Pens open the season with a win

The Pens took one last look back at their Stanley Cup Championship and then it was time to drop the puck on a brand new season with the same goal in mind. Dan Bylsma told his team that when they watched the banner being raised that they needed to remember that the banner symbolizes how they play and what they needed to continue to do. It was time to stop looking back on last season and drop the puck on the new season. The Pens didn't seem to have any trouble doing just that when they beat the New York Rangers 3-2 in the last opening night at Mellon Arena.

Not taking too long to score their first goal, with 12:12 left to go in the first period the Pens were on a power play when Gonchar let a shot go from the point that Malkin tipped in to make the game 1-0 Pens. Alex Goligoski and Gonchar had the assists.

It wouldn't take too long for us to see the first fight of the season either when Eric Godard and Donald Brashear would go at it with 8:05 left in the first. They didn't let the crowd down by putting on a good show. You can watch it here:

With 3:59 left in the period the Rangers would tie the score at one with a goal from Chris Drury. Sidney Crosby would take a slashing penalty with almost three minutes left but the Pens' penalty kill would be up to the task to keep the score tied at one.

Not long into the second period Marc-Andre Fleury would make a huge glove save on Vaclav Prospal. You know the type, think similar to his save in game 7 of the Capitals series on Alexander Ovechkin. What a way to start out the season for Fleury.

The Pens paid him back by scoring two goals in the second, one from Crosby and one from Tyler Kennedy. With 7:35 left in the second period Crosby would be parked in front of the net to take a feed from Kris Letang who gathered up a rebound from a Bill Guerin shot to make the score 2-1. But Goligoski and TK didn't think that was enough. Shortly after, with 6:27 left in the second period Gogo would take a shot at the net that Kennedy would tip in for another Pens goal and make the game 3-1. Staal would get the other assist. The Pens would also kill two more penalties that period.

The third period would see a goal from new Ranger Marian Gaborik to cut the Pens lead 3-2 but that's all the Pens would allow for the rest of the period, killing another penalty and beating the Rangers 3-2 to start out the season 1-0.

Part 1 of the Pens' banner raising ceremony:

Part 2:

Game recap

Boxscore

Aftermath: Penguins 3, Rangers 2

Overall the Pens looked pretty good. The penalty killing unit did not allow a power play goal, Marc-Andre Fleury looked great after a somewhat questionable preseason, Sid and Geno each scored, Alex Goligoski looks like he has all the confidence in the world, the power play scored a goal, Jordan Staal had some great chances, Tyler Kennedy is starting the season out great, Godard is in fighting shape, and Dan Bylsma looks like he's ready to defend the Cup.

The Pens get the chance to go 2-0 tonight against the New York Islanders in NY. The Pens can welcome first round draft pick John Tavares to the NHL. Maybe some Free Candy? What a way to enter the league, playing against the Stanley Cup Champions. Should be a memorable one. The game starts at 7:00 p.m.

Let's Go Pens!

Greetings from training camp

We headed down to Pens training camp last Sunday and took a ton of pictures, some of which were not worth looking at unfortunately. Below are a few of them with a story or two while we're at it. Enjoy.

Consol Energy Center from the Mellon Arena side.

Jordan Staal walking in just before the start looking a tad sleepy.

GENO!

Eric Goddard

Tyler Kennedy with Dan Bylsma practicing a little shooting.

Marc-Andre Fleury

Jordan Staal on the "faceoff."

Doing a little planning on the white board.

Brooks Orpik

Sergei Gonchar

Fleury and Dupuis having a strategy session.

Brooks Orpik

An end of session puckfest on Fleury.

Billy Guerin and Chris Kunitz chatting it up.

Sidney Crosby!

Sid is even intense in practice.

Fleury

John Curry

Sid

After session stretching.

After practice shots of the guys leaving.

Sergei Gonchar

Could it be Sidney Crosby?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! *screaming*

Nope. But everyone sure thought it was, yelling his name and demanding autographs. He finally had to say "I'm not Sid." We have to give it to them, it does look like Sid from that point of view, but Sid has bigger calves! C'mon people!

Billy Guerin showing the cooking staff his goodies. Someone asked him what it was and he responded "booze!" Laughing ensued and he proceeded to say that it was "the special kind" and that "he wouldn't drink it." He threw it in his car and then went to sign autographs. When he came back to his car he told everyone to take it easy and waved. Very likable guy with a great personality. He was taking the guys you'll see below over to the Marriott near Mellon Arena.

Alex Goligoski

Gogo and Billy's friends whose names we can't tell you. Sorry!

The real Sidney Crosby. He dropped off his "booze" and proceeded to go over to a group of people waiting for autographs just down from his Range Rover. The people were polite when asking for autographs from the lesser known guys but once Sid started walking over there it was total chaos. People didn't care about barriers or anything for that matter and basically mobbed him. He was being surrounded and quite frankly we have no idea how he deals with it. The picture below shows the crowd, just before he became completely engulfed.

Sid's Range Rover and Fleury's Lamborghini

Marc-Andre Fleury

Fans above were asking him questions to which he said he didn't know. He then was telling the guy beside him to help Sidney because he was going to get mobbed. They weren't fast enough. A woman who came out took charge and told the mob he was leaving and basically dragged him out of there and forced him into his RR. Kind of amusing really. (See below)

Fleury hiding from the mob.

Chris Kunitz

That's it! It was a good day and an enjoyable experience. We mentioned it before but Chris Conner stood out to us the most. He has good speed and was scoring left and right. Eric Tangradi looked good as well. Dan Bylsma also has this child-like love of the game that really shows. He was out skating laps and shooting pucks with the rest of the guys and enjoying every second of it. Kids along the glass were taking pictures and he would skate by and make faces at their cameras. Just an all around good guy. We can't wait for the season to start.

The Pens had their annual Black and Gold game with the Black team winning 3-2. Alex Goligoski had a hat trick to win the game for the Black team. Details here.

The Pens play the Maple Leafs Friday in their last home preseason game.

The Pens will receive their Stanley Cup rings on September 29th.

Geno for MVP

(AP)

Tonight Geno could walk away with a lot more hardware for his collection. The NHL Awards are in Las Vegas where Geno is up for the Hart and Lester B. Pearson awards. We personally think it would be a shame to let anyone else win these awards but we're preparing for an Ovechkin love fest. If so, at least life should feel much better for Geno since he won the best trophy of them all in the Stanley Cup and only added to it by also winning the Conn Smythe. We think he'd take those any day. He also won the Art Ross trophy as the points leader in the regular season.

Sidney Crosby is up for the Mark Messier Leadership Award and also the Fan Fav Award which was voted on by fans. The show will be on Versus at 7:30 p.m.

Malkin could add to trophy collection Be sure to check out the photo of Geno carrying the Conn Smythe in Mellon Arena and look at Paul Steigerwald off to the side taking his picture. That outfit is horrible.

The Pens haven't wasted much time in signing players to new deals. Yesterday the Pens signed Alex Goligoski to a three-year deal worth $5.5 million. The annual salary-cap hit is at just over $1.8 million. We think this is great, we like Gogo a lot and think he'll be great for the Pens.

As for the Sports Illustrated cover we showed yesterday, if you are out of the regional area, you can purchase cover prints for $19.95 with the option of having them framed for around $100. As far as we know there is no option to buy single issues of SI but we'll try to find that out for sure. Although the magazine itself is the same, so if you get SI but not the regional cover, you can still read the Cup story.

As for a Cup package that includes the commemorative magazine covering the entire season, there isn't one as of now, although there is a Lakers one. Who would have thought? We hope there will at least be the commemorative magazine since we have these for the last two Super Bowls tucked away with all the papers and other collectables.

Your YouTube of the day, the Pens Stanley Cup celebration. Feel free to watch it over and over and over again to help with the withdrawals.

Go Pens!

Pens win in OT, lead series 3-2

(AP)

Wooooooo! What a game. Secondary scoring once again and Geno comes through for the win. Take that Ovie.

A few things:

- Matt Cooke scoring was great. Jordan Staal scoring was great.

- How insane is Feds right now? We don't know what he did but he needs to keep doing it because he's getting goals and a ton of shots.

- Malkin's parents in the house a coincidence? We think not. Geno says they're good luck. We believe him.

- Rob Scuderi continued to play good defense against Ovie.

- Can you believe the Pens were down 2-0?!

- Time to end this Monday in Pittsburgh so we can see Ovie cry.

Game recap

Sorry for the lack of a good post but we have to end it here. We have to get up in the morning early for a busy couple of days. Unfortunately we won't have computer access until Monday night so nothing from us until then. Enjoy the game on Monday night, it's time to take care of business at home. Go Pens!

Latest episode of Yinz Luv 'Da Guins:

Look for another episode soon. We won't be here to post it on time. You can view them at the Yinz Luv 'Da Guins myspace.

We just saw on NHL Network that TSN is reporting that Gonchar is out for several weeks with a knee injury. Bad news for the Pens. It was nice to see Gogo back though.

Go Pens!

Pens win fifth straight

(AP)

The Pens beat the Florida Panthers 4-1 last night to win their fifth in a row. It's been a very long time since the Pens have won like this and if you're not excited, you're nuts. The Pens are getting everything together when it matters. Last night's game was huge since they were chasing Florida in the Eastern Conference standings. Gaining two points put them in a tie with Florida in points, although Florida has one game on the Pens.

Crosby returned to the lineup after missing the team's last four wins because of a sore groin. He sure looked good on his second period goal while splitting the Florida defense, an almost exact repeat of a goal he scored against Florida in January.

Game highlights:

The Pens did have to go without someone else though. Sergei Gonchar had to fly home yesterday morning after being notified his wife was in labor with their second daughter. She was supposed to be induced today on the Pens' day off but obviously his daughter had other plans. He made it home just before a successful delivery of his new daughter, Victoria. Congratulations Sergei! He should be meeting the team in Washington for their game against the Capitals on Sunday. Alex Goligoski was recalled from WBS to take Gonchar's place.

The first period was fairly aggressive but there was no score going into the first intermission. Each team had a power play and both teams failed to score. Fleury made some huge saves in the first period when the Panthers had some good chances. The Pens' defense was also playing well and Fleury sure backed that up.

The Pens had a couple of power plays in the second but they couldn't capitalize on either. A Florida player was penalized for charging after a rough head shot on Kris Letang, but thankfully he was okay. With around 5:45 left on the clock in the second period, the Panthers had a one on one chance with a tired Geno following. No problem though because Fleury said no and made a big save. The Pens counter but just can't put it into the net.

With 2:11 left in the second, Florida scored the first goal of the game on a somewhat strange shot that bounced behind Fleury. The Panthers had that important first goal. Somewhat deflating after all of the scoreless action. But Sidney Crosby wouldn't have that. Soon after that with just over a minute left in the period, he scored a beautiful goal to put the Pens on the board and take the Panthers' lead away just like that.

Not long into the third with 17:36 left on the clock, Tyler Kennedy put one home to give the Pens the lead 2-1. Not long after, the Panthers thankfully hit a post to keep the score the same. About a minute after that, Letang didn't hit the post and scored a goal to put the Pens up 3-1.

Around the nine minute mark Fleury made a big save for the Pens and not give Florida any life. Sykora took a penalty and it was time for the Pens to kill this off and not give Florida any chance of a comeback. Then with 4:26 left, Tyler Kennedy had his second goal of the game with an assist by Malkin to put the nail in the Panthers' coffin. The Pens win their fifth straight and get two more huge points. The Pens have now taken all eight out of a possible eight points in their four road games. Hopefully they can make it five out of five and beat the Caps on Sunday.

Game recap

Aftermath: Penguins 4, Panthers 1

Penguins extend streak with key win vs. Florida

Penguins Notebook: Staal considered one of team's 'untouchables'

- Alex Goligoski now wears the number 3 after new Penguin Bill Guerin wears number 13.

- What was with Florida playing a Miley Cyrus song during the game? Not exactly what we'd expect to hear at a hockey game. We also noticed an advertisement along the boards for the Jonas Brothers movie. Disney World is in Florida so is there some sort of connection there? Just not what we really associate with hockey...

- FSN has been a little disappointing lately with their "let's go to commercial in the middle of the game" tricks. Several times tonight either there was commentary going on or the actual game and it would cut to a commercial. An entire minute of a Pens power play was lost because of this.  C'mon FSN!

We apologize for our lack of info and thoughts on the new Pens acquired at the trade deadline and our lack of a game preview.