Very Quick Penguins-Flyers Highlights

Sure you can read all about game one of the Pittsburgh Penguins-Philadelphia Flyers series on countless websites or find highlights in numerous places. However, I’m happy to provide you with a short, short recap of the game.



Jeff Jimerson nailed the national anthem.

First Period

Sidney Crosby scores! 1-0 Pens

Tyler Kennedy scores! 2-0 Pens

Fleury stones Jagr.



Pascal Dupuis scores! 3-0 Pens

End of First Period

Mike Milbury doesn’t make any outlandish, offensive or inaccurate statements during intermission.

Second Period

Fleury makes an incredible save on Hartnell

Daniel Briere scores. Boo, especially since he was barely offsides. 3-1 Pens

Couple of unsuccessful power plays for the Penguins in there.

Craig Adams & Arron Asham on a 2-on-1. Probably the two forwards on the Pens you would least like to see on a 2-on-1.

End of second period

What are the chances David Beckham has visited a Burger King since this commercial? In the unlikely event that he eats at BK, there's no chance that he knows the restaurant manager's name, right? There's even less than a zero chance that Victoria Beckham eats or drinks at BK.



Third Period

Jagr interferes with Crosby. That’s not allowed.

Steve Sullivan has a point blank chance but Ilya Bryzgalov says no (or nyet).

Jordan Staal hits the crossbar.

Briere scores again. Boo. 3-2 Pens

Crap. Power play goal for Brayden Schenn on a nice pass from Scott Hartnell. Game tied 3-3.

End of third period.

Only five shots for the Pens in the entire 3rd period.

Overtime

Jakub Voracek scores. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Flyers win 4-3. Jakub spells his name wrong. If the Pens had to lose in overtime, I'm happy that it happened quickly. There's no way I could have stayed up late watching a 3 or 4-overtime game.

A few notes:

The Pens finished 0-for-3 on the power play while the Flyers went 1-for-1. Pens need to do better on special teams if they want to win the series.

The Malkin, Neal and Kunitz line combined for zero points.

Did Max Talbot play for the Flyers? I dont think I ever noticed him.

Game two on Friday.

Penguins-Flyers Schedule (With Commentary)

The NHL released the schedule for the first round of 2012 playoffs. Here are the specific dates, times and TV schedule for the Penguins-Flyers series:



Game 1: Wednesday, April 11

Looking forward to seeing the surprising move of using Betty White and her group of senior pranksters replacing NHL referees. NBC symmetry at its best!

Game 2: Friday, April 13

The last time the Penguins and Flyers met on a Friday the 13th, Mario Lemieux scored 9 goals.*

Game 3: Sunday, April 15

The Pirates face the San Francisco Giants at 4:05. Let’s hope for a long rain delay, so that we can watch both the Pens and Bucs during the last day MLB Extra Innings free trial.

Game 4: Wednesday, April 18

It’s a good thing that Whitney isn’t airing this week. Otherwise, hundreds of millions of people would need to decide what’s worse: watching Whitney or seeing Flyers’ Scott Hartnell.

Game 5: Friday, April 20 (if necessary)

Rebecca Black appreciation night in Pittsburgh!

Game 6: Sunday, April 22 (if necessary)

The network is listed as "to be determined" since NBC could have Kentucky Derby coverage two weeks before the race.

Game 7: Tuesday, April 24 (if necessary)

In a surprising move, Arron Asham announces that he is making himself eligible for the NFL draft. ESPN spends the next three days of draft coverage comparing Asham with Tim Tebow.


* This may not be true.

It Always Sucks in Philadelphia

To prepare everyone for the Pittsburgh Penguins-Philadelphia Flyers home-and-home series taking place tonight in Pittsburgh and Thursday in Philadelphia, Benstonium created this excellent It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia parody. Enjoy!

Dear Philadelphia Flyers Fans,

Enjoy chanting "Crosby sucks" while mowing the lawn, hitting golf balls or on your way to work on Monday since you’re not going to have the chance to do so at the Wachovia Center again during the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. However, you may have a good point. Perhaps Sidney Crosby does suck. I mean he only had two goals on Saturday and a total of 4 goals and 4 assists in the series. Of course, those eight points would be three more than any other Flyer (Mike Richards and Claude Giroux led the team with 5 points) in the six-game series. Actually, I’ll let Crosby, the recipient of all of the taunting, speak for himself:

"We've had huge rivalries over the years. It's a loud building. They were playing well and the crowd was into to it, so to hear a little silence was gratifying."

So what’s the excuse as to why the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Flyers this season? Simon Gagne, Kimmo Timonen and Braydon Coburn were injured during last year’s playoff series, but they looked healthy the last few weeks. In addition, the Penguins took 2 of 3 games in your home arena. I remember when the Penguins went years without defeating Philadelphia at the Spectrum. Are you going to blame Biron or will you actually concede that the Penguins are better than the Flyers?

On a positive note, enjoy the LeSean McCoy era with the Eagles. I’m being completely serious with this statement. I really enjoyed watching McCoy at Pitt, and I hope that he does well in Philadelphia.


For the Penguins fans reading this, make sure to visit Empty Netters and The Pensblog for more coverage of the Penguins first round victory.

Weekend Links

There are times during the weekend when you’re waiting for the football game to start or looking to kill time before you go out. Well, I try to help by providing links that are informative and/or entertaining (or at the very least, a way to waste a few minutes). Here are some sports and Sarah Palin links:

Former NFL player Ross Tucker writes on Sports Illustrated that Steeler fans are the best in the league. I’m not going to disagree.

Are you looking for something to do this Columbus Day (that's Monday)? Head to the Forbes Field wall in Oakland (a Pittsburgh neighborhood, not the city in California) to celebrate the anniversary of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates’ World Series championship.

ESPN’s Bill Simmons wrote an excellent piece about the recently fired Los Angeles Clippers General Manager, Elgin Baylor. While I knew that Baylor was a great basketball player, I never knew about his full history.

I’m always amazed by Gilbert Arenas. He is a fascinating and likable individual who isn’t afraid to say what he thinks. He may need a filter once in a while like in this interview with Slam.

SLAM: What do you know about Sarah Palin?

Gil: That she’s a female Bush. Retarded. I’m not that into politics, I try to stay away until things get closer. But just from what I can tell she’s a moron. She can’t bullshit yet. As a politician she doesn’t know how to bullshit. She’ll just run around the question. “Who’s better, Kobe or LeBron?” “Well you know D.Wade, he’s been looking nice lately, so those are tough choices.” What the f*ck are you talking about?!

Speaking of Palin, the Alaska legislative probe found that she misused her power. (The comments here are scary and sad on both sides. The election can’t be over soon enough.) In a similar article, Yahoo has some details about Palin’s former brother-in-law who she tried to get fired, Mike Wooten.

Wooten had been in hot water before Palin became governor over allegations that he illegally shot a moose, drank beer in a patrol car and used a Taser on his stepson.

Does Wooten represent the Joe Six-Pack Palin always talks about? (Yes, a bit of a cheap shot here against Palin. My question is this: how was Wooten able to keep his job after these allegations? Did the allegations turn out to be untrue?)

In more Palin news, she is scheduled to drop the puck in Philadelphia on Saturday night for the Flyers-Rangers game. Puck Daddy has some insight from some Philadelphia bloggers. I'm sure this will go well.

Enjoy your weekend!

Penguins-Flyers Storylines

Now that the Pittsburgh Penguins have defeated the New York Rangers, we can all focus on the Eastern conference final between the Pens and the Philadelphia Flyers. For those of you seeking storylines for the series, let me be of assistance of what you will hear from sportscasters and writers over the next week.

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are both located in Pennsylvania, or some variation of this such as the battle of Pennsylvania or the Keystone State rivalry. Let’s face it: this is truly a battle between fans that choose pop versus fans who say soda.

In the Eastern conference semi-finals, Jordan Staal of the Penguins defeated his older brother Marc Staal of the Rangers. Jordan Staal has no siblings on the Flyers. (Or does he? [dramatic pause] No he does not.)

The Flyers’ R.J. Umberger is the Pittsburgh area. Specifically, Umberger is from Plum, which was on of the high schools that my high school faced regularly in sporting events (the last part will not be mentioned during any broadcasts).

Former Penguin Joe Mullen is now an assistant coach for the Flyers.

The last time the Penguins and Flyers met in the playoffs was the 1999-2000 season when the Flyers defeated Pittsburgh 4-2 in the conference semi-finals. The Penguins fourth leading playoff scorer during that post-season? Janne Laukkanen. (This useless piece of trivia will also not be discussed during any playoff coverage. In case you were wondering, Jagr led the Pens with 16 points in 11 playoff games followed by Martin Straka and Jan Hrdina with 12 points each.) Personally, I hope Versus or NBC shows footage of the epic 1989 series when the Flyers defeated the Penguins in seven games in the Patrick Division finals.

Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are both young and very good.

The last name of Philadelphia’s Joffrey Lupul is a palindrome.

Riley Cote (202 penalty minutes during the regular season) and Georges Laraque (1,037 career penalty minutes) could fight. Of course, Laraque may be practicing more yoga lately as he amazingly has no penalty minutes so far this postseason.

Five words: What Would Gary Roberts Do?

(from The Pensblog)

Finally, Empty Netters has posted the Eastern conference finals schedule. Game one on Friday, May 9 in Pittsburgh.

Difficult Decision: Devils or Flyers

I am heading to New Jersey this weekend for my annual fantasy baseball draft and a night in Atlantic City. In addition, I am attending the New Jersey Devils-Philadelphia Flyers hockey game on Friday night. I'm in a bit of a quandary in that I don't know who to support. It is probably best for the Devils to lose so that the Pittsburgh Penguins, my hockey team of choice, can move closer to winning the division. However, it is going to be really difficult to root for the Flyers, arguably the Penguins biggest rival.

Therefore, I asked some of the biggest hockey and Pittsburgh Penguins fans I know for their opinions. Please note that the question was posed and the answers received prior to Thursday night’s Penguins’ victory over the New York Islanders and Devils’ loss to the New York Rangers, which virtually guarantees that the Penguins will win the Atlantic division.



Seth of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Empty Netters

I would almost look at this in terms of gambling. You may hate "X" team a lot, but I'm sure you like your wallet a lot more.

In other words, root for what benefits you or your team more in terms of tangible gains. I would root for the Flyers in this case.

Mystery Man of Tidbits and the Angry Consumer

It is tough to cheer for a team that you absolutely hate. Unfortunately it is all about the team you love, our beloved Pens, and not the team you hate, the Flyers. I don't know why this is seriously a dilemma. Do you really love the Devils anyway? I mean they are a division rival. The closest comparison I can make is this:

The Patriots are playing the Browns. If the Browns lose the Steelers are in the playoffs. I hate the Pats, but have to cheer for them.

Greg Wyshynski of AOL Fanhouse and Deadspin

As for rooting for either the Flyers or the Devils, I think it all depends on what you want out of life. Do you want a Devils team that couldn't find the back of an opponent's net with a map and a giant flashing sign that reads "Back of Opponent's Net" to, perhaps, gain a few points on the Penguins?

Do you want the Flyers to earn a few points, move up the standings and into a likely first-round battle against Pittsburgh for Keystone State supremacy? Better question: Do you want Sidney in a seven-game series against Riley Cote and Steve Downey. Even better question, in light of the previous question: Do you value Sidney's ability to walk without benefit of a cane?

I'd go ahead and root for the Devils, because they are on the side of light (irony) while the Flyers are the devil's tools. But I think your question is yet another indication that fans really do like ties.

Scribbled Noise

My response: Hmm...That really is tough question for me. Obviously, I hate both teams due to our division rivalries. I guess I will have to root for the Devils because I absolutely loathe the Flyers and my disdain for them actually outweighs my hatred for the Devils. I would have an enormous Ruutu-like grin on my face if their playoff hopes come down to their games with us the last week of the season. It would be soooooo sweet to knock them out and have a team like the Caps make it in instead. They would just be crushed. With that said, the division heavy schedules for all of us will surely make for some interesting hockey the next ten days. The Devils play NYR, PHI, NYI, BOS, PHI and I think that from those games they may get points in 4 of 5 of them. On the other hand the Cryers have games against NJ, NYI, PIT, NJ, PIT and they may end up with points from only the NYI game. I think that if the Pens win tonight against the Islanders and the Rangers beat Jersey the division is ours so F@#& Filthadelphia!!!

Pat from Doubt About It

There are a number of factors that are at play in answering this question:

- Yes, a Devils loss does more to solidify a Penguins Division title. Although by Friday, that may or may not still matter given the slate of games the Pens have this week.

- The Flyers, it should be noted, are by no means locks to make the playoffs. A Flyers loss against the Devils certainly wouldn't help their chances, and it would likely make their final two games against the Pens even more significant. The question then becomes: how much do you want those last two games against the Flyers to matter? Do you want the chance to knock them out? Or do you want to have the games be largely meaningless so that Crosby, Fleury et al can rest? Again, with the Flyers current standing, it is impossible to tell how it will play out.

- From a "how much do you respect this organization" stand point, I pick New Jersey in a landslide. Yeah, NJ has a rather weak fan base and doesn't have the hockey history that Philly does. But when I think of Philly's hockey history, I think of names like Hextall, Lindross, Bobby Clarke, and Ben Eager come to mind. Not exactly characters I associate with respect.

- Final verdict: go with New Jersey. Division titles are meaningless when compared to seeing the Philadelphia Flyers agonize in defeat. And besides, I'd like to see the Devils make a run...only to still fall short of the Pens in the standings.

Vote None of the Above (A Tribute to Brewster’s Millions)



The Pensblog

hahaah we would wear a pens jersey and just boo everything.
It's a tough call on who to root for, though.

Koz, a contributor of Mondesi’s House

Let me think about this. My first reaction was to strap dynamite to your chest, but you seem like a nice guy and suicide bombing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

You can't root for either team. Overtime is the worst case scenario, because it means 3 points are distributed in the division. My advice is to wear as much Penguins stuff as you can and walk around with your nose high in the air. Boo everything that happens and watch the game with an expression of disdain you might show while cleaning up dog feces.

If it is a close game in the third, pray silently for a regulation finish. At this point, a Flyers victory has much less impact on the Pens, so that's the way you probably should lean, but the only inkling of happiness you feel during the game should be from inspecting what a modern hockey arena looks like, knowing the new Penguins arena will be top-notch. The only other reasons for happiness would be if a fan were injured by a stray puck or Martin Brodeur announces his immediate retirement.

PittGirl at The Burgh Blog

Devils versus Flyers?!? And you want to ROOT for, nay SUPPORT one of them? Dude, neither the Devils nor the Flyers are the Penguins, so you root for neither, you wear your Crosby jersey, you get drunk and you use every chance you can to drunkenly yell at the lot of them to go to hell because this year is OUR YEAR.

Tsk.

Tecmo of Pittsburgh Sports and Mini Ponies

I cannot, in good conscience, tell you to root for the Devils OR the Flyers.

The Flyers are struggling to make the playoffs while the Devils are assured of a spot. There's a chance that we might play the Flyers in the first round, which would collectively shut down the Pennsylvania-hockey-fan-landscape. However, I can't root for them to win. I can't stand the Devils at all, so I can't tell you to root for them, either.

In my opinion, you should probably pull for a 0-0 tie late in the game, followed by both teams being incinerated in a massive fire. I hope you make it out of the inferno in time.

Enjoy the game


From Going Five Hole

I understand the pickle you're in. Unfortunately, these days we can't root for ties and someone has to win. I think you should just go and enjoy the game itself. Granted, you hate both teams, but you love hockey. Root for an exciting game...

This may be my favorite answer. I really do love the excitement of going to live sporting events, especially hockey games. That is part of the reason why I have undertaken a multi-year hockey road trip in which my friend and I are attempting to visit every NHL city/arena. I’m going to sit back and enjoy the game.

Oh, I must have missed the last line of Going Five Hole’s response:

...and maybe for Brodeur to tweak a hammy or something.