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GAMEDAY! Pens challenge Beast of the East Tuesday

February 21, 2012, 12:02 PM ET [300 Comments]
John Toperzer
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Rangers (38-14-5, 19-7-3 Road) at Pens (33-21-5, 17-8-2 Home), 7:08 EDT, CONSOL

Follow me on Twitter @JohnToperzer


Gameday Notes & Trends

-The Penguins are 4-4-1 in the month of February after stringing eight wins together in January. Pittsburgh registered at least one fighting major in in six of those eight wins. Since then no Penguins player has drawn a fighting major.

-Brad Richards is killing the Penguins in the faceoff circle. The Rangers have won 61 percent of faceoffs in the three meetings, with Richards leading the way. The $60 million dollar man has gone 43-12 on draws, good for an amazing 78 percent.

-Jordan Staal and Joe Vitale need to pick it up against New York. Staal has won only eight of 30 draws (27 percent while Vitale won seven of 22 (32 percent).

-Pittsburgh has scored only three times in its last 32 power-play opportunities against NYR.

-The Pens have yet to beat New York in regulation at CONSOL, going 0-3-1.


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Pens-NYR: By the Numbers


Goals For/Against

Pens: 3.00-2.66 (per game)
NYR: 2.77-1.96


5-on-5 Goal Ratio

Pens: 0.98
NYR: 1.32


Power Play

Pens: 18.1 percent, 19-for-105 (Home)
NYR: 13.3 percent, 12-for-90 (Road)


Penalty Kill

Pens: 90 percent, 72-of-80 (Home)
NYR: 88.1 percent, 89-of-101 (Road)


Hits-Blocked Shots-Missed Shots-Giveaways-Takeaways

Pens: 623-358-379-145-99 (Home, 27 games)
NYR: 817-488-299-190-159 (Road, 29 games)

The Pens and Rangers are tied for the most road hits (817) in the NHL.

The Rangers have the third-highest number of road blocked shots (488).

The Pens have the third-fewest giveaways (145) at home.

Pittsburgh only has 99 home takeaways, 48 fewer than the second-worst team (Winnipeg, with 147).


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Penguin Game-Day Lines, courtesy of the Penguins’ Web site.

Kunitz-Malkin-Neal

Sullivan-Staal-Dupuis

Cooke-Vitale-Asham

Tangradi-Adams-Park

(Jeffrey, O'Reilly)

Brooks Orpik will miss Tuesday with a short-term injury, according to coach Dan Bylsma.

The Pens recalled Eric Tangradi because the team is looking for a physical presence at the bottom of the lineup, Bylsma said.

Brad Thiessen was recalled from Wilkes-Barre. Thiessen went through the worst slump of his career from November to January, going 3-8-2. He’s been better since. Anything has got to be an improvement over Brent Johnson’s recent performance. Johnson has been pulled in three of his past five starts.

It looks like Dustin Jeffrey will serve as the odd man out if Tangradi suits up Tuesday. Jeffrey’s played pretty well in recent games, but someone has to sit. Richard Park scored a huge goal against the Rangers the last time the two teams met.


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Can you imagine Penguins owner Mario Lemieux writing a blog about the Pens’ poor performance Sunday in Buffalo? I can’t, but Washington Capitals owner, Ted Leonsis, once again sticks his foot in his mouth with his most recent blog ”That was the worst game of the season”. Washington lost 5-0 in Carolina on Monday but remains two points behind Florida for the no. 3 seed in the East.

Just what his struggling team needs from leadership. Not. Pens coach Dan Bylsma won’t even cut down maligned Paul Martin publicly, but Leonsis sees no problem throwing his entire team under the bus. What a difference. Be glad you root for the team from Pittsburgh.


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If Sidney Crosby returns in 2011-12, regardless of whether it’s in the regular season or playoffs, what are the odds he does it symptom-free? With the way that Crosby has skated before practice and as part of non-contact practices the past few weeks, it’s difficult seeing him sit on the sidelines – even if he isn’t quite 100 percent.

Few players are totally healthy this time of year. Crosby’s injury is different than a knee injury, but other teammates have come back from concussions recently. Who’s to say whether Arron Asham is truly symptom free other than Asham himself? I’m not saying I have knowledge Asham returned at less than 100 percent. I don’t. What I am saying is that players have acknowledged coming back from concussion before they were completely healthy.

Baseline testing is pretty much a joke. There have been reports that players purposely do poorly on the test so they’ll pass the test even when concussed.

“The baseline test is so unreliable that it's certainly possible that (the player) could be completely normal and be categorized as abnormal or they could be completely abnormal and be characterized as normal," Dr. Christopher Randolph told the The Sporting News. "They're not useful for individual decision-making.”

Detroit’s Johan Franzen jokingly made these comments.

“You gotta be smart. Don't do too good your first time," Franzen said before getting serious. "No, sometimes you're lucky. It's one of those tests where you have to remember something, maybe you don't remember it and you guess right the first time and the second time you guess wrong."

Pens GM Ray Shero has been adamant about keeping Crosby out until he’s symptom-free. There’s absolutely no reason not to take him at his word. Shero has talked about keeping his own son out of action due to concussion until he was free of symptoms.

But Crosby’s competitive nature will be hard to tame come postseason time. It’s really difficult seeing him sit idly by for the second postseason in a row while his teammates do battle for the Cup. Even if he isn’t quite right.


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In case you missed it, the results from the NHL player poll are in and they are here. The numbers make for great fodder, but it would be interesting to find out the 257-player breakdown. Were there eight or nine players polled from each of the 30 teams or were some rosters better represented than others?

My guess is that the Canadian based teams got votes and some of the southern-based teams like Florida were left out. How else can Miikka Kiprusoff be included as one of the toughest goalies to score on and not Marc-Andre Fleury?

Fleury leads the NHL with seven shootout wins, going 7-2, while Kipper is just 3-3. Aren’t shootouts one of the best tools to gauge a goalie’s ability? Give me Fleury or Henrik Lundqvist any day over the rest of the NHL’s tenders.


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Treasure life & Let's Go Pens!
JT


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