Video: Alexander Ovechkin Cheap Headshot of Penguins Zbynek Michalek

Washington Capital’s Alexander Ovechkin leaves feet and targets Pittsburgh Penguins Zbynek Michalek’s head during afternoon game on January 22, 2012.  Will the NHL take action?

Alexander Ovechkin Stole James Neal’s All-Star Spot

The number one goal scoring left winger in the NHL, James Neal  is currently without a spot on the NHL All-Star Game roster and barring injury to a player currently on the roster he’ll be sitting at home watching the game on TV.

The NHL invites 24 total players who play offense onto their All-Star squad. Three of which are voted in by the NHL fans. Three players from Ottawa, the home of the All-Star game, were voted in by the fans. We should all be aware of how the voting works here in Pittsburgh. If you are not, reference how Kristopher Allen Letang landed an All-Star spot last year. Who doesn’t respect a good grass roots voting campaign especially in an election year.

The other 21 players are voted in by what is called the NHL’s Hockey Operations Department. Picking these players would be a seemingly easy task if it wasn’t for the fact that you want to include one player from every team. That starts to complicate things a tiny bit, but the NHL created the “Rookie” All-Star game to help alleviate that problem.

For reasons unknown Alexander Ovechkin is on the All-Star team. Ranked 43rd overall in the NHL in scoring you would think maybe he made it because of the ...

Gameday poop: Pittsburgh Penguins vs Montreal Canadiens – Injury Report?

In round one of the playoffs, the Montreal Canadiens limited the Washington Capitals to 1 powerplay goal in 33 tries. The Pittsburgh Penguins powerplay which was anemic at best during the regular season put in 4 goals on 4 tries. It is funny how Penguins fans emotions are ruled by the first game of a series. After the first game last series it was all over and everyone was talking about how tired the Pens are yadda yadda yadda… Now all you here about is how they are a shoe in to win the Cup. We need to find a happy medium.

Today’s Gameday Poop is more of an injury report than it is anything else.

Jordan Staal will most likely be out for the rest of the series because of a torn ligament on his right foot. Reports were flying around yesterday that his season was over, right up until Dan Bylsma announced to reporters after practice yesterday that it is not and he’d be back. Apparently when everyone heard Staal torn a ligament they all assumed it was an ACL. It wasn’t and Staal is listed as day by day. I imagine he will ...

Gameday Poop: Penguins vs Thrashers – Crosby for MVP

The NHL closes up the regular season tomorrow and the playoff race in the Eastern conference is no where near settled. The Penguins can finish anywhere from second to fourth and there are three teams not named the Penguins fighting for their playoff lives.

Pens winger Alexei Ponikarovsky has been suspended by the NHL for two games for boarding Josh Bailey of the NY Islanders on Thursday night, Kunitz will miss the game also tonight with a suspected shoulder injury. Talbot and Rupp will be seeing time on Malkin’s line and Eric Godard will also be skating for the Penguins this evening. Once again, I would post lines, but Bylsma will mix them up after 5 minutes anyway.

NBC seems to have made a big mistake scheduling the Washington Capitals vs Boston Bruins game tomorrow afternoon. The New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers, two of the NHL’s biggest markets will be battling it out in a winner take all scenario that has the winner getting a playoff spot and the loser heading out to the golf course.

The Penguins organization was pressing the NHL to have the All-Star Game played at their new home the Consol Energy Center next year but lost out to the Carolina Hurricanes. I think it would be a bit much and the NHL would be showing favoritism if the ALL-Star Game in Winter Classic were held in Pittsburgh in the same year.

If the Pens end up finishing in fourth place, they will be facing the Ottawa Senators in the playoffs.  The Senators just announced ex-Penguin Alexei Kovalev who is 4th on the Senators in overall scoring will be sidelined the rest of the season and playoffs with a torn ACL.

Sidney Crosby is locked in a goal scoring race with Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos. Ovechkin has 50, Crosby 49 and Stamkos 48. Crosby has 2 games left, Ovechkin and Stamkos each only have 1 game left.

Sidney Crosby is also battling for the Art Ross Trophy with Ovechkin and Henrik Sedin. Ovechkin has 109, Sedin 108 and Crosby 104. Crosby has a game in hand over both Sedin and Ovechkin.

Sidney Crosby is also in the race for MVP. How many players in the NHL locked in the race for the prestigious goal scoring trophy, who got credit for a goal and with no video evidence otherwise, would contact the stats people and say he didn’t get the goal. Only 1, the leagues MVP Sidney Crosby the 100% unselfish team player who wanted to win the game against the Capitals the other night more than he cared if Ovechkin passed him up in goal scoring with an empty net goal.

Last year the Capitals fans all claimed Ovechkin deserved the MVP because he did not have a supporting cast around him. This year he all of the sudden has one of the best supporting casts around. A supporting cast so good, they have a higher winning percentage and goals scored per game when he is not playing.

Boy do I feel like a dufus. Last night I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman named Bob Grove at ...

Video: Sidney Crosby nets two of the Top Ten Goals of the Year

The NHL network may have jumped the gun on this one a little being 50+ games left and all.  Though I’m pretty sure the goal of the year by Steven Stamkos will stick at #1.  Sidney Crosby had the #7 and #5 goals and I didn’t find them all that exciting, but I’ve been watching him do that stuff game after game for years now.  The #10 goal of the year was against Marc-Andre Fleury and should be in the top 5 in my opinion.  ...

Are the Capitals That Much Better Than Everyone Else?

I want to give the Capitals their due as they are a very good hockey team.  They have so much talent all through their line-up.  The only weakness that anyone might find is the goaltending, but Theodore has been playing well lately — maybe that problem is solved. 

Are they really 17 points better than anyone else in the East?  I decided to look a little deeper into their record and this is what I discovered.  The Southeast Division that they play in is by far the worst in the Eastern Conference.  ...

Gameday Poop: Penguins vs Lightning – Crosby vs Stamkos

The Pittsburgh Penguins are taking on the Tampa Bay Lightning at home tonight and for the second game in a row, if the Penguins win, they mathematically eliminate their opponent from the playoffs.  Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar have been back practicing with the Pens and Sergei Gonchar had been penciled back into the lineup after his bout with strep throat, but the Penguins said this morning that both will not be in the lineup this evening.  Keep Gonchar away from the rest of the team.

Ryan Malone may be playing tonight, back from the from upper body injury/knee surgery combo injury he had. It sounds like from Tampabay.com that he might be rushing it back to play one last time at the Mellon Arena. On his thoughts about them tearing the Arena down he said: “I asked for seats already, that would be pretty cool to have three or four seats from there.”

The best quote came from Lightning coach former Penguin Rick Tocchet about the Penguin team he was on in the 1990′s. “I really think that team could have won 3 or 4 Cups, then contracts came involved and a lot of stuff came into play, so a lot of factors. I think we could have won 4 or 5 Cups.” I bet if he kept talking he would of had them winning 9 or 10 cups, even funnier is the fact that he was only on the team for 2 1/2 seasons. That’s a lot of cups for 2 1/2 seasons.

The Penguins have killed off 42 of the past 45 power plays that’s an astounding 95.5% kill rate.

The Penguins signing Kris Letang to a 4 year $3.5 million a year contract signals an end between the Pens and Sergei Gonchar after the season unless Gonchar changes his mind and takes less or a shorter contract. I believe that Gonchar’s worth to the team is way overstated in the media. He has the teams worst plus/minus at -7, in fact he is the only Pittsburgh Penguin defenseman that’s a minus. As far as his power play worth is concerned, do you really believe ...