SLBD

Shutting the Doors

J. OzVath — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:17:55 +0000

People who read SLBD with any form of regularity know that over the weekend of February 6th/7th 2010 there was no game call, pregame or post game analysis on SLBD. This was done out of a personal need to feel what it was like to not have the pressing concerns of the blog, research, writing and setup going on surroudning a hockey game. I needed to remember what is was like just to plop down and watch a game.

It had a resounding positive impact in my personal/home life. So to that end SLBD will be shutting its doors. From the start my passion for the Penguins and hockey have driven me to be on top of information regarding my beloved team and to deliver it to a small porition of the Penguins fan base. My desire to make sure people who were cut out of radio or television coverage drove me to call the games on Twitter.

What I wasn’t seeing is the negative impact that this was having on myself, my (actual) work, my wife, children and friends. No offense to anyone who comes here to read but all of those things are more important that writing and maintaining SLBD.

The feedburner accounts and Y! Pipes that drive the hub of information around here will be purged. There is no need to continue to draw on feeds that will no longer be in use. This will occur throughout the day Monday February 8th. The Twitter accounts associated with auto tweets will go dormant and be deleted over the next month. The @SLBD2, @SLBD_InGame, and @SLBD_PensNews accounts will also be eliminated. My primary Twitter account has already been changed to @Ozman_51

I just want to be a fan again, with my friends and family. Writing and maintaining SLBD had become what some of the people around me deemed a “second job”. I’m already busy enough with one.

If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch with me using the contact form.

Kovalchuk Traded to Devils

J. OzVath — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:24:47 +0000

As if the Atlantic needed more firepower: Ilya Kovalchuk traded to Devils

It was confirmed Thursday that the Devils have acquired the former Atlanta captain, an impending free agent. The Thrashers will receive defenseman Johnny Oduya, rookie forward Niclas Bergfors, junior [OHL season suspended] prospect Patrice Cormier and New Jersey’s first-round pick in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft.

Defenseman Anssi Salmela, traded by the Devils to the Thrashers last March for Niclas Havelid, will return to New Jersey as part of the deal. The teams will also flip second-round picks.

What strikes out at me is that Atlanta in the end got decent long term value for what will be a rental for the Devils. I still think any team willing to part with core assets and draft picks for 25 games plus the playoffs is insane. Regardless the Atlantic just got a whole lot tougher for the Penguins who will now have to contend with the trap and a deal with the combination of Patrick Elias, Kovalchuk, and David Clarkson.

The only place this could have been worse for the Penguins was if he had gone to the Flyers or Capitals. On the bright side at least it is over so we can talk about something else until the Devil’s are second guessed after not winning a cup on draft day.

Winter WXR May Force Pens to Take A Bus to DC

J. OzVath — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:59:24 +0000

The Nation Weather Service is forecasting a major snow event for this weekend in the Washington D.C. area. After Pittsburgh’s game at Montreal this Saturday the Penguins were scheduled to fly into D.C. for the early Sunday NBC matchup with the Capitals. If the weather turns bad those plans may have to change.

@capsblog: The #Penguins might have 2 fly 2 #Philadelphia from #Montreal on Saturday PM due 2 #DC snowstorm. From thr they wld bus 2 DC.

This is already the shortest turn around on back to back game of the season for the Penguins. A long bus ride from Philly to the Nation’s Capital would only further fatigue a team who will play two games in less than 24 hours.

Whitney, Gleason Named to U.S. Roster

J. OzVath — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:36:33 +0000

From Empty Netters:

According to Kevin Allen of USA Today, Ducks defenseman and former Penguin Ryan Whitney and Hurricanes defenseman Tim Gleason will replaced injured blueliners Mike Komisarek (shoulder) of Toronto and Paul Martin (arm) of New Jersey on the United States’ Olympic roster.

So that kills the rumors of Alex Goligoski taking one of those spots. Also shafted? Rob Scuderi.

Practice Report: Talbot Leaves After 15 Minutes

J. OzVath — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:13:46 +0000

The Penguins held their off-day practice that saw every player on the ice except Eric Godard who is on IR until after the Olympic break. Unfortunately Max Talbot left after 15 minutes. Maybe its time to put Max on the IR and get him healed up for a playoff run.

Chris Kunitz took the full practice and in pseudo-confirmation of yesterday’s reports that we was cleared to play, Head Coach Dan Bylsma had the following to say:

“Kunitz is doing well. We keep pushing him and going forward. He’s getting close. We are hopeful that he could possibly play over the weekend. So we will see on that.”

The Penguins also confirmed in the practice report that Jay McKee was not a healthy scratch Monday night against Buffalo and he is dealing with a minor, yet undisclosed, injury.

The final piece of note is that Jordan Staal continued to practice as the 2nd line centerman with Evgeni Malkin on his left wing. Various players rotated into the other wing position throughout practice.

Kunitz Cleared for Return

J. OzVath — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:03:00 +0000

From The Insider On Pittsburgh Sports:

Pittsburgh Penguins winger Chris Kunitz (abdominal) has been cleared to return to the lineup Saturday night against Montreal.

Kunitz’s return is expected to along side Sidney Crosby. Pascal Dupuis will slide back down in the depth chart and one of either Nick Johnson or Mark Letestu is probably not coming back Saturday after their reassignment to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton earlier Tuesday.

Unknown is what effect, if any, this will have on the recent pairing of Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin on the 2nd line.

Penguins Re-Assign Johnson, Letestu

PensOfficial — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:48:37 +0000

From the Official Release:

The Pittsburgh Penguins have re-assigned forwards Nick Johnson and Mark Letestu and to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League, it was announced by executive vice president and general manager Ray Shero.

Obviously a we don’t play until Saturday and want to save as much cap room as possible move by the Pens.

Rangers and Flames Get it Done

J. OzVath — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:39:28 +0000

For completeness sake from the Rangers:

New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather announced today that the Rangers have acquired forwards Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust from the Calgary Flames, in exchange for forwards Christopher Higgins and Ales Kotalik.

A Glance to the Line, Schedule, and Cap Space

J. OzVath — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:09:24 +0000

As of this morning we are 29 days away from the NHL trade deadline which is March 3rd at 3pm EST. The Penguins have 25 games left on the schedule. In just under 2 weeks the NHL will close its doors so that its players can take part in the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. During those two weeks there will be a roster freeze in the league beginning Feb 12th which will make the first of March a very interesting day.

Much of the next 4 weeks will depend on the contact talks with Sergei Gonchar

Don’t doubt it, NHL GMs are not going on vacation, neither are the coaching staffs. They will be hard at work trying to force a buyer into a seller across a league that has 26 of 30 teams still in legitimate contention for a playoff spot. Now over the next two weeks leading into the games it is possible that 2-4 more teams will fall off, but don’t count on it. The only clubs that are for sure sellers (or should be) now are the Toronto Maple Leafs, Carolina Hurricanes, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Edmonton Oilers. Two of those teams have players that the Penguins should have legitimate interest in. From the Leafs Ray Shero should be giving a serious look to Alexi Ponikarovsky and from the Canes Ray Whitney should be getting at least mild consideration to go on either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin’s wing. Ponikarovsky makes more sense as a long term piece. He speaks Russian and can fill that companion hole that could be left open by a failure to sign Sergei Gonchar, who is reportedly seeking a 3 year deal.

There have been rumors that the Penguins might also be looking at RJ Umberger out of Columbus. He carries a $19,430 daily cap hit on his $3,750,000 salary. He’s under contract until the end of the 2011-12 season but I don’t think Shero makes that move and presses the Penguins nose up against the salary cap unless he can unload Mark Eaton’s $10,363/day in return. Still after this season acquiring Umberger would leave us little room to resign Kris Letang who is a RFA after this year.

Ponikarovsky could be the answer on Malkin's wing, if he could be signed reasonably after this year.

Believe it or not the Penguins must go bargain shopping at winger because defense must be the focus at the end of the year. Only Brooks Orpik and Alex Goligoski are on the blueline books for next year. Right now the loss of Eaton, Gonchar, Letang, Jay McKee and Martin Skoula would only free up $9,210,000 in cap space to go with the $402,025 that exists now. That a grand total of $9,612,025 free on defense. The hope is that Sarge will sign for something more reasonable, but no one really knows where those talks are. Also of note from The Confluence is that the Ducks put Dman Nick Boynton on waivers yesterday and assuming no one in front of Shero has interest Skoula may have played his last game in a Pens uniform Monday night.

With four defensemen to sign there is no way the Penguins take on Umberger’s salary. Ponikarovsky poses an equally perplexing problem at $2,105,000 and is UFA at the end of the season. Shero goes there if he senses Sarge will be gone. The reason Whitney makes more sense than Umberger is because he is UFA at the end of this year and the Penguins wouldn’t have to worry about dealing with a $3.335mil Cap hit next season. Whitney would be a rental unless he was willing to stay put for a bargain price.

On the forward side only Bill Guerin, Ruslan Fedotenko, and Matt Cooke have no deal for next year. Include their salaries and the Penguins have a grand total of $14,982,962 of cap space based on this year’s total. The Salary Cap is expected to move slightly but not so much as to totally invalidate that figure. The lynch pin in all of it is Gonchar. If he signs before the deadline is sets things in one direction. If he doesn’t Shero will have to make some moves assuming he won’t be here.

Umberger's contract is too much of a long term weight and he used to be a Flyer.

Also don’t forget that Brent Johnson is currently here on a 1 year flyer. There is no backup signed for next year which is how Shero usually runs it. I don’t think John Curry is ready. It’s not the Vancouver collapse. It’s how he responded to it back in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after his return. After being sent back down Curry was yanked two more times back to back as he admittedly had a hard time bouncing back. Having a hard time bouncing back against AHL level competition is not what makes a NHL goalie. Beej is making $525,000 this year. That’s a steal. He has played well enough to contend for a starting job elsewhere if he wants to.

Beyond potential Trade Deadline deals Pittsburgh still has those 25 regular season games. 12 of them are on back to back nights. Thats the bad news. The good news is that looking at the opponents 2009-10 performance its not that tough of a sled. On the Forecheck did a great breakdown of Strength of Schedule based on oppositions point percentage yesterday (among other factors) and going into last night’s game against the Sabres Pittsburgh has the 8th easiest remaining schedule with rest of their opponents grabbing .553 of available points.

Pittsburgh has 13 home games and 12 road games left. Their last great road trip is March 11th through the 18th when they will play 5 road games in 8 days. All of those games are on the east coast but two are against New Jersey who the Penguins have failed to solve this year. The Caps are there 3 more times but so is Carolina twice, The Rangers twice, The Islanders three times, Atlanta twice in April, and Toronto once. That’s 13 of the 25 right there.

The Penguins are in good position for the end of this year. The are now 1 point behind New Jersey for the Atlantic and tied at 71 points with the Northeast leading Sabres. The Devils do have 3 games in hand on us so those games in March are going to be critical. Pittsburgh is on pace to put up 102 points which easily puts them into the playoffs.

Comeback City, How’s That Feel Sabres? Pens Win 5-4

J. OzVath — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:00:43 +0000

After going down 3-1 Sidney Crosby’s 2nd Period Hattrick powers the Penguins back who hold on to the 5-4 win. The Penguins move into a points tie with Buffalo for 3rd in the East at 71. It was a great reversal of the 12/29 Buffalo comeback. Crosby now leads the league in goals at 37.

Jay McKee was a late scratch and as such Martin Skoula skated in his place. Despite the pregame confirmation from the Penguins that Brent Johnson would go, Marc-Andre Fleury got the nod tonight which makes sense heading into this weekend playing 2 games in under 24 hours. The Pens put the pedal down quickly 47 seconds in a Mark Letestu put home a pass from Tyler Kennedy on a 3 on 1 that developed on Pittsburgh’s second rush. Kris Letang with the secondary assist.

Nick Johnson would go to the box for holding on a Paul Gaustad dive. Immediately off of that Jordan Staal would get a shorthanded 2 on 1 with Matt Cooke but fail to score. Derek Roy would put in a Powerplay goal with 2 seconds left in that advantage from Drew Stafford and Steve Montador with 14:28 to play in the frame. Sergei Gonchar was terribly out of position on the play and Flower made a bad read or lost the puck in feet. Way to soft of a goal.

Buffalo would come right back 48 seconds later and get another one from Thomas Vanek. It was a bad neutral ice turnover that Buffalo just transition really well off of. Sloppy care of the puck from the Penguins burned them. Roy and Henrik Tallinder with the assists. 2-1 Sabres. The Penguins yet again score in the first five minutes ans seemed to exhale and the got stomped on quickly.

Pittsburgh would not find good defense the rest of the period. They would have to kill an Interference call on Ruslan Fedotenko around the mid point when Stafford and Vanek broke on a 2 on 1. The Penguins offensive transition continued to rely on the up pass to the center red line and invariably when it was not there Buffalo countered right back to offense. Ryan Miller was vulnerable all period leaving big rebounds that Pittsburgh just could not get back on net. TK and Staal both had strong periods. Of note was that Staal for the second straight game was centering the 2nd line with Evgeni Malkin on his win and Letestu was in between TK and Cookie on the 3. Geno also seemed to have trouble handling the puck. Much of the team did and it showed in their inability to sustain offense.

The 2nd period would belong to Sidney Crosby who put in his 3rd hattie of the season

First of all there were Twitter problems to start the frame for the first 5 minutes, so my apologies for the delay in updates during the opening few. Hope would sink quickly after Bill Guerin went to the box 5 minutes in. The Pens would kill it but Tim Kennedy would score on a nice tic-tac-toe play from Mike Grier and Clarke MacArthur immediately following the kill. 3-1

Buffalo finally took their first call at the 10 minute mark and Sidney Crosby made them pay on a bad angle shot following an Alex Goligoski fake shoot to pass on the Powerplay. Geno extended his points streak to 8 with the other assist and there was life 3-2 after looking lethargic for the first 8 minutes.

Miller would give up a very leaky goal four minutes later as Geno and Jordan drove the zone. Staal got out of his slump on the goal, his first in 13 games, and made it 3-3 with about 6 minutes to go. Pascal Dupuis would get the other assist. The Penguins weren’t done. With 2:30 to go on a bad play between Calder candidate Tyler Myers and Miller, Crosby put in a wacky goal to make it even. It came off of Miller’s right side and Sid just slid it by Miller. Pens up 4-3. No assists on the play.

Crosby would complete the in-period bag hattrick on a wicked drive to the net to the net. He had Letang with him but was shooting the whole way and blew it by Miller. Yes it was yet another giveaway night at the igloo. Miller would stay in net and the period would end with that score. Crosby’s 3rd hattie on the season. The Penguins just completed a comeback on the Sabres very similar to what they did to us up 3-0 on December 29th. Pens go to the locker room up 2 with the 5-3 lead. Four unanswered for the Penguins.

Staal got his 1st in 13 games. Good to see him off the schnied.

Ryan Miller would try to sneak in a trip on Sid right in the crease in the first two minutes and get nailed for it, but the Pens wouldn’t do anything with the PP. Play would be back and forth for almost the entire period with the Penguins playing decent defensive hockey and the Sabres taking some chances trying to force the offense. Things really wouldn’t pick back up until late.

Sergei Gonchar took an obvious trip with 3;33 to go. Jason Pominville would score from Tim Connolly and Vanek when the Pens thought the had it cleared and were headed to the bench. Vanek fed Pominville for the one timer and all of the sudden it got really interesting with 3 minutes to play. In a classic case of the referees wanted to make it exciting they called a phantom holding call on Brooks Orpik just under a minute later. There was NOTHING there. Orpik was pushing off with his free hand but never held, it wasn’t even close. It effectively put the Sabres on the PP for the rest of the game.

The Penguins would be up to it despite tremendous pressure from the Sabres. Fleury stood tall and made 3 game savers in the final 90 seconds. Pens win 5-4 in a comeback on Sid’s hattrick.

Stall breaks 13 goal drought
Malkin on 8 game point streak
Crosby’s 3rd hattie of the season but still looking for assist 300
Geno or Sid have figured in on 21 of last 22 Pens goals.
Stars: 3.) Vanek 2.) Letang 1.) Crosby
Pens now tied with Buffalo at 71 points but the Sabres have 3 games in hand.
Crosby now has the NHL lead in goals with 37, tied with Patrick Marleau