When it comes to international competitions, there are really only three team sports anyone cares about. Basketball, hockey, and soccer. Maybe one day the World Baseball Classic will catch on, but we’ll all be either in the ground, in the wind, or not aware of our surroundings when that happens. And as a Yank, it can get dispiriting to see how the overlords of the sport in hockey and soccer run things. And it wasn’t so long ago that USA Basketball had to have an awakening, when gold medals at the Olympics and World Championships suddenly were not automatic. You wonder if such a thing would have to happen in the other sports, when the US has never been on top.
Game Of The Night
Predators v. Bruins (6pm)
Cleary the Penguins-Hawks is the game of the night, but we’ve spent all day talking about that so let’s move on for once, huh? Let’s admit there’s something outside of our little bubble! Open the spectrum a bit, maybe learn something about someone. Anyway, everyone’s favorite little-hockey-team-that-could, despite their GM having a tradition of signing sex offenders continues unabated, hits the ice tonight in The Hub. All eyes will be on the Preds this season, because all hockey writers want to go get drunk on Broadway on the company dime again and then rerun all their “hidden hockey gem” stories. As for the B’s… they’ll just hope Zdeno Chara can live through this.
vs. 
RECORDS: Penguins 0-0-1 Hawks 0-0-0
PUCK DROP: 7:30pm Central
TV: NBCS CHICAGO OR WHATEVER THE FUCK IT’S CALLED NOW
IRON CITY IS ACTUALLY PRETTY MUCH AS GOOD AS YEUNGLING: Pensburgh
After spending the past month gnashing our teeth or making fun of people gnashing their teeth about who would fill out the third defensive pairing or who would be on the fourth line, the Hawks get to roll it out for real tonight. In an odd bit of scheduling, it’ll be the second game for the Penguins, when you’d have to guess if this were the NBA or NFL they would have had, y’know, the team that just won its third Cup open the season against the team that last won three Cups close together in a primetime slot. Instead, you’ll be getting Antti Niemi on local TV! The NHL people, you can’t beat it with a stick!
Mike Darnay is Editor-in-chief at Pensburgh.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikeDarnay, where he’ll be bitching about Liverpool FC as much as I am.
The Penguins have lost Bonino, Cullen, Daley, Cunitz, and Fleury from last year’s champs. Which of these will hurt most?
I feel like this question might need to wait a little bit — at least until we see how Jim Rutherford decides to handle the 3C position. As it appears going into the season, losing Nick Bonino is going to hurt the most. If the Penguins can make a trade for someone like Riley Sheahan and remedy that roster spot, I think the answer might be Matt Cullen. He very quietly played a fantastic veteran role as a 4C (much like Michal Handzus did for Chicago, right?). (Not funny, Mike, -ED)
Perhaps the oddest component of the Penguins’ back-to-back championships is that only two defensemen played every playoff game both years. One is Ian Cole, who obviously doesn’t matter. And the other is Brian Dumoulin.
It’s been a strange cast rotating through. Two years ago Ben Lovejoy played every game, and Kris Letang only missed one. Olli Maatta, Justin Schultz, Trevor Daley, and Derrick Pouliot also saw time in the playoffs.
Last year, Letang missed the whole playoff campaign, and Maatta, Ron Hainsey, Cole, and Dumoulin went the route. Schultz and Daley played most of them but missed a couple games each. Mark Streit and Chad Ruhwedel also came up for air at various points.
So with Letang’s body basically being constructed of balsa wood, is Dumoulin now the most important d-man in Pittsburgh?
It’s not so much what Ryan Reaves is, because we’ve gone over that time and time again when he was belching and grunting his way through shifts in St. Louis. It’s that the two-time defending champions felt the need to trade for him that’s so dispiriting as a hockey fan.
Because the Penguins didn’t need this before, when they were having two parades you might have seen. The Pens decided to populate their fourth line with kids who could just skate really fast. They might not have been the most skilled, Kuhnackl, Wilson. Sheary, Rowney last year were some of the hellions that simply skated other plodding units into dust. They did it the year before as well.
That would also mean the last three champions didn’t need a “goon,” as the ’15 Hawks didn’t have one or need one. And generally these players are stripped of their jerseys in the playoffs, which lets you know that teams really do know deep down that they don’t serve any purpose.
I’m sure what Jim Rutherford would tell you is that he sees players like Tom Wilson in Washington or the rapidly-decomposing Brandon Dubinsky in Columbus who is only going to punch Crosby in the head or whatever other jackass is keeping him up at night. But hockey always has it backwards. GMs see Wilson try and decapitate someone, and not get suspended for the 10-15 games that is warranted, and they don’t conclude that they have to get this type of player out of the game. They conclude they need one of their own.
Hockey will remain in the dark, both in ages and viewership, until this type of dumbass brinksmanship is buried in the past. Let others have their morons, and score on the power plays they will assuredly give you.
It’s a sad state of affairs when the team that’s won the past two championships is still paying attention to the wrong scoreboard.
Game #1 Preview Posts
Preview
Lineups
Mike Darnay is Editor-in-chief at Pensburgh.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikeDarnay, where he’ll be bitching about Liverpool FC as much as I am.
The Penguins have lost Bonino, Cullen, Daley, Cunitz, and Fleury from last year’s champs. Which of these will hurt most?
I feel like this question might need to wait a little bit — at least until we see how Jim Rutherford decides to handle the 3C position. As it appears going into the season, losing Nick Bonino is going to hurt the most. If the Penguins can make a trade for someone like Riley Sheahan and remedy that roster spot, I think the answer might be Matt Cullen. He very quietly played a fantastic veteran role as a 4C (much like Michal Handzus did for Chicago, right?). (Not funny, Mike, -ED)
It’s not so much what Ryan Reaves is, because we’ve gone over that time and time again when he was belching and grunting his way through shifts in St. Louis. It’s that the two-time defending champions felt the need to trade for him that’s so dispiriting as a hockey fan.
Because the Penguins didn’t need this before, when they were having two parades you might have seen. The Pens decided to populate their fourth line with kids who could just skate really fast. They might not have been the most skilled, Kuhnackl, Wilson. Sheary, Rowney last year were some of the hellions that simply skated other plodding units into dust. They did it the year before as well.
That would also mean the last three champions didn’t need a “goon,” as the ’15 Hawks didn’t have one or need one. And generally these players are stripped of their jerseys in the playoffs, which lets you know that teams really do know deep down that they don’t serve any purpose.
I’m sure what Jim Rutherford would tell you is that he sees players like Tom Wilson in Washington or the rapidly-decomposing Brandon Dubinsky in Columbus who is only going to punch Crosby in the head or whatever other jackass is keeping him up at night. But hockey always has it backwards. GMs see Wilson try and decapitate someone, and not get suspended for the 10-15 games that is warranted, and they don’t conclude that they have to get this type of player out of the game. They conclude they need one of their own.
Hockey will remain in the dark, both in ages and viewership, until this type of dumbass brinksmanship is buried in the past. Let others have their morons, and score on the power plays they will assuredly give you.
It’s a sad state of affairs when the team that’s won the past two championships is still paying attention to the wrong scoreboard.
Game #1 Preview Posts
