Graybeard

If anybody deserves a couple days off it's Homer. They beat the crap out of him all night long. Besides all the cross checks and the trip, how many times did you see him with his helmet ripped off his head.

The Pens finally remembered that you can forecheck in hockey and that it is a good thing. They spent way too much time , beside and behind our net with noone laying them out. This is how we give up most of the goals/PP that we do. Most of the goals other teams score on us you can see it a minute or two in advance as they cycle the puck around without being knocked on their ass. Ringing the post on a wide open net from 3 foot didn't help much either.

Agreed. Barring the last couple minutes where we couldn't get the puck into their zone, the third period of game three was the best period of hockey so far this series.

Putting Cheli in is rolling the dice. If the rest of the games are called like last night it's perfect for him. I'm not bitching about bias one way or the other just saying that the refs put away the whistles for long stretches of time and let a LOT of hacking and slashing go for both sides. In that kind of game we need more snarl. Considering that is Cheli's kind of play he would have been a perfect fit. If on the other hand the next game is called tight, he probably can't keep up with the Pens and will end up in the box too much.

I understand and agree with everyone defending the coverage of Crosby's coverage being good marketing to non-hockey fans. The problem I have with that is, I couldn't give a s*** less about attracting non-hockey fans. Let them watch baseball. Hockey doesn't need to be marketed to basketball watching ******* where it's a foul for touching a guys wrist. All this crap of trying to grow the NHL and draw in more fans blows goats. Lets review what it's got us so far: Suckass expansion teams. Which leads to salary caps to bring parity. Which leads to watered down teams. If you start a team in a "non-traditional" market and there is no fan base to support it, it can wither and die instead of dragging the rest of the league down to it's level. Glowing pucks so tards that are used to watching slow games like baseball can keep up. (Thank god that's a thing of the past) Fights taken out of the game so it can become just another ***** sport err I mean mainstream. An emphasis on scoring so that it will attract more simpletons that think scoring is the only way to have a good game. I've seen some badass 1-0 hockey games. The best period of hockey in this series was the third period of game three and how much scoring went on there? What are they going to do next, award 6 points for a goal and give a guy a shootout chance after each one to attempt an extra point. That way we could be like football and just pretend it's a high scoring game. Sidney freakin Crosby ad nauseum. (And not even him personally, anybody who is there poster child) The honest truth is, there would be a lot more love for this guy from real hockey fans if they didn't shove him down our throat so much and just let him impress us with his play instead of his press coverage. As far as I'm concerned they can take their marketing to non-hockey fans and shove it before it destroys the game we love.

They've taken a lot of heat for that call even from pretty much all directions. Babcock handled it well by not commenting on it and letting the media rip them on it for a couple days. We can only hope this will make them think twice before waving off another obvious goal.

Coach Babcock "Sorry McCarty and Downey, you both have to go. The only thing you really bring to this game is fans come hoping to see you punch someone in the face. We have recently been informed that hits to the head have no place in the game so we no longer need your services." A hit to the head like Pronger hit Homer with has no place in the game. What Roberts did to Franzen is not the same thing. I don't condone what Roberts did but it wasn't anything but a two minute minor that didn't get called.

Too much outrage over a little love-tap. My eight year old hits me harder than that when we box. This is hockey, not basketball. If it wasn't safe for him to come back and take a little tap like that then the doctor would never have let him play so lets stop all the false carrying on over concussion like symptoms that may or may not have been a concussion or just a synus infection. Was it dirty? Yes. Should Roberts have gotten a penalty? Yes. Did Franzen embellish some? Yes. Is it worth all the outrage? No As a ref I would probably have put them both in the box. The stick he took to the head was a lot more serious than that little tap but it has gotten almost no mention while this is all over the place.

The dude absolutely can't talk in front of the camera for crap but I like what he has to say. After all the gooning it up at the end of game two the other three clowns are all talking about how great it was that the Pens were trying to send a message, and get something going for the next game yada yada yada. Messier actually interupts whichever asshat was talking at the time and pretty much says, so what, the Wings are just playing too good. He may stutter and stammer and not have a long career on tv, but he knows hockey better than the the stooges there combined.

For the Penguin's sake I sure hope so. Just don't let them near our assistant coaches. How bad would it suck to have to play a team with that talent coached by someone who came from the Wings system?

Lol, I especially like his #3 talking about taking just to the edge of getting a whistle. The Pens are the absolute masters of this. It is the single biggest reason they even made it into the playoffs much less the the SCF. Witness Crosby spending most of his time on the ice grabbing our guys sticks, our guys getting sticks hacked out of their hands, Roberts punching people in the head, Malkin constantly slewfooting people, and Malone just being the asshat that he is. They've played this all year drawing retaliation penalties and then using the one and only offensive line they have to score PP goals. That is exactly why they are so frustrated now. Detroit's discipline (helped by the fact that Chelios isn't on the ice wacking people) has kept the Pens from getting the retaliation calls that they are used to and spending a good share of their time on the PP. Not only has this limited their scoring opportunities as they've shown they're not so hot at 5 on 5, it has also exposed another glaring weakness in their game, how weak their goalie has been playing. Turns out it's not so easy in goal when your opposition isn't on the PK all the time. After all the hype, most of the goals we have scored have been weak. The first goal by Stuart in game 2 should have been a gimme for Fleury. If for instance Osgood let in a shot like that everyone in the media would have been blathering about him letting soft ones in again. I loved it when the guy on TSN spoke up and said to stop make excuses for the guy that he just wasn't playing good.

According to TSN Therrien is looking at putting his two stars together. Considering that in general they have no chemistry playing together 5 on 5 this will hopefully backfire on them. Malkin has already stated that he doesn't like playing on the wing and that it throws off his whole game. It will also take away what little scoring threat they had on their second line and should take the defensive burden off our boys so they can light em up even more than they already have been. In my opinion the fact that their coach has let this out in the media so Babcock can prepare for it instead of springing it on him at the opening face off is just more evidence that he is really out of his league. Having the last change, if he had a clue he would have put a checking line out against Pav and Hank and dropped this bombshell on our second line.

Check out his interviews on TSN. I was actually pretty impressed with his take on things. He's probably the only real man on their team. At least the only one that's gotten any press time.

In spite of his late game cheap shots I think as far as talking to the press goes Roberts has been the best one talking Pens. He made no excuses for the team and basically gave the Wings credit. When talking about the goals scored he said eight for the Wings so he's even being honest on the one that was called back. Also said it's hard to work up a good hate for the Wings because they don't get into the dirty play. He may not be the classiest player on the ice, but it least he's a man and not pissy little boys like the coach and most of the team.

It worked for Dallas and they weren't even Bettman's darlings. Besides, isn't it our buddy Dan's turn to ref this game? So we know there are going to be blown calls in some form or another. If he was reffing the last one Franzen would have been in the box for roughing Roberts fist with his face.

Basketball fancying pansies. It's the freakin SFC playoffs and they think a guy should be on the ice only if he's 100%? If the bone isn't sticking out of the skin then strap the damn skates on and play.

That would hardly be fair. Ozzie has a head start. He's already scored a goal, and from a lot farther away.

Well I don't know about you but I'm not sure be back if I was them either. The way the first two games have broken down they have been proven wrong on every point. Their two top stars are better than ours: FAIL Their overwhelming offensive talent can't be stopped by ANY defense: FAIL Their PP is the bomb: FAIL Their depth in secondary scoring is better than ours: FAIL Their team defense is the best in the league, underestimated by us, and will shut us down: FAIL Taken to school by Lidstrom and company on what real defense looks like. Their goalie is better than ours: FAIL FAIL FAIL - Osgood will enter the HOF leaving a trail of smashed NHL records They have the "best back checking forwad in the league": FAIL Their youth will overcome our experience: FAIL Our old guys will be sucking wind trying to keep up with their speedy kids: FAIL - It's Malkin who is whining about being tired. Tired from doing what I don't know. Stands around most of the game. Boy better get himself a conditioning coach in the off season. They will steal a game at the Joe and win home ice advantage: FAIL If they lose they always bounce back to win the next one: FAIL Michel is coach of the year material: FAIL They are unstoppable at Mellon Arena: Soon to be disproven That's a lot of crow to be eating after coming here and talking smack. Ten bucks says they'll come flooding back if they win game three at the Mellon.

Only because they count every little bump and nudge. If you only count real quality hits, Datsyuk has more than their team combined this series.

That depends. They need a coach like Bowman or Babcock to bring it out of them. If they keep on going the way they are they'll continue to put up great offensive numbers and well no doubt end up with some hart trophies for their offensive skills but may never win a cup. What needs to happen soon is for all the talking heads around them to stop blowing smoke up their arse telling them they are good defensive players. Sorry they really aren't. They don't even play especially good away from the puck on offense. They are average at best and it seems like they've spent a lot of time on the ice standing around instead of moving their skates and working for it. Maybe now that they have spent some time on the ice with forwards who really are good defensively they'll realize the difference and work on their game this off season. If they make it a priority and improve this aspect of their game, they will be unstoppable.

Ozzie got hit AWAY from the play and tripped on the net falling to the ice. He got immediately back up to his feet. This has absolutely nothing in common with the way Crosby will go down like he's been headshot and curl up in the fetal position until the whistle blows. The bottom line is this, don't hit the guy after the puck is long gone and you won't have to worry about if he goes down easy or not. Your Pens have gotten away with murder for a long time by walking a fine line of playing a little fast and loose away from the puck and getting away with it with a little help from your friends. I can understand how they could get used to that and be frustrated when calls are made against them. Yes it sucks that teams have to embellish what are legitimate penalties because it's become commonplace for this crap to go uncalled. It was a good strategy to get retaliation calls so your PP could do your scoring for you, but now that the calls are being made you need to adjust and play a little more on the straight and narrrow.

Opinion and interpretation dressed as fact. Show me that "partially in the crease" part in the rule book. I missed the partially part myself. Once again, we don't need refs calling interpretations, we need them calling rules as written. By no reasonable definition was Fleury in the crease. To say he was is more than just a stretch it's a denial of reality backed up by hours and hours of replay footage since.

Yeah go ahead kid, just keep flipping the puck into our zone and hoping for a penalty. Even when the question is about 5 on 5 scoring he has to go on about getting into a PP to score. You're the freaking captain of your team. How about you show some confidence in your teams ability to score other than when the refs hand you a PP?

I'm not saying this about their whole careers or even the rest of the series but after one game here is what we have learned so far. Zetterberg > Crosby (Of course we didn't win, not enough bad calls in our favor!) Datsyuk >>>> Malkin (Datsyuk only made me look like his ***** cause practice is long and I'm tired!) Osgood > Fleury (Damn that ice is slippery, but really youth beats experience every time!) Lidstrom > Everybody (even with a couple weak calls against him) Babcock >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Captain Panic!! (omg they just scored on us, WTF do I do??!!)

It's true that in a lot of cases Wing's fans jump all over anyone who doesn't put their team on a pedestal. I'm not going to go ahead and make a personal statement like Burnside is a moron as a person but to even say that the Pens defense is comparable, much less better than the Wings is a moronic statement. This crap about us having the best defensemen but them having better team defense? WTF??!!! Because all our talented guys are tripping over each other instead of making plays or something. If the Wings defense right now isn't the very definition of team defense then I don't know what the hell is. Not only do they consistently make the plays but they seem to always know where there teammates are so they can make the quick pass out of trouble. The Pens defensive had a hard time just getting the puck out of their zone because their offense take off up ice and abandons them. That is NOT team defense and if they don't improve in this area more than any other their season is done in a hurry.