According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Sidney Crosby returns to action for the Penguins tonight.
A few shifts. Maybe not even that.
In Sidney Crosby’s mind, he and right winger Marian Hossa won’t have any trouble clicking as linemates now that they will finally get a chance to try.
“I don’t see it being too much time at all,” Crosby said yesterday after announcing that he will return to the lineup tonight when the Penguins play the New York Islanders at Mellon Arena.
He has missed the past seven games and 28 of the past 31 because of a high ankle sprain.
As the Islanders try to play spoiler vs the first place Penguins, without Mike Comrie who will miss at least one game.
From what I gathered, Mike Comrie does have an injury to the hip and will indeed miss the game tomorrow - what happens after that depends on how fast whatever the injury is heals.
Gonna keep it brief this morning, headed to good ol’ Roosevelt Field this afternoon to fight the hordes finish my shopping and then headed to the Coliseum for tonight’s game.
- Nice game by the Isles last night - four freakin’ goals?!?! Nice! They played hard, traded goals with the Pens in the first and second, and then two quick goals in the third got them the win. Blake Comeau got his first NHL point on an assist on the game tying goal, and then his first NHL goal was the game winner. He also picked up his first NHL first star of the game award. Congrats Blake on an impressive night. Trent Hunter scored 37 seconds later to give the Isles a 2 goal lead. As usual - Pens get all the calls - 6 PP for the Pens, 2 for the Isles. How about that last penalty to Guerin? What a joke - it certainly looked like he might hook Crosby on the play, but Crosby skated right out of it and was barely bothered by it, while the over-protective zebras called the penalty anyways. Joke. Good to see Sid “The Thug” Crosby kept his gloves on last night.
- Isles take on the Caps tonight, losers of two straight. Check out Caps’ blog Japer’s Rink preview of tonight’s game.
Basically, there are two ways the Caps can head into the Christmas break - on a high note and no more than seven points out of eighth place in the Eastern Conference or… well… “other.” Tonight’s game on Long Island, of course, will go a long way towards determining how merry the Caps’ collective Christmas is, and while it’s never easy to win on the road in the NHL, the Caps have a lot going for them tonight.
- Ted Nolan will not be behind the Isles’ bench tonight, and no, that doesn’t mean Al Arbour is coaching again (damn!). Ted’s son Brandon will be making his NHL debut in Tampa. Ted Nolan told Greg Logan:
Now you have a sense of what fathers feel like when their sons play for the first time in the National Hockey League. Fathers are very proud, and I’m no different. My wife [Sandra] and younger son will be flying down to Tampa to watch him play tomorrow night, and we’ll all get together for a Christmas celebration.
That’s all I got this morning - check the recommended links to the right for some more reading materials. See you late tonight or tomorrow morning for the Isles/Cap recap as the Isles head into the short holiday break (Jason Blake and Toronto come into town the day after Christmas).
So much for the fast start to the season. The Islanders continue to hover just above .500 and cannot get any momentum or excessive scoring going, dropping Saturday night’s game at the Coliseum to Pittsburgh 3-2. The Isles have not won back to back games in almost a month, dating back to mid-November and consecutive wins vs. the Rangers and Devils. Ah, the good ol’ days of mid-November.
The Isles fell behind early (bad) 2-0 partial thanks to an awful giveaway by M.A.B in his own defensive zone that led to a Sydney Crosby goal - like he needs any help scoring? The Isles came back though (good) to tie the game at 2 in the second period thanks to goals from Park and Vasicek who leads the team with 10 goals now. For illustrative purposes, Kovalchuk leads the league with 26. The Isles are 2nd to last in league scoring, the only silver lining being that the one team worse than us…is the Rangers. Back to Saturday night, later in the second period there’s some pushing and shoving between Witt and Crosby, two Pens jump in to remind Witt about their “no-touch” insurance policy on Sid. Vasicek jumps in to Witt’s defense, and after the zebras sort it out, the Pens get an early Christmas powerplay (No! Not the Pens! They never catch a break.) as Witt and Vasicek are sent to the Isles box, but only Whitney for the Pens. On the ensuing powerplay, Pittsburgh scores to make it 3-2 and that’s final goal of the game. Coach Nolan’s STILL looking for the extra penalty on that scrum.
“I still can’t understand how two guys have a little pushing match, and then two guys jump one of our guys and we end up in a short-handed situation,” Nolan said.
The Isles play a decent third period, creating chances to try and find the tying goal…and then Chris Simon gets all boneheaded on us…again. Simon takes an “attempt to injure” major penalty for using his skate to stomp on Jarkko Ruutu’s foot as both of them left the ice after a shift. Ruutu fell to the ice, but was not injured. The Isles spend 5 of the last 6 minutes of the game on the penalty kill - which surprisingly produces some of their best chances to score in the period, including a Mike Sillinger breakaway, but can’t find the equalizer.
Simon has been given a leave of absence by the team in advance of his 7th career NHL suspension. Having just completed a 25-game suspension in October, Simon is likely to have the rulebook thrown at him by NHL Dean of Discipline Colin Campbell, because of his repeat offender status. While this incident wasn’t as bad as the stick swinging incident from last year, I still think Simon is looking at 20-25 games again and probably some league mandated anger-management classes. Off the ice he sounds like a great guy, but on the ice he’s shown a history of not respecting his opponents, not thinking before he acts, and not acting in the best interest of his team. It is possible his Islanders and even NHL career could be over because of this incident.
If you play or played organized hockey, you probably know a guy like Chris Simon. He might have even been on your team. The guy who always loses his cool, takes the extra penalty, or takes the pointless, unprovoked penalty. The guy in front of the net who always has to get the last shove in. The guy who’s slashes like he’s chopping wood. Or the absolute worst guy in men’s league - the guy who forgets it’s all for fun and everyone has to go to work in the morning. The guy with no respect for his opponents and just wants to fight and hurt people. On the ice, in the parking lot, wherever.
Now I’m not saying Chris Simon is as bad as “that guy” or that he wants to fight Ruutu in the parking lot. I’m just saying if you’ve played organized hockey, you’ve seen a guy like this who loses his temper a bit too often. Simon’s been lucky that no one has been seriously hurt from his actions, he’s going to run out of luck…or second chances, very soon.
Isles dropped their second game in a row last night vs. the Penguins. Even up they played pretty solid, but 6 Penguins powerplays kept the Isles on their heels, and the Isles couldn’t generate enough opportunities with the 2 powerplay chances they had. Their second powerplay of the game came with less than four minutes left in the game and was a pathetic 2 minutes of hockey generating no good scoring chances.
The Penguins are 4th in the league with 99 powerplays, the Islanders 2nd to last with just 65. Same as last year - Pens near the top, Isles near the bottom, and when these two teams play it’s so blindingly obvious how Team Crosby gets all the calls. The zebras are in cahoots with the Penguins, ignoring those (2) too many men penalties that should have been called.
