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Game Night: Ottawa Sens-Sationalizes Matt Cooke appearance Monday |
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Pre-Game Edit:
Pens & Sens Audio Interviews
Dan Bylsma
Matt Cooke
Paul MacLean
Daniel Alfredsson
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Pens (34-10, 17-5 Road) at Sens (23-15-6, 15-4-3 Home), 7:30 pm ET, Scotiabank Place
With no playoff implications on the line Monday night and with Sidney Crosby, James Neal, Evgeni Malkin and Paul Martin out again, the game against Ottawa has little intrigue.
As a result, the whole Matt Cooke-is-a-bad-guy theme figures to dominate conversation.
Here’s what the Ottawa Sun had to say about Cooke.
He has said he's changed his ways, but not everybody is convinced. In fact, most still see him as one of the sneakiest and dirtiest players in the league -- and some saw the Karlsson incident as just another example.
At the same time, he's only settled scores like a man 20 times in his 14-year career, according to hockeyfights.com, and never has he dropped the gloves with a Senator. Chris Neil tried to square off with him later in that Feb. 13 game, but the 5-foot-11, 205-pounder wanted no part of that.
Surely, he won't fight Neil or Matt Kassian or Jared Cowen on Monday, either. But maybe he'd accept a challenge from the 6-foot-2, 212-lb. Smith?
A couple days ago, the Ottawa Sun kicked off the Cooke coverage with an article entitled
Matt Cooke may not play Ottawa Senators to avoid repercussions.
Matt Kassian said Saturday he’s received several messages from fans on Twitter who want Cooke to pay for his actions. Kassian isn’t promising any retribution.
“He has a history,” said Kassian. “To use a Bible quote, ‘A man doesn’t know what a man knows, but the Lord looks at the heart.’ I’m pretty sure between Matt Cooke and Jesus they are the only ones who know what was going through his head.
“I would like to think it wasn’t (intentional). I’d like to assume good things about people. It was unfortunate. He is a player who plays on the edge. For him to be successful he has to play on the edge.”
Here’s a link to the Sens' owner Eugene Melnyk interview's in which he says he’s using forensic doctors in Toronto to put together a case against Matt Cooke. Feel free to skip to the 4:55 mark of the interview for the start of the Cooke ramblings. Earlier in the spot, Melnyk calls his own player, Matt Kassian, “Matt the Assassin.” Interesting if for no other reason than the Bruins announcer, Jack Edwards, comparing Cooke to an assassin over the weekend.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Dave Molinari tweeted earlier Monday that Erik Karlsson took part in the team’s game-day skate but is not expected to play against the Penguins.
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Poll Results
Question: What award/honor would you most like to see the Penguins garner?
A whopping 73 percent of voters want Kris Letang to win the Norris Trophy over anything else. Letang has 34 points in 32 games. He did not travel to Ottawa for Monday’s game, apparently due to illness (let’s hope his groin hasn’t acted up). It would be to his advantageous to his cause to play as much as possible in the last week to better his case as the league’s best defender. Sidney Crosby got 19 percent of the vote. Yesterday, his share was closer to 30 percent but fell off. Crosby leads Martin St. Louis by only one point for the Art Ross Trophy.
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Tweet 'O the Day
Josh Yohe @JoshYohe_Trib
No Fleury here or Letang here tonight. Just realized this amidst #cookehatefest
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Treasure Life!
JT
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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