Pens Shuout Sens; Lead 1-0

The Pens looked dominating last night, the Sens a little less so. Sure the PP failed to put the Sens away, they were shorthanded too often and Whitney continues to fumble the puck away, but those factors were insignificant in the end. Pens win 4-0 and the Sens have to really be wondering about themselves.

I expect the Sens to come out harder on Friday but how hard can thy bring it anymore? Lots of injuries and a stunning lack of confidence could spell an early doom, which is how it sounds from around the internets this morning:

• It was pretty much a nightmare for the Sens last night.
  
• Alfredsson not totally ruled out of series
• If you are feeling sorry for the pitiful Sens this morning, our playoff yahoo (seems like a recurring problem) Donnie Brennan will get your blood boiling again with another "article" aimed at agitating. Brennan is doing his job about as well as Chris Neil did last night.
  
• From the Trib:
  

  Heading into last night, they were 17-23 overall in openers, including a pedestrian 10-10 record at home. When they win the first game of a series at home, however, they have been able to close things out. They are 7-3 in series in which they retain home-ice advantage in the first game, 5-5 when they lose Game 1 at home and 12-8 overall when they have home-ice advantage.

• Let's hope the new arena also has a new, modern ice-making machine:
  

  Poor ice conditions at Mellon Arena have been a point of contention all season for the Penguins, and it hasn't improved in the postseason. "In the morning there was no crowd and there was no heat and it was pretty bad," Penguins forward Maxime Talbot said. "Both teams have to play on it, and it's not an advantage for either team."

• If you still think the Senators are one play or win away from becoming dangerous, even good, here is a great chart showing how each team fared in each quarter of the season. Teams don't play that bad for half a season and all of a sudden turn it around. Only the Isles and Thrashers have fewer points in the Wales Conference in the 2nd half than the Sens.
  
  
• From TSN host James Duthie:
  

  Okay, so what happens when Martin Gerber plays poorly?
  
  For all of you who believed there was some magic playoff pixie dust Bryan Murray could sprinkle on his team and wipe away the mess of the last five months, sorry.
  
  It is what it is. Or, the Senators are what they are: a wounded, shattered, lost, hockey team. The 4-0 score was kind.
  
  I know. You should never judge a series by the first game. Things can happen. Momentum can change. But there is a sense of inevitability creeping in here. The shots of all the injured Senators sitting helpless in the luxury box spoke volumes. It was questionable whether they could have won with them. Without them, a one-game hole seems like a canyon.

• WWGRD? He definitely wouldn't discriminate based on age.

Here Come the Jokes: Steely McBeam arrested for DUI

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_561456.html

I'm not a professional comedy writer so I won't be able to top anything that we're all going to hear about this, especially from Bengal and Browns fans. All I hope is that the Rooneys soon (like today!) realize how pathetic this whole mascot exercise has been and fire the mascot and not just the guy inside the suit.

One sentence did catch my eye though:

Hahey failed roadside DUI tests. He was given three chances to pass the walk-and-turn test after he first complained that he was nervous and then said he wasn't on level ground.

Almost as if he was walking on a beam.

Game 1 is Tonight!

Let's Get It On! What can be said that hasn't already been said other than to acknowledge that this is a wonderful time of year. The Pens spoiled their fans throughout the 90s but the early 2000s brought us back to reality and last year's brief flirtation only whetted the appetite for playoff hockey. The Igloo will be rockin tonight.

To help you pass the time at work or wherever you are until 7, here are a few interesting items:

• Some yahoo named Don Brennan at the Ottawa Sun thinks:
  "Crosby's got a bad RIGHT ankle? How will it stand up to a two-hander? The Senators have to find out. As much as they will be looking for timely goaltending and scoring, the Senators need somebody to emerge as a modern-day Bobby Clarke. Maybe hockey historian Jason Spezza can explain to his teammates what the former Flyers captain did to Russian star Valeri Kharlamov when the latter had a bad ankle in the 1972 Summit Series."
• It's Crosby's LEFT ankle.
• The Toronto Globe and Mail's David Shoalts thinks the Pens learned from last year and will be ready.
• So does ESPN's Scott Burnside.
• Bucci's Back with his season review and playoff previews.
  
• Optometrist who prompted Fleury to switch from yellow to white pads is from Ottawa.
• Empty Netters has compiles its own stellar playoff preview, videos, and tidbits.
• James Mirtle offers his prediction of Pens in 6 at Fanhouse.
• We've said it before: Marc Andre-Fleury is the key for the Pens. The Toronto Sun thinks he is the 12th best out of 16 goalies in the playoffs, while ESPN likes him a lot more.
• Can't get a ticket? You can still battle the crowds and traffic to watch the game.
• Don't forget to vote in the second round of Going Five Hole's Mike Lange Quote Tournament! Our current favorite (Great Balls of Fire inexplicably lost in rd 1) is: "He hasn't scored since the 8th grade picnic!".
• Do you know the very first Penguin?
  
• Calgary Sun's Eric Francis supports Yahoo Brennan's philosophy for the Flames vs the Sharks, just in a little less inflammatory way.

Let's Go Pens!

Bucs on Pace for 69-93

I'm not going to be able to provide a game by game breakdown of the Bucs. Even if time permitted, it's an agonizing habit to get into the daily coulda, shoulda, wouldas of any team for 162 games, let alone one that is as frustrating as the Pirates. Yesterday's home opener is a prime example: whoever is to blame for the failure to score in the 9th inning, the fact is that these debates happen very frequently with the Bucs - we've already seen at least two in the first 7 games - the infamous popup that fell in the first game was just the first in a long season. The fact is, they will continue to occur until the Bucs get better players who make the plays instead of offering some postgame explanation about what they were thinking and why the play didn't work.

Let's start out by giving a weekly, or some approximation therof, Good, Bad and Ugly of what we've seen of the Bucs and an adjusted forecast for where they will wind up in September.

THE GOOD

• Scorekeepers have been overly generous to the Bucs so far: Luis Rivas only has three errors.
• Evan Meek will be a (Devil) Ray before the end of April.
• Nate McLouth might be able to play this game.
• Jason Bay is hitting .182 and Adam Laoche .087. This is an improvement from 2007 and means Bay will hit .260 and LaRoche .280 the rest of the way to get their averages up to the .255 and .268 we expect of them.
• Doug Mientkiewicz and his attitude are on the team!
• X-Man is Player of the Week!
• Jose Bautista can play defense.
  

THE BAD

• Both middle infielders are already hurt. One is on the DL; the other has an injury that could impact his performance all season.
  
• Nate McLouth has 742 major league at bats. Adrian Brown had 308. Tike Redman had 230. Chris Duffy had 126. That's 664 AB's combined and not significantly less than McLouth. And those three somehow combined to hit over .310 in those ABs and then fell off the face of the diamond.
  
• Ronny Paulino is going to play more often than he has so far.
  
• Jose Bautista can't hit at all and takes it upon himself to bunt in critical situations in order to drive in a run.
• You won't be able to complain about fundamentals unless you attend Wednesday's and Friday's games in person, cuz they're no longer on TV.
  

THE UGLY

• Scorekeepers have been overly generous to the Bucs so far: Luis Rivas only has three errors so far. He could have twice that plus he almost blew a tailor made DP yesterday. Why is he on the team again? Why did he play SS yesterday instead of Brian 'Freeze' Bixler, who Russell promised to play and not sit on the bench?
  
• Craig Wilson is back!!
• Somewhere Dave Littlefield and Jim Tracy are sharing a toddy and laughing about the lack of fundamentals. And oh that bunting could be better!
• Helmets on the base coaches.
• Neal "Bullpen?! We don't need no stinkin' bullpen!" Huntington still looks 100 times better than Littlefield at this point.
  

So after a week and 7 games, the Bucs are 3-4. That is 3-4 with all the comedies of errors they've committed; either they'll continue to make these mistakes or get better.

I say it will improve somewhat but not enough to make a significant improvement. As of 4/8, I say the Bucs finish right where I pegged them:

72-90

Pirate Previews

So I've read a lot of previews, analyses, blogs, articles and other compositions about our Pittsburgh Pirates and their hopes for 2008 and what I've been able to deduce is that people are taking two different approaches to the '08 Bucs: either they aren't worth the time to write about or people go in depth and get creative about their chances and why they haven't won since 1992 and won't in 2008. Either way, the final result all the pundits come to is that the '08 Bucs will be just like every other team since '92 - losers.

Some offer help for Pirate fans, even listing 10 positive things about being a Bucco fan; some struggle for anything to say at all.

There is a 'starting 9' for the Bucs and there are position and role analyses.

A few think voodoo is working its magic on the Bucs: one fears voodoo is cursing the Bucs like it has the Cubs and Red Sox, another thinks it is keeping them from being the worst team in baseball.

One even records a video and thinks the Bucs will get of so close to that hallowed .500. Another has them just short as well. But WHYGAVS has already played out the season and knows .500 isn't all the Bucs will achieve. Or wait, maybe WHYGAVS was slapped back to reality.

And one feels a lot like me and has trouble even bothering with the Bucs right now.

But the Bucs are the Bucs and nothing wold be finer than a World Series parade through downtown. I know it won't happen in 2008 or 2009 or 2010 or .... sometime soon. But progress is first measured in baby steps so sure as PNC Park is the finest yard in the land, I'll be following the Bucs in 2008, bleeding for them just I have for every year since 1975, which is as far back as I can remember.

So my prediction? How about improvement but not .500. How about 72-90 and maybe a finish ahead of the Astros in the NL Central.

Roenick Reveals Keenan's Shenanigans - How is this Different Than a Player "Embellishing"??

In today's Calgary Sun, Jeremy Roenick fesses up to some nefarious tactics employed by Coach Mike Keenan during the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals vs the Pens:

"In the 1992 Stanley Cup, I got slashed by Kevin Stevens, and Mike threw a cast on my hand and put me in front of the media to get a point across to the league and the officials that I was getting cheap-shotted. He made me a guinea pig -- it was kind of embarrassing -- but what Mike says, you do. Mike is a genius when it comes to head games and getting into the referees' or players' heads. He's crazy -- very slippery, very sly. He can manipulate a lot of people with what comes out of his mouth. That's just a talent."

OK, now I have several thoughts about this admission:

• 1992 was also the year Mario Lemieux was slashed by Adam Graves which actually did break his hand and cause him to miss the majority of the Ranger series and the first game of the Bruins series. Keenan's decision to have Roenick put a cast on his hand seems like it was meant to be a comparison to what was done to Lemieux, which got Graves suspended.
• Roenick calls Keenan a "genius when it comes to head games and getting into the referees' or players' heads". Not sure why he says that because it sure doesn't seem like Keenan got into any ref or player's head that series. Unless the Pens allowing 5 goals in game 4 of their 4 game sweep constitutes successful mind gamesmanship in Chicago. Again - the Black Hawks did not win a game in that series, so what did Keenan do that earned the 'genius' tag?
• Now here's the real rub: Mike Keenan is a very respected coach who has been in the league a long time and has had some success (he is living off his one Cup win with the Rangers in 1994. He has had moderate success elsewhere but no shortage of controversy). He's kind of like the Bobby Knight of the NHL. Some analysts and other cro-magnons who constitute a large percentage of people the NHL puts on TV love Keenan. So that is why this accusation by Roenick won't lead to anything and will likely lead to more people criticizing Roenick (who is not free of controversy in his career either) than Keenan. But the question is: how is what Keenan did (and others have surely done at other times) different than what these same analysts decry as embellishing actions by players in order to draw penalties? Outcry against embellishments by players, such as throwing the head back, putting the hand over the face/mouth and falling down, is loud and clear from many. I say that what Keenan did is worse and certainly not a 'talent' as Roenick says. They are both attempts to get into the heads of either refs or other players to get them to make a call or change the way they play to benefit your team. The difference is that the player "embellishes" in the heat of the game and has to do so in a split second reaction to something that occurred in the course of the fastest game man plays. Keenan chose to employ his "embellishment" after clearly thinking about it rationally for a while, not on the ice in the heat of battle, but afterwards when all emotion should have eroded. The difference is the same as, though nowhere near the same severity as, the difference between manslaughter and murder. Yet we will continue to hear all about how awful player "embellishments" are but nothing about the even worse crimes committed by coaches.
  

The Bibster Offers his 16 Points for Playoff Success

Before the playoffs start on Wednesday, we thought we pass along what Cup winner and Pens announcer Bob Errey believes are the most important points for playoff success. As per his TV analysis, Bob doesn't break much ground here or give a unique view into the mind of a player as he prepares for the playoffs, yet it's a nice parable to pass along to all the youngsters:

Bob Errey was captain of the San Jose Sharks as the team prepared for the 94 playoffs. A couple of nights before the playoff series with the #1 seeded Red Wings began, Bob was laying in bed and couldn't sleep. Bob had won a Stanley Cup while in Pittsburgh and was thinking about what it takes to succeed in the playoffs. After awhile he decided to jot down what he was thinking which he shared with the coaches and all the players. While many of these seem obvious, it's the mental part of hockey that ultimately takes you to the top of the mountain. Make no mistake, you have to have skill, but that alone will not win you a championship in hockey. Here are the 16 Points for Playoff Success.

1. It takes 16 WINS to win the Stanley Cup
2. 4 Wins per series
3. Never dwell on the past (good, bad, win, lose)
4. Never take anything for granted
5. One shift is as important as 20
6. Rest
7. Confidence
8. Momentum
9. Throw statistics out the window
10. Luck
11. Play bigger
12. Never retaliate
13. Get pucks out, get pucks in
    
14. Never out of a game (ie. high sticking major = 5 minute PP)
15. Have fun
16. Heart is more important than skill

Sens GM/Coach Murray says Pens tanked final game to face Ottawa

This is all kind of funny. Has a playoff game, let alone a 7 game series that ebbs and flows, ever been won by anything that's been said in the papers before the series even started? Still, I can't fault Murray for trying to find some kind of motivation for his team - they are so beat up and have played so poorly for so long that they need some kind of cosmic intervention to turn it around.

ottawasun.com - War of words with Pens begins

Bryan Murray has fired the first salvo in the Senators playoff battle with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Senators GM/coach accused the Penguins of tanking their final game against the Phildelphia Flyers Sunday because Pittsburgh wanted to face Ottawa in the first round the playoffs beginning Wednesday at Mellon Arena.

Asked by the Sun what he thought when he saw Sidney Crosby as a healthy scratch in the 2-0 loss against the Flyers which cost Pittsburgh first place in the Eastern Conference, Murray didn't mince any words.

"I knew what was going on," said Murray.

Which was?

"You guys all know they wanted to play Ottawa. That's fine. That was fairly obvious from the drop of the puck," said Murray.

4/8 UPDATE: Had to add this funny tidbit. It's amazing what coaches do and get away with during the playoffs that should rightfully earn them scorn and shame and how it turns around when they are on th other side of things. I just posted a story about Mike Keenan and Jeremy Roenick, but I found humor, legit laughing humor, in something I saw on TSN last night.

On their playoff preview show, Mike Milbury (why is this slow-witted ex-player on every hockey show?) reacted to Bryan Murray's tirade detailed above as something that he was trying to do to motivate his players but that won't work because those things never work. Milbury basically laughed at Murray.

But if you recall, this is the same Milbury, who coached the Boston Bruins in 1991 and during the playoffs that year, called Pens coach Bob Johnson a "professor of goonism". Johnson was about as far as an NHL coach could be from advocating goonism, yet here was Milbury trying to get under the Pens skin by trying outlandish tactics. Very similar to the very same tactics Murray was employing yesterday that Milbury laughed at.

The guess here is that Murray's tactics will enjoy as much success as Milbury's did in 1991 when the B's lost to the Pens 4 games to 2.

UPDATE: Penguins Ottawa series begins Wednesday

The Penguins' first-round playoff series against Ottawa will begin Wednesday at 7:08 p.m. at Mellon Arena.

Game 2 will be played there Friday before the series shifts to Scotiabank Place in Ottawa for Game 3 April 14 and Game 4 April 16.

Game 5, if necessary, will be at Mellon Arena April 19, with Game 6 the next day in Ottawa and Game 7 at Mellon Arena April 22.

The first four games are scheduled to begin at 7:08 p.m. Starting times for the final three have not been determined.

Television coverage plans for the series have not been announced yet.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08097/871101-100.stm?cmpid=latest.xml

It'll Be Pens vs Sens 1st round playoff match-up, rematch from last year!!

By losing to the Flyers today 2-0, the Pens finished 2nd in the Wales Conference and will play the #7 seed Ottawa Senators in the first round of the playoffs. The series will start either Wednesday or Thursday night at the Igloo.

All in all, not a bad result coming out of today. The Pens didn't look too into the game today, but they came out of it healthy, which is most important. Fleury continued to look strong. And we saw the return of Gary Roberts (and Kris Beech for some reason).

So if you had your choice to play either Philly or Ottawa, keep in mind that the Flyers won the season series ve the Pens this year while Ottawa, after starting 15-2, has gone 28-29-8 and is more fragile than grandma's china. Get up a game or even a goal and the doubt will flourish in the Sens locker room.