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.
