottawa Senators who have won their last seven games in a row tonight. Maybe I should say the streaky Senators. Before they won seven in a row they lost 5 in a row.

pp0165 When everyone was looking the other way the Senators double secretly amassed quite a lineup of goal scorers Alfredsson, Kovalev, Spezza & CheeChoo all of which have decided to not score goals this year. Now that the Senators are healthy, no thanks to the Penguins, they come at teams with a 4 line balanced attack. When your 3rd line has one time 56 goal scorer 29 year old Jonathan CheeChoo on it, that’s a balanced attack.

With all of the Penguins injuries, Goligoski, Talbot, Guerin, Kunitz, Kennedy and Godard. It would be hard to tell you exaclty who will be in this evening’s lineup but I can tell you that the Pens have penciled in Guerin, Talbot & Godard and the rest are not listed and I can also tell you that Godard, Goligoski and Kennedy did not practice this morning.

Dan Bylsma announced that Godard is out 4-6 weeks with a groin injury. I think the Olympic break is going to be huge towards getting a healthy team back on the ice.

Chris Connors was recalled again, they are bouncing him up and down to save cap money, it sounds like Shero is planning on making a move, though there is one other possibility. I think Shero noticed that when he brings a player up from the WBS Pens they usually score their first game up, to take advantage of that he is trying to send them up and down in between every game. It could work. The odd thing is that

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