The NHL show is coming to town… well , the poster boy for the NHL is coming anyway… and bringing his merry band of mischief makers (Geno and MAF ) with him.
We went through the post mortem of the Flames game so I am not going to start there. We know that the last time the Pens came here, it was close… a 1 - 3 loss isn’t too horrible considering that The Kid made the highlight reels against us previously and his boys took us apart 2 - 7 prior to that.
So what do we hope for? Well we hope that TGOs current juggle session pays off. The lines as of today look like:
Todd Fedoruk-Olli Jokinen-Shane Doan
Daniel Carcillo-Martin Hanzal-Peter Mueller
Kevin Porter-Steven Reinprecht-Mikkel Boedker
Daniel Winnik-Kyle Turris-Viktor Tikhonov
With Therrien being almost as much of a juggler as WG, its a tossup as to which lines will actually hit the ice. Rumor has it that Michel is splitting up Geno and Cindy yet again. Meaning we have 2 very nasty lines to worry about rather than a top line that we could have thrown the WTH? Line against (would have been interesting to see if the boys could work their containment magic against such a monster setup). You just KNOW I am going to ream Gretz and Co a new one if the WTH? Line has been broken up for nothing. Lets all hope at least one of those hard workin beasts scores.
Both teams are in a similar situation on the blue. The Pens have problems with Gonch and Whit out indefinitely and Big Hal Gill on the DTD trail. Gill is a monster back there and we had major problems with him, so here’s hoping he won’t be joining us. We have Jlov still out and Ken Klee coming to join us (hopefully meaning Hale will be sitting this one out). Klee isn’t the fastest thing on 2 skates but lets face it… fast isn’t really what we need right now. We need stable, reliable and safe. We need the guy who makes the good decision the first time. And I think Klee just might fit the bill.
IDK what the D pairings will actually shake out to be but I would think some combination of Klee/Yandle, Klee/Sauer or even Klee/Jovo might be seen. With Z being able to partner any thing on skates… there is a versatility that Klee can bring us, if he lives up to even the minimum expectation. (Z/Yandle is a no brainer, DMo/Sauer gives the same shut down capability as the Z/Sauer combo only w/ the added fillip of DMo’s slap shot) Whichever way TPTB decide to go, we’ll be seeing Klee rockin the #2 (that prolly won’t sit well w/ more than a few Ballard-die-hards). Time to let it go people, Bally won’t be comin back. (Doug Moss was recently the guest of the booster club and gave us this lil tidbit… They tried 3 ways from Sunday to do the Joker deal w/out losing Ballard. No dice from FLA.. we want the master of the hipcheck or no deal.) So suck it up and deal with it and don’t be givin Klee the business when he hits the ice.
