Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Thats right kiddies, for the second and third times this season the Pens will face off against their hated rivals the Flyers not once but TWICE this week in a home and home series.  You remember what happened last time right?  (Apart from us beating them 5-4)

That right.  Scott Hartnell bit off the tip of Kris Letang's finger. Not only that but near the end of the contest, Flyers captain Mike Richards took a run at Marc-Andre Fleury because when you can't score goals you should make dirty runs at the opposing netminder.  It would prove to be a warmup for the damage he would cause to Florida's David Booth two weeks later.  This week is going to be an interesting one as this is really the Pens first crack at the Flyers since that all went down. 

Pittsburgh has a golden opportunity here to really start driving nails in Philadelphia's coffin.  They have played terribly of late not to mention the recent shake-ups with the firing of former coach John Stevens and his quick replacement by Peter Laviolette.  More recently netminder Ray Emery, who was thought to be the low cost solution in net for a team who overspent (*cough* Briere *cough*) badly and is still over the cap, went down with an abdominal injury that is going to require 6 weeks to heal.  To fill the gap left the Flyers went out and signed John Grahame to a try-out contract.  Grahame last saw NHL action under Laviolette with the Canes in 08. His last time in net was with Avangard Omsk of the KHL during the 08-09 season for 20 games but has been out of hockey since.  Brian Boucher is the current #1 but the Flyers still have feelers out with Atlanta, Anaheim and other teams as they try to solve their goalie woes.... solve their goalie woes..... solve their goalie woes.  Man it feels like I've been saying that since Ron Hextall retired. 30 year old Johan Backlund is currently called up from Adirondack as the other keeper and has a grand total of ZERO NHL games under his belt.  The feeling is that if the Flyers come up badly tonight and then in two against the Pens they will be a lot closer to pulling the trigger on a deal for a goalie, maybe even Marty Turco from Dallas.

The Flyers have been shutout in 3 of their last seven games as they are struggling to find goals from anywhere. Additionally all around meat-head Dan Carcillo will be done serving his 4 game suspension for ambushing Matt Bradley in time to cause more mayhem Tuesday night.  Maybe Max Talbot can say hi, it's the first time they'll face off since.... you know.    

If the Pens can deny the Flyers any points in these two games it would seriously damage them in the standings as they currently sit 13th in the conference ahead of only Toronto and Carolina with 29 points.  They are only 4 points behind the 8th spot Canadiens and a devastating week with a loss to the Bruins tonight followed by two to the Pens and a loss to the Rangers this Saturday would put them in the beginnings of an unrecoverable hole. 

For the Penguins these two games start a true warrior's stretch in the schedule.  After 2 with Philly we have Buffalo and New Jersey both on the schedule twice along with Ottawa and Toronto once before 2010.  The Devils and Sabres are true east contenders so its as equally important that we come out of two with Philly with four points.  Of those 8 games and their 16* available points the Pens truly need to come away with 10 minimum to keep pace in the east.  Four to start this beast part of the schedule would be mighty nice, especially considering who we'd be taking them from. 

About the Author:  Jared OzVath is a PensU contributor and writer for Hockey Independent.  His work has been cited by XM Radio's NHL Home Ice and Y!'s Puck Daddy Blog.  He calls play-by-play for every Penguins game on Twitter which you can see at SLBD or by following @SLBD_InGame on Twitter.

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Double Standards in the NHL?

Since the beginning of the season, there have been some controversial calls by league regarding suspensions and fines.

Let’s start with the slew foot ordeal. Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals was fined $2,500 by the league for his slew foot on Rich Peverly of the Atlanta Thrashers. The following Thursday Evgeny Artyukhin was suspended for 2 games for the exact same offense. Here is what Colin Campbell, NHL Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations, said about each offense:

"It is unfair to draw any parallels [about the two slew-foot incidents] other than the players that [Ovechkin and Artyukhin] tripped both fell down," Campbell told NHL.com. "Artyukhin was suspended [for two games] last season for a kneeing incident in which a player was injured. He was also fined during this preseason for slew-footing a player who didn't have the puck. Fast forward three weeks, he, in our opinion, did slew-foot Matt Niskanen, causing Niskanen's skates to fly up well above the boards and half up the glass. It resulted in an injury for Niskanen and he has missed one game so far."

Campbell then went on to say that Ovechkin is not a repeat offender and did not injury Peverley. Okay, so he does have a point about the whether the receiving players were subjected to any injury, but Ovechkin not a repeat offender? I’m sorry? Being a Pens fan I’m probably bias, but wasn’t it just this past season’s playoffs that Ovechkin charged at Sergei Gonchar hitting knee on knee causing Gonch to have to sit out of a game. Again there was a situation that nothing was done, not even a fine. How long is it going to take the league to stop using the double standard for certain players?

On to our next argument, Mike Richards’ hit on David Booth vs. Rob Scuderi’s hit on Jason Chimera. I’m sure everyone has seen both of these hits. Now please tell me which is worse. Richards knocks Booth completely out and get’s nothing but a slap on the wrist. On the other hand Scuds causes a guy to get a few stitches and gets a fine?

Here is what Campbell said regarding the Richards hit:

"He was going through the Bermuda Triangle, or Scott Stevens Triangle of heavy traffic and Richards hit him," Campbell said in trying to put into perspective what has become a very controversial topic. "He did not jump. He did not elbow him. He did not hit him in a place where he wasn't expecting it. It was an area where you expect to get hit, both the player passing the puck and the player doing the hitting."

Here is what he said about the Scuderi hit:

"Scuderi went really low and I felt it was a clip," Campbell said Hockey Night in Canada Radio. "Fortunately, he didn't injure the guy. He did hurt him on the play, as far as receiving a cut. But he came back in the game, Chimera, so I didn't think it was a fair play and we fined him."

I don’t know about you guys, but this just makes no sense to me. I guess it was fair to David Booth that he was knocked out, taken off the ice on a stretcher, remained in a Philly hospital overnight, and will be missing a few games. And all Campbell has to say is he should have been expecting it? Maybe I'm over-thinking.

What do you feel?

***quotes used from NHL.com and TSN.ca

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