Oh look who just turned 2

Crysob!

He doesn't deserve half the attention that he gets around here but myeh, I was bored so I drew this:

I wonder if Teddy and Blankie will be making a special appearance at that Sid the Kid Hall of Fame thing? I mean, the dryer that he destroyed with pucks is going to be there (DRYER ABUSE!).

Heh.

And they wonder why I hate Christmas sometimes

Yes, the off-season has really ground to a halt right now (or rather my brain has simply refused to come up with a half decent post about Team Canada). So we're stuck with this crap.

Thanks to Capitals Kremlin for this one.

Yes, that's Crysob the Christmas tree ornament. Yes, I almost just puked.

What do you know... there is a specific scientific name for Crosby

This was brought to my attention by a Caps fan over at A View from the Cheap Seats. Needless to say I had to bring this up here too. Loooook, I found out where Crosby fits in this whole species thing:

From Wikipedia.

The genus Eudyptula ("good little diver") contains two species of penguin. It is found in southern Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and the Chatham Islands.

Eudyptula minor is commonly known as the Little Penguin, Little Blue Penguin, or Fairy Penguin. In the language of the Māori people of New Zealand, Little Blue Penguins are known as kororaa [hey, that's almost Crosby!].

It's also the smallest species of penguins. Not that Puffy is overly short or anything...

Yes, if you look at the article that penguin actually exists. I'm probably the only one who finds this beyond funny.....

Oh you mean there's something other than hockey coming up?

Well, if hockey won't be interesting, then maybe tennis or football will. Then again, maybe not.

This Sunday will see the start of Roland Garros aka the French Open. What is this and why do we care? Well, let's see, it's the second of four Grand Slam tennis tournaments (Grand Slam = Uber important tournament). It's played in... France (hence the name). And it's played on clay. Yeah, that's the part part. Why? Because the Clay Monster (aka Nadal aka the Ovie of Tennis) has just OWNED this tournament. At 22, he's already bidding for his 5th straight title here which would give him the record for the most consecutive wins in Paris. So basically we can just kiss everyone else goodbye and just hand Nadal the silver salad bowl of doom.... the Ovie of Tennis will dominate and will either be challenged by the More-Adorable-Version-of-Crosby or the Djoker. I'll go on the record with my lame predictions and say we'll see Nadal and Djokovic in the final. Whoo......

And on Wednesday I will see if the More-Arrogant-Version-of-Crosby will win the battle of two football teams I don't like. Yay. FailCrosby better lose because I can NOT stand him. Whooo!

AAAAAAAAAAAND! My city sucks right now. Or at least a certain store near me that allegedly carries sports shirts/jerseys. I went in and first off, all their cool Habs stuff still costs a flipping fortune. Which made me mad because I wanted to buy Habs stuff. So I went to the back of the store where they stuff other teams' stuff. I figured I'd at least look to see if they had any Peach Fuzz shirts that I could at least oggle over.... Well, thanks to all the flipping Peachhawks bandwagoners they only had THESE instead.


Is there no stopping the Crysob from taking over the world? SOMEONE STOP HIM! We'll create a resistance movement. Like John Connors in the last Terminator movie that apparently made no sense. The normal people versus the robot Crysob!

Oh and Keenan was fired as headcoach of the Flames.

I guess there isn't something other than hockey after all....

Crysob has taken over the sports networks

(click for bigger version)

Crysob being Puffy.... That was a little too fun to draw...(and yes, I just noticed now that I butchered Sid's name up. I have no idea why there are two Ys in it.... Clearly I wasn't thinking).

I would like it to be October so I can actually talk about something interesting.... Yuck... This round of the playoffs isn't cutting it...

Oh and I'm renaming Fleury.

For the longest time Puffles' goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was simply "Fleury" to me. Then when I got into this whole naming spree I called him "MAF". Easy enough. Marc-Andre Fleury = MAF. Except... everyone was calling him MAF. So I added some extra letters and made it "Maffy". Still, I know I had failed when everyone knew exactly who I was talking about. It's not a crazy EP name if everyone knows who it is at first. No way. This made me sad, so I set out to find a new name for him. Among the choices were (thanks to the Tweeps who helped with the names(...

• Flurry
• Flurries
  
• Snowy
• Flurfy
  
• Mafly
• Flandre
  
• Flambe
• one that sounded like Furby
• Toothpick
  

In keeping with the food theme, I went with Flambe. Yes, pretend there's an accent on the e at the end. I'm lacking a keyboard with such lovely accents. Maffy is now Flambe.

Yeah, I am SO suffering from Habs and Caps withdrawal....

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE

Forget caffeine to keep you awake. Watch Ovie. He. Is. Freaking.Awesome.

I've been running around like an idiot right now....=p

OOOOOOOOVIIIIIIIIIIIIIE = AMAZING

If saying that makes me anti-Canadian, then fine. I don't care. Ovie makes me smile every time he scores. Well.... minus that highlight reel goal against Pricey.... but almost every time!

Yes, I haven't been this excited over a game in.... a long time.... WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

So awesome that this calls for another lame limmerick!

We just can't get enough of Ovie
He just loves to score so much - sowwy
He came out to play
And made them all pay
What would we ever do without Ovie?

I'm too hyped to even think properly about the game. I can't even type in a coherent fashion....Can't you tell? THIS WAS AMAZING!!

Despite the LAME start to the game which saw yet another Puffy goal in the first period... the Caps came back with... an Ovie goal to tie it up in the third period. Simmy and Maf - Simmy in particular - were amazing again. The Ovie goal was followed by a Puffy goal later which brought us to 3-2 going into the third period. Dino (see "Dictionary of EPisms") tied it on some icky Pens playing. And then Ovie scored on the PP - which was amazing because the Caps hadn't done anything on the PP before and semi-sad because Eggplant decided to not show up to the playoffs- which had me in absolute fits. And then again he gets a mini breakaway and puts it away. HAAAAAAAAT TRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK! That sound you heard was the Verizon Center roof coming off.

And then Jurcina decides to make a bid for my Hate-You-Right-Now list by taking a penalty with 2 minutes to go. Pens pull Maf and guess who the heck scores on the PP? OH YES. PUFFY PUTS IT OFF OF SIMMY'S HEAD AND INTO THE NET WITH 30 SECONDS LEFT TO GO! Like seriously.... Puffy topped off my Hate-You-Right-Now list because it wrecked an otherwise wonderful ending to the game.

And yes. Ovie AND Puffy had hattricks. Apparently it's the first time in 13 years that two players have had hattricks in the same game in the playoffs or something. I dunno. Bettman must be freaking now. Oh and yes, only Puffy showed up tonight. Maf got no help from the Pokemon or the Vegetables or the Vampires tonight. Poor Maffy. I felt bad for him.

Kinda. I wished he played somewhere else.... =(

but anyway....

Funniest moment of the night: The Sens relative calls. The mother picks it up. He started watching the game later so he's behind where I am (I've got it on live). He hears me screaming and thinks it's because Mr. Puffy scores (the Sens relative likes Puffy). I hear something about some chants about "Sidney" (glad he remembers my rabbit's name *g*). I'm too busy dancing around to point out that it was the "Hated-Ovie" that scored the goal to make it 3-2 and not the Puffy. I will have to remind the relative that the Wonderfully Amazing Ovie's hat trick won over the Puffy's hat trick when I see him next =)

Quote of the night:

Boudreau: If this were tennis, we've held serve.

Dude. This guy is brilliant. Yes. The Caps hold serve to take the first set! Hell yeah!

Oh wait! More quotes. Crosby apparently has a problem with other people getting a hattrick....

"People kept throwing hats. I was just asking if he could make an announcement to ask them to stop. I mean, the first wave came and then I think they were all pretty much picked up, and then more started coming. So for us, we just wanted to make sure we kept kind of moving and kept the game going, wanted to try to get back in it. So wasn't complaining about anything."

I'm thinking this is the cue to start throwing hats at the beginning of Game 5 - assuming there is a Game 5. Puffy is just jealous that he only got one hat.... Pfft....

And what does the Anointed one think of Simmy?

"I mean, yeah, he's made some timely saves. I still think we can do a better job of burying the puck and capitalizing on our chances. The difference is a few inches, but he battles and he competes, and there's times where he's out of position but he finds a way to get a piece of his body on it. So as a shooter you have to make sure that you bear down, and we have to really correct that quickly. I mean, there are times when he's kind of swimming in the crease and we've got some loose pucks and we've got to put them in."

Does this remind anyone of Jumbo Joe's comments about Jaro being "good" when he beat the Sharks? Uh how about "yeah, he was amazing"?

And finally, Mr. Puffy comments on Ovie's hattrick

"When it comes down to it they got a big goal there on the power play when it counted, and that's the difference. I don't see anything else but that. We had opportunities, I mean, the last two games we can honestly say we did some really good things but we made a few mistakes that have hurt us. That can be a good thing to look at as well, knowing that we're that close and these are things that we can easily and change quickly. But we have to do that."

Read: Hattrick? What hattrick? I got one too, remember? Hello? I GOT ONE TOO DAMNIT!

Ovie says:

Sick game. Sick goals by me and him.

We liked yours better Ovie.... really.... =p No, I have no shame whatsoever in saying that.....

GOOOOOOOOOO CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPS!

So not liking Crosby makes me anti-Canadian, eh?

JT at the H Does NOT Stand for Habs brought up in an interesting topic the other day about our (least) favorite player. Apparently someone said that if she didn't cheer for the Penguins over the Capitals, she would be anti-Canadian. You heard it. Cheering for the Capitals over the Penguins makes you anti-Canadian. I've actually had similar if not quite so blatant statements from people myself, which always, without fail, puzzle me.

Let's be honest here. This series is between the Capitals vs. the Penguins. This is not a series between Russian and Canada. It's not even just about Crosby vs. Ovechkin, despite what the media tells you. It's the Washington Capitals vs the Pittsburgh Penguins. Two very talented teams in the National Hockey League who are based in the United States.

With most teams in the NHL comprising of players from many different nationalities, I find it hard to understand why people would associate a team like say, the Penguins as being Canadian? Sure they have a lot of Canadian players, but the team itself is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Capitals are considered "Russian" and yet they have more Canadians than Russians on their team. But I suppose because the Caps have a few high profile Russians, the entire team must be Russian and that's somehow a bad thing....Both teams however, are technically American.

Personally, I don't see why even defining the team as "American" or "Canadian" is needed in most cases anyway. The thing is, a player should be playing for the logo on the jersey (however ugly it is). They play for the team. In the NHL, that means they are not playing for their country and I'm not sure that most guys play for the city either. They play for the logo on the jersey. Nationality should have zero to do with it.

When I watch hockey, I watch it to see what the guys on the ice do. I want to see guys play with a lot of passion. I want to see guys who care. And I like exciting plays on most nights as a bonus. I dont' care what the guys do with their lives off the ice as long as it's legal. I don't pick my favorite players based solely on where they were born. That's ridiculous.

If I limited myself to only Canadian players, then I'd be stuck with people like Sidney Crosby, Danny Heatley, Jason Spezza, Eric Staal, Sean Avery and Martin Brodeur. Thanks but no thanks. I'm not saying that these guys aren't talented. I believe everyone I just named is capable of being talented at something (I wouldn't say that Avery is an extremely talented player. He's a talented pain though). But I can think that they're talented and still detest them.

Ovechkin meets my criteria for what I want to see in a player. He works hard, he cares and he's pretty exciting on most nights. I like him because of that. I don't like him solely because he's Russian. I don't care if he was from India or Australia. I don't like him because I don't like Crosby. All I care about is what he does on the ice. All I care about is what he brings to the game. And on most nights, I like what I see.

Crosby's seemingly lack of emotion in general, makes me snore. He doesn't make me interested in watching hockey. When I initially watched the Pens, I watched Malkin (until he disappeared). I watched Fleury. I didn't watch Crosby. Look, I feel bad for him. I think he's been manufactured and handled by various people beyond belief and that's resulted in this cardboard cut-out guy. I'm not going to say that he isn't talented or that he doesn't try hard. I think he's talented and he tries. But he doesn't interest me at all. I find him annoying now. I don't like his constant yapping and whining. I don't really like his new hobby of getting into cheap fights. I just do not like him.

I don't see how that makes me anti-Canadian if I don't like Crosby and would rather cheer for a team that interests me. If I said "I prefer Lidstrom to Avery" do you think many people would complain? I doubt it because we're talking multiple Norris winner vs major pain who got suspended for dissing his ex-girlfriend. But Lidstrom is from Sweden and Avery is indeed Canadian. If I said "I wouldn't cheer for the Leafs if they were the last Canadian team in the playoffs" would anybody care? No. They know I'm a diehard Habs fan and I would never cheer for the Leafs, even though the Leafs are a Canadian team.

So. If it's okay to prefer Lidstrom to Avery and if it's okay to not cheer for the Leafs under any circumstances, why the heck isn't it okay to cheer for the Ovechkin over Crosby? In case everyone missed it, the Cold War sort of ended a while ago.

Again, this isn't about Russia vs. Canada. This is about the Washington Capitals vs the Pittsburgh Penguins. This is about which team I prefer to watch. Nationality of the players notwithstanding.

Go Caps Go!

Putting Crosby the Voodoo Doll to good use

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I've been dying to have a Crosby voodoo doll and so I finally decided to make one. Keep in mind that I don't know hot to use a sewing machine very well. I just got one and as sad at this may sound, this is actually the first thing that I've sewn with it. Yeah, one day when I'm totally amazing at this sewing thing I'll look back and go "Omg... I can't believe the first thing I ever made with this machine was a Crosby voodoo doll." Anyway..A few things you should know first

1. Doll patterns don't come with big butts. Just saying for those of you on Twitter who commented that the voodoo needed to have a big butt in order to be realistic.
2. Yes those pants are custom made (there seems to be a joke running around that the real Crosby needs to get his pants custom made...)
   
3. I've always wanted to say that I knocked the stuffing out of Crosby. Now I can say I've done it because I had to take his brains out so I could put his eyes in....
   
4. His head is so big I had to stick a pin it in to keep it from rolling off. The voodoo doll, I mean.
5. Speaking of his head... He has Pavel Datsyuk turnip head because I can't sew in a circle. He was supposed to ears too but my lack of sewing skills got in the way of that.
   
6. Yes, I know the real Crosby keeps his hair a lot.... neater.... My glue-gun stopped working half way through so he's left with messy hair.
   
7. No, the voodoo thing doesn't have a mouth. I couldn't make one big enough to be realistic....
   
8. I know I copped out and used pen to decorate the shirt. If it's any consolation, the pen died on me too....
9. Yes, that is MY Habs pillow that I forced someone to make for me. I did do the logo by hand which was when I swore that I'd buy a machine
10. I have an insane desire to make one of Scott Hartnell now....It's the hair I think.....Then again, someone mentioned something about Briere..... I dunno if I could sew something that small though *g* If I ever get good a this, I am SO making a little Ovie plushie.... I'll practice on the Flyers for now though =) (does making Flyers voodoo dolls count as being mean to them or do I have to wait until the playoffs start before I make them??)
    

Today in "things that annoy EP"... Crosby vs. Ovie

More Crosby vs Ovechkin stuff. I'm getting tired of this, which is why I've gotten around to writing this after three failed attempts.

You'd think that I'd like this stuff. I'm a Habs fan who was a Penguins fan who turned into a Capitals fan. At no point was I ever a big Crosby fan, although I did turn into a huge Ovechkin fan. But honestly, all this stuff is annoying. And it's quite pointless.

I understand why Crosby has turned into public enemy no. 1 for just about everyone who doesn't live in Pittsburgh. He has been hyped and hyped and shoved down our throats since before day one of his NHL career. That type of hype easily drives people batty and there will invariably be a backlash. Maybe because of all the hype and the handling he's gone through, Crosby comes off as having about as much emotion as a cardboard box. He's been told what to do and how to do it for a very long time and it seems as though nothing he says or does is very original. I'm not saying that he's like in that in reality, but he comes off that way. Talented as he may be (and all you Crosby haters, let's face it, he is indeed talented), he's not very fun to watch on most days.

Sadly for Crosby, there so just happens to be a very talented and very flashy Russian who came along at the same time as him. Think of it as a Federer and Nadal thing if you want to compare it to tennis. On the one hand we've got the very talented but boring superstars and on the other, we have the very talented but definitelty not boring superstars. It's a bit of a no brainer as to who everyone will gravitate to. Ovechkin is everything that Crosby isn't in terms of personality. He's this huge ball of emotion that just bursts out. He comes off way more genuine and way less manufactured. When he celebrates his goals or the goals of his teamates, you can't help but get excited for them. You're drawn in. When Ovechkin was told that some people were comparing him to Maurice Richard he said that he just wants to be himself. He's not trying to be anyone else.

So we have two guys who are both incredibly talented. Why on earth do I have to wake up every morning to "Crosby vs Ovie round 1234567865"? Oh wait. I know. It's the big bad hype machine again. The hype machine doesn't allow for two talented guys to inhabit the same league without there being some friction between them. When the Ovechkin/Malkin "feud" went poof, the media had to go and hype up something else to death. Oh hey, why not Crosby and Ovechkin? Now, we can't exactly go blaming the media only. The media is only doing it's job: the sell a story, however stupid, wrong, or unfounded it may be. People enjoy wild and stupid stories.

Ignoring the media hype for a second, I do believe there are a few reasons why the average fan has trouble accepting both of them at the same time. First is that they have vastly different personalities. Because they're so different and they're teams play in such a different way, it's hard to like both of them. Second, is nationality. For Canadians, anyway, I think there's people who feel threatened by Ovechkin and the fact that he's from Europe. It goes to that whole anti-Euro sentiments that I keep complaining about. I'm not sure that we'd be seeing the same type of hype if they were both from the same country. It's possible (they did manage to hype up Ovechkin vs Malkin) but I'm not sure it'd be the same. I think Penguins fans just feel threatened period. Crosby has been hyped up to be the savior of the NHL and of the Pittsburgh Penguins and to suddenly have people accusing him of being boring and whiny while this other guy goes around earning all this praise for being entertaining, isn't too nice.

But really, despite of all that, I still don't get why it has to be one or the other. If you don't like one of them, fine, but why go into a long tirade about the other one? Good natured bashing is fine. But a lot of what I see, isn't good natured in the least. It's often quite (unintentionally) silly and the premises for bashing the other one is often stupid. "Crosby's whiny so therefore he sucks". "Ovechkin shows off so he sucks". That's really not much of an argument and it's not really true. Both are very talented players and both don't really deserve half the bashing that they've gotten. If the hype machines would just go dive off a cliff, I think I could take a lot of it better, but it's very annoying to wake up every morning and see "Crosby thinks Ovie's a showboat" or "Ovie tries to kill Crosby on the ice!" or "Crosby vs Ovie: the feud continues"...Like it or lump it, they're both talented players and they're not going anywhere.

Crosby's killing my love for the Pens

bwahahaha.....

I'm serious. He's the single reason why I'm not liking them anymore....*sniffles* Ovie just decimated the Pens and Sid was so grumpy and immature about it. He got all upset because Ovie gave him a little push and he freaked out. And then he started whining about it after the game...Bah... I felt so bad for Fleury because he was quite frankly awful and he could have used a little more help (yes, Pens that means you stop beating up on Ovie and start trying to keep the rest of the Caps from scoring!)It wasn't that Theodore was better by the bucket load or anything. He was just lucky that the Caps played a lot better defense and were mowing down everything in their path while they were on the offense. On the other hand, having Garon and Theodore out there at the same time was funny because they both played together here in Montreal (anyone else want our ex-goalies?!)...Fun game to watch anyway.




I like youtube.

Thank you Pens!

Apparently there's a bigger difference between 4th (or 5th if the Rangers win) and 10th than I thought. The Pens looked for the most part dead on their feet while the Habs routinely stole the puck off of them and made poor Fleury's night miserable. For the first time in... a looong time, the Habs looked like a team. And they looked like a team who cared ('bout time!).

Mind you, things bad when the Pens scored first when there was a pileup in front of Price after a mere two or three minutes of play. Easy to score when the goalie has a million people on him, yes? The Pens lead wasn't to last as Fleury wasn't paying attention around him and he came out of the net to clear the puck only to have it stolen by Sergei who passed it back and there went Hamlrik to put it into the net. Oopsies. Second period showed just how bad the Pens PK was as they turned the puck over at the blue line which enabled Higgy to steal it and thanks to some nice manoeuvring by Koivu behind him to ensure the Pen's defenseman couldn't do anything, he put the puck past Fleury who was getting cranky now. Lapierre would add another goal a few minutes later when Pacioretty battled for the puck and put it in front of the net. Habs slowed down a little bit in the third and Malkin scored on the Pens PP making it close again. Thankfully the Pens then proceeded to score on themselves late in the third to help the Habs win. It was sort of a sad goal because Fleury looked to be stopping the puck with his stick but then Andrei Kostitsyn attempted to get his stick in there but replays seemed to show it was Caputi who pushed it in. Oh well.....

For the first time in... a looong time, the Habs looked like a team. And they looked like a team who cared ('bout time!). Wait... Didn't I just say that before? Well, I just said it again. I'm still torn on whether the Habs were playing that well tonight or if the Pens were really that awful. I think it's probably somewhere in between. In all fairness the Pens did generate some offense. And the Habs did make some silly errors that could have cost them badly. But they didn't mainly because the Pens couldn't do anything about it. A good team shouldn't be allowing the opposition steal the puck off of them routinely like the Pens were allowing the Habs to do. I was going to add that a good team shouldn't get scored on when they are on the powerplay but umm, the Caps allowed a shorthanded one tonight against the Devils and they still won so... go figure. Oh well. I liked the effort by the Habs and regardless of whether you think that all the credit should go the Pens because they were awful, the Habs needed this win. And I'm hoping that they can build on this and get back to some serious winning again.

The good if you are the Habs

• Win?
• I looooved Higgy's goal. Bonus points to Koivu for the help on that
• Lapierre's goal was nice too
• heck, everyone's goals were nice *g*
• effort was great. Best effort I've seen since.... well...... a long time
• the good side of Kovalev came out today and while he didn't score, he looked like the guy who we all like
  
• O'Byrne didn't look anything like the guy who made the ultimate mistake by scoring on his own net (okay so there was a wee bit of a mistake before the Pens scored first but whaetever). He looked good.
  
• no more ugly stripes... then again... I was kind of thinking that they did look kind of not so bad afterall.... I think I got hypnotized by them.... pretty stripes.... Okay fine..... They didn't look wonderful but I bet you that they'd look great on a scarf.... Hmm..... could make up for the AllStar game one that I didn't buy 'cause they were sold out....... hmm..... yes.... striiiiiiiiipes.....I should get myself down to the Bell Center...... striiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipeeeeeeees.
  

The good if you are the Pens

• Malkin scored. On the PP too.
  
• Game is over. Time to do some serious soul searching.
  

The bad if you're the Habs

• I didn't like all the penalties. Washington got their first two goals in their last two games on their first two PPs. If you play a team that has a good PP like that, you're sunk if you take that many penalties. Thankfully the Pens PP stunk.
  
• And I didn't like that they couldn't capitalize on the PP. Granted they weren't given many chances but still..... YOU NEED TO SCORE ON THE PP
  
• letting the Pens score twice. Bad Habs! You feel asleep and let them score. But hey, it's hockey. Someone's going to score at some point....I didn't like Malkin's goal though....
  

the bad if you're the Pens

• powerplay. Not only could they not score, they got scored on. That was a completely preventable goal and I think it was Letang who messed that one up at the blueline. That's not cool if you're the Pens (absolutely fantastic if you're a Hab though *g*).
  
• turn overs (great if you're a Hab)
  
• inability to control the puck (great if you're a Hab)
  
• being too protective of the Puffy Blue Penguin. C'mon... Malkin was the one who was getting beat up more than Crosby was....(yeah, like what was the deal there? The Habs hardly touched Mr. Puffy but when they did BOOM)
  
• scoring on themselves (great if you're a Hab)
  
• defense (mad things easy for the Habs)
  
• offense was pretty dead for a lot of the time too (great news for the Habs defense)
  
• Fleury could have used a little more help (poor Habs couldn't score more)
  
• Fleury should have been paying more attention when he was trying to clear the puck (ah yes, but instead Sergei gets to look good again)
  

Here goes nothing....

Okay, so we all know that the Pens are struggling these days. What is it now, two or four points out of a playoff spot? That's not cool from the former finalists who steamrollered their way into the finals. I could go on and on about why the Pens stink but I won't... It's clear that this Penguin team is not the same one as last year and their suffering from high expectations that come with being a finalist.

The point is, can the Pens win tonight? Ask the Habs. The Pens nearly came away with a win last time. Excellent penalty killing from Price and a hat trick by Andrei Kostitsyn ensued that the Habs won. Given everything that we've seen from the Habs, I don't know what's going to happen tonight. The Habs need to respond like they haven't been doing in the last five of their six games. They need to ensure that Crosby and Malkin don't come anywhere near the net. They need to ensure that their PP works. And they better put up some better PK than they've done before. Oh and some half decent offense would probably work quite a bit too. The Pens defense has been suffering all year round. More than ours even if you can believe that. The Habs won't be the only ones looking for a win tonight. The Pens lost to the Leafs - which I consider beyond sad and I believe they've only taken about four wins in their last ten games.

Well, we'll see what happens. Habs have shown that they can get through some tough times but the question for me is, can they keep it up? It's tempting to say that the injuries have killed the team this year but I would like to add that when the Habs were missing Price, Koivu, Higgy and everyone else, they were actually doing better than when they all came back. To me, that says that the Habs success is mostly in their heads. If they want to win they usually can, if they don't, then.... well... you've seen the results....

If the Habs decided to show up: 4-3 for the Habs
If they dont decide to show up: 5-1 for the Pens and Mr. Puffy Blue Penguin himself gets at least two of those... Yuck.

Can we have Ovechkin?

And no, I'm not saying that I want him because he can score a lot of goals (although that would be a nice bonus). I want him because I like what he does for his team. I like the fact that he can light up his team and can inspire them to come back and win games (for the sake of this post, we're pretending that that little mishap in Sensville didn't happen) or keep pushing them forward to win When he isn't scoring, he's still almost always without fail out there doing something. Yes, the scoring is nice, but he would still be an incredibly valuable part of his team if he didn't score at all (we're also pretending for the sake of this post that he doesn't sulk too much when he doesn't score. It's called only looking at the good side of Ovechkin).

I want someone to step up and do that for the Habs.

Yes, I know we've had injury problems that has sidelined a lot of key players including Koivu. I know. But someone want to tell me how it is that even when the Habs were fine and healthy they were still losing stupid games? I think I've said before that it's what happens when the Habs aren't inspired that scares me. It's what happens when they take other teams for granted that has me freaking out. They get burned and they seem unable to get themselves out of the holes that they did for themselves. They could have pulled themselves out of that mess in Atlanta, and they probably could have at least made a better effort out of the New Jersey game too. I can accept losses. I have to. But it's very hard to accept losses when they come when the team doesn't play well for seemingly no reason.

Yes, some of the rookies that have come up have fired up the team, but you can't keep bringing new guys every eight games or so to get the team going (and let's be honest, that's about how long it takes for the intial high of being in the NHL to wear off). You need permanent members of the team to step up and do something.

It's not that they don't have guys that work hard. They do. Look at Lapierre and Kostopoulos (and Latendresse since he's been put on their line). Those guys almost always work really hard every game. The problem is, it's not rubbing off on the guys who have the more natural ability and talent to put the puck into the back of the net. Yes, Kovalev, I'm looking at you. And Plekanec too. I'd glare at Lang too but actually he has been doing well since putting put on the same line as the Kostitsyn brothers. And besides, at 38 Lang's kind of ancient (sorry!) and he wasn't brought into this team to be the top scorer. So even if I'm not a fan of Lang, he doesn't get glared at this time.

I was hoping that at least having Koivu AND Price back would inspire the team a little bit. But apparently not (actually, having Price back actually freaked out Halak so much that he completely bombed out in Atlanta). This is troubling. Both of those guys have been missed a lot on the team. They need those guys. But apparently them coming back wasn't enough to get the team going. It's tempting to blame it on the All Star break but I think that's pushing it. The Habs have not being doing well since losing to Boston. They eked out a win over the Predators, snuck passed the Sens after blowing two two goal leads and put up two embarrassing games in a row. You're telling me that these guys were already on holiday after losing to the Bruins? The thing is....Were those last two games just flukes or have we really gone back to the beginning of the year when the Habs just couldn't be inspired enough to come out and play hard every single game? What is it going to take to get these guys going?

I don't know and I'm glad it's up to Carbo to figure that one out and not me.

Oh and to make my day just great: I found out that the NHL has taken over the Bell Center and has plastered a huge poster of Crosby on the outside of the building. I have to keep reminding myself that it could have been worse and that they could have put Daniel Briere's face up there......