Follow me on twitter
Here are your Penguins news and notes for September 5, 2013
The Penguins rookies kick off the action in London, Ontario against the Ottawa Senators rookies today. Leading the charge for Ottawa will be Jean-Gabriel Pageau, the impressive youngster who showed his stuff against the Montreal Canadiens with a hat trick in the playoffs last year.
The Penguins will be playing 3 games in the next 4 days.
Today they play at 2PM against Ottawa
Saturday they will play against Toronto at 7PM
Sunday they close out against Chicago at 2PM.
Notable names that will be involved for the Penguins will be Olli Maatta, Derick Pouliot, Scott Harrington, Brian Dumoulin,Harrison Ruopp, Tom Kuhnhackl, Jayson Megna, Tristan Jarry, Matt Murray, and Eric Hartzell.
I believe there will be streams available online somewhere; if I am able to track one down I will certainly pass along my thoughts about the scrimmages.
I will also try to update the blog as new information is released about the rookie tournament (D pairings, forward lines, who is starting in goal etc.)
Sidney Crosby supports Marc Andre Fleury in recent interview
Dan Rosen has an article
available on NHL.com which includes quotes from Sidney Crosby supporting his longtime goaltender.
"I think he does [believe in himself]. He has no reason not to, but when you go through the scrutiny and dealing with adversity, to say you don't have any doubts, anybody would be lying. You obviously have doubts, but I think those doubts are going to push him to be better and to prove himself."
“I know the goalie that he is, and I know it doesn't take much. When you look at last year, it's one or two games in that series against the [New York] Islanders, and obviously the coaches have decisions to make. As a goalie you can't afford that. That's the realistic way of looking at it. As a [forward or defenseman] you can have a bad shift, but as a goalie, if you let in a bad goal everyone is looking at it."
"A couple of games do not define a season. He had a really good regular season, and the start of the playoffs he was good. A couple of games, the momentum changes, that's how it works. But if you look at the whole season [in 2012-13], he was good and he bailed us out of a lot of games.
"It's not like he has to redefine his game and prove to everyone he can play. He had a couple of bad games and unfortunately there is scrutiny that comes along with it, but I think he's more than capable of coming back even stronger even through all that."
My thoughts on the Crosby’s comments are that he is being a good captain and a better friend. If Crosby said anything other than what he said, that would have been news. The body language from the players during the playoffs told the real story. The players were tired of bad goals going in and were mentally deflated. For Fleury it is not about the past anymore (good or bad) it’s about showing what he can do in the present.
Fleury could be one of the favorites for the Vezina next year but given his play during the postseason in recent years, he would still have question marks entering the playoffs. It’s a bad spot for the team and an even worse spot for Fleury. The pressure in the postseason (if the Penguins are in it) is only going to amplify this season for #29, not lessen.
Penguins sign two of their goaltender prospects to entry level deals
Tristan Jarry and Matt Murray both signed their first ever professional contracts with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday according to the
Penguins official website
Jarry and Murray will join the stable of young goaltenders that the Penguins have acquired which also includes Eric Hartzell, and Jeff Zatkoff. Jarry and Murray are still a number of years away from making an impact at the NHL level but the Penguins have certainly made an effort to invest draft picks and become younger at the goalie position.
Hartzell and Jarry will be in game action for the Penguins this weekend with the rookie tournament in London, Ontario.
The only question now is who will be tending goal for the Penguins until Jarry is ready? Will it be Fleury? Will Jarry even pan out? Time will tell.
Tom Kostopoulos signs with the Baby Penguins, again
Tom Kostopoulos has once again signed a professional contract with the Penguins organization. He signed a contract with the Penguins last season as well but when he was sent down to WB/S the Devils put a claim in on him and he was able to play 15 games for New Jersey.
Kostopoulos is strictly an organizational depth signing and he will be predominately used in the AHL. Signings like these are usually brushed aside but I find that signing NHL veterans to play for your AHL farm team can have a positive impact on the younger up and coming players who are still learning the ropes as professionals.
Sabres new third jersey
I feel that since I live in Sabres country I would chime in with my thoughts about the Sabres new threads. I feel the same way that most of the hockey community feels about them, they are pretty bad.
I have no idea why the Sabres have a fascination with the color gray lately, but it doesn’t look good. Having different shades of yellow also does not work for me. The fact that the back of the jersey is predominately blue and the front is mostly yellow also looks tacky
Frankly the jersey looks like it was taken from the
scrap heap of rejected Nashville prototypes and then somebody stuck a Sabres logo and the word Buffalo across the front.
Somewhere in Buffalo there was a board meeting in which this design was presented, and enough people thought to themselves that it would be a good idea to mass produce them.
The only thing worse than the jerseys itself was the incredibly drawn out unveiling process in which the Sabres teased the jersey for a few months. By drawing out the process it increased the expectations for the jersey. This kind of marketing only works if the product matches the hype. In this case the Sabres social media strategy face planted.
Even Steve Ott has a look on his face like “Yup, these are what you guys waited for and I’m the guy they picked to do this silly reveal.” I’ll give Steve his props, he is a true team player to go through with the over the top script which had him going back and forth with the official Sabres account on twitter.
Ever since the Sabres changed their colors to red and black during the mid 90’s, mostly all of their new jersey ideas have been extremely underwhelming (to be polite). It was only recently that they decided to go with a look that most resembles the original jerseys they wore when they entered the league. However, the Sabres fascination with the color gray started and they decided to use the color in the armpits. Even with the gray the jerseys are still nice looking.
Regular Sabres Hockeybuzz poster homiedclown put it best:
peggy (Terry Pegula) said if he needed money he would drill another well
I guess these third jerseys are his latest well
Personally I think the Sabres should stop designing new jerseys and just go with what worked for close to 30 years, their original royal blue and yellow. The Sabres have one of the best logos in hockey, yet they can never figure out how to use it properly.
I would argue that the original Sabres uniforms would be a top 10 jersey in the NHL if they went back to it. That is incredibly high praise considering that the Original Six would take 6 out of the top 10 spots on the list by default. Oh well.
That’s all for now.
Thanks for reading!
Follow me on twitter
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»