Sunday, April 28, 2013

Pens vs Canes & Shirts Off Our Backs Night, 4/27/2013



For a "meaningless" regular season finale, this one had some pretty decent storylines.

James Neal had a pretty good game after missing eight straight recovering from a concussion.  We finally had a chance to throw those giveaway Pirates hats we've been carrying around for a while.


Tanger entered the game just two points behind PK Subban for the scoring lead among defensemen.  Pretty impressive feat by itself, not even taking into consideration that he was doing it in seven fewer games or that his even strength point production is at levels normally unheard of for a D-man.




There were more Staal brothers than you could shake a hockey stick at, and I think one of them used to play for us or something.





Oh yeah, and our starting goalie became a new dad yesterday.




Oh man, almost forgot Paul Martin.  He returned after a 12-game absence, but that's kind of the story of Paul Martin this season.  He's just there making solid plays, getting the job done without really standing out.  Or something like that.  I don't know, but I didn't get any good pics of him tonight.  I'll just toss this one up from earlier in the year because hey, he deserves to be here.



Not to mention the fact that the Pens entered this one on a two-game losing streak, and guaranteed first seed or not, I can't imagine any team wants to head into the playoffs dropping three in a row.

Check out the rest of the photos after the jump.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Pens practice at Southpointe, 4/26/2013


The Pens practiced at Southpointe Friday and they were joined by team captain Sidney Crosby.  It was a welcome sight just days before the start of the most anticipated playoff run in four years.  

The poor lighting at Southpointe usually defeats my limited camera skills but I managed to get a few decent shots.  Check them out after the jump, including a couple of sweet sock pics involving some of the newer Penguins.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

50 Trades of Ray.


Okay, maybe not quite fifty.  
Still, with guys like Sid, Geno, Neal and Martin out and recent acquisitions like Iginla, Morrow, Sutter and Murray filling in the gaps, I thought it was time to pay tribute to the man behind the deals, GM Ray Shero.






Of course it's no surprise Ray gets what Ray wants.
Opposing GMs know if they don't play ball, they just might end up in the cornfield.




Even Dan knows that.



So keep making those deals, boss!






Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Pens streak ends at 15.


Pittsburgh lost to Buffalo 4-1 Tuesday night, snapping their 15-game winning streak.
Some of the bridge jumping population of Pens fans took the opportunity to completely overreact and blame everyone in sight, not the least of whom was goaltender Tomas Vokoun, who entered the game coming off eight periods of shutout hockey.

Oh well.  Here's hoping they go 16-0 in the postseason because I don't even know how people will handle it if they lose a playoff game.