The Three Star voters at Nassau Coliseum on Tuesday night named James Neal the game’s No. 1 star, Kris Letang the No. 2 star and the Islanders’ Brad Boyes the No. 3 star.
The comments boards have held a lively discussion on how the voting should have gone.
With apologies to Boyes, here’s your chance for the top three Pittsburgh Penguins from Tuesday’s 4-2 win. The poll is set up so that multiple votes can be tabulated. Coach Dan Bylsma is even included as an option.
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“Boy, I don’t know why anybody would want to clap at that.”
Those were the words of ROOT announcer, Bob Errey, as fans cheered Sidney Crosby getting hit by a deflected puck on his nose two minutes and 55 seconds into Period 2 on Tuesday.
Immediately thereafter, some fans started a “Crosby s*cks” chant as he skated off the ice with a towel draped over his face.
Is it to be expected that fans of the opposing team cheer whenever something bad happens to Crosby, even when it's of a physical nature?
Or is it only in front of select audiences, like Nassau Coliseum?
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Fortunately, it turns out that Crosby is apparently okay. With his history of concussions and neck injuries, however, he might not be entirely out of the woods yet. Sometimes symptoms don’t appear for a day or two after the impact.
Crosby suffered a bruised and bloodied nose, not a broken nose. Kris Letang suffered a broken nose on a Max Pacioretty hit in November of 2011 and missed substantial time with concussion-like symptoms.
The Penguins are off Wednesday. If there’s any lingering affects with Crosby we won’t know about them until Thursday.
He skated 5:42 in the first period, 5:18 in the second and 5:09 in the final 20 minutes, which is a good indication that he’s alright.
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If you read the Tuesday’s Penguins preview, you’d know that Crosby was near the top of the NHL charts in shots taken while Evgeni Malkin was not. After Tuesday, Crosby ranks second in the league with 39 shots, James Neal is tied for 13th with 34 shots, Letang is tied for 33rd with 28 shots and Malkin is in an eight-way tie for 38th place with 27 shots.
Are you okay with Malkin taking the fourth-most shots on the Penguins? So long as the team is winning, do the shots matter? Are you content in knowing that he’ll most likely pick things up, that maybe Crosby is playing well right now, but there will come a time when Malkin is needed?
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Treasure Life!
JT
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