Saturday, December 30, 2006

Some Pens Notes....

The Penguins ended their losing streak in style last night by knocking off the Toronto Maple Leafs, something that they rarely do. I don't have the stats in front of me right now, but I believe they had beaten the Penguins 8 of the last 10 times they have met.

The win didn't come without a cost. Nils Ekman was lost during the first period to a pretty ugly elbow injury. The team has still not made an official announcement on how severe the injury was, but I am thinking that points to it being a bad one. As I mentioned in the comments last night, Michel Therrien wouldn't make much of a comment on the injury and just said that they hadn't talked to the docs yet. The team is planning to re-evaluate him at some point in the future, but with an off day today, I don't expect any kind of formal announcement until tomorrow at the earliest. This is unfortunate for two reason, the first being the Pens lack of skilled wingers to compliment their centers, the second being the fact that Nils was having a great game playing with Dom Moore and Jordan Staal. It was one of the better outings for Nils in quite a while, and now he could potentially be out for a long while, if not the season.

*****

Sidney Crosby notched 3 assists last night pushing his season total to 41 and his overall point total to 58, 6 ahead of Marian Hossa. Evgeni Malkin also reclaimed the lead in the rookie-scoring race by picking up 1 goal and 1 assist in last night's game. He now leads LA's Anze Kopitar by 1 point.

*****

Did Ronald Petrovicky insult Michel Therrien in some way? He has been a healthy scratch 32 times since being recalled from a conditioning stint in Wilkes Barre Scranton on November 18th. Is there a place for him on this team? Doesn't seem like it. It is nice to have him in the cupboard if needed, but the acquisition of Chris Thorburn seems to have made him obsolete. I can see some one picking him up later in the season to play a third or fourth line role in the playoffs.

He is a great energy guy and could definitely be an asset. I think that he will get some work while Ekman is nursing his elbow injury.

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