Obviously in an attempt to help their neighbors to the west, the Pittsburgh Penguins have put Evgeni Malkin on the shelf right before their contest against the Blue Jackets tonight. Malkin has a strained right shoulder and has been playing through the pain for a while but has decided it needs to heal.

How big is this break for the timing of Malkin deciding to shut it down for a while? Malkin was the Stanley Cup playoff MVP and is off to his usual start with 14 points in 12 games. Head Coach Dan Bylsma stated “He strained his shoulder about 10 days or so ago, I don’t know the exact day." I'll make a guess that it was October 20th against St. Louis when he put 12 shots on goal. Shooting that much would put a strain on anybody!

The Penguins continue to be generous and also have said that Tyler Kennedy won't play tonight either with an undisclosed injury. Kennedy has potted 5 goals in 11 games this year to give the Pens another scoring threat.

So that takes 2 of the Penguins big scoring threats off the ice which mean the Blue Jackets should have no problem slowing down the Pens to victory right? Not so fast my friend! Sidney Crosby has 9 goals in 12 games and can do enough himself in the scoring department to give the Pens all the scoring they need.

Especially with the goaltending that the Penguins are getting with the combo of Marc-Andre Fleury and Brent Johnson. Both have been very good this year combining for a 2.05 goals against average and a .921 save percentage.

To sit here and prognosticate on how the Blue Jackets will match up and have certain advantages that they can take and turn this into a win, can't do it right now. Someone has to step up right now and throw the team on their back to get their confidence back. It will take Steve Mason standing on his head and getting a shutout or a Rick Nash hat trick or R.J. Umberger with a power play and short handed goal. Maybe one of the youngsters can emerge like Jakub Voracek who has been the most consistent player on the team this season. Could be a guy like Nikita Filatov that gets wild and puts in a hat trick like he did last year.

But has you could see it's a lot of maybe's and could be's and that's not a good thing on a team that has had full intentions of making the playoffs again this year.

Live Blog Tonight at 7pm

I will again do Live Fire live in game blog tonight starting at 7pm. Penguin fans are more than welcome and I'm trying to bribe Brian Metzer to also join me tonight. Hope to see you there.



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Eric Smith
Eric.Smith@HockeyBuzz.com

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