It's Time

Let's do it. Let's Go Pens!

The Inexperienced Penguins Were Supposed To Be Swept, Right?

Win or lose tomorrow night in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, you can't talk about the Penguins lack of experience anymore. Not after last night's (or this morning) triple-overtime thriller that ended with a 4-3 Pens win and at least one more game in the Finals. Media members and NHL "experts" talked about the Penguins lack of playoff experience being the reason they would falter in this series. Everybody had Detroit down as their champion, except for the Pens of course. They heard that reasoning throughout the entire playoffs about them being too young and inexperienced.

I never bought into that argument. There are plenty of instances over the last decade of sports that disprove the no experience theory. Anybody remember the 2003 Florida Marlins? That went into Wrigley, scored eight runs in an eventful eighth inning and went on to knock off the veteran-laden Yankees team in the World Series. No experience for that team and they walked into Yankee Stadium on the game's biggest stage and stunned New York. How about the New York Giants in the past Super Bowl. Most of that team had never sniffed the big game and they walked in and defeated the undefeated, experienced, been there before New England Patriots. Give a young team a chance and things will happen.

I'm tired of hearing about the Pens lack of experience. The perseverance they showed last night on the road, rallying for a game-tying goal with 33 seconds remaining in their season and then fighting through three overtime periods for a victory was unreal. Crosby and Fleury are growing up before our eyes on national television on hockey's biggest stage. The Penguins have proven they can win games against the Wings...even on the road in a hostile environment. In the past three games, both teams have been battling and fighting for every loose puck in games that have all come down to the wire. Lack of experience? Forget about it.

If the Pens' Stanley Cup run does come to an end tomorrow night at the Igloo, it won't be because lack of playoff experience. Keep doubting this young Pittsburgh team and they just might have enough to win two more and pull this series off. Let's Go Pens!

Brooks Orpik Lays The Wood

I've watched a lot of Penguins games in my lifetime and in the five years of watching Brooks Orpik play defense for the Pens, I have never seen him become possessed and start annihilating people like he did in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. Hell, I haven't seen anybody take over this way before...



Wow. I could watch that all day.

Hold on Detroit fans. Cancel the Cup-winning parades. There's still a series going on. It's not over yet.

Here's hoping Orpik stays possessed for the rest of the series and Osgood stops his classless diving for cheap calls. LET'S GO PENS!

The Series That Could Save the NHL?

Maybe save is not the right word for the headline. More like could this be the series to bring the NHL back? It's no secret that the NHL is suffering from lack of exposure in the media eyes. More people are going to the games than ever before (well, except Hockeytown), but the problem is the league's terrible TV deal with Outdoor Life Netw....er, Versus. ESPN doesn't bother showing much of the NHL playoffs and when they do, it's only the top plays of the day or about a fight or injury that occurred. Needless to say, the Penguins-Red Wings series could be huge for the future of the NHL. Is this the best possible series that the NHL could of asked for? Possibly, maybe having a team in Canada would have been more beneficial, but I don't think anybody can be complaining about this matchup.

What's not to like about this series? You have the best two teams in the league with the Wings winning the Presidents Trophy in the regular season and the Pens being the number two seed from the Eastern Conference only one point behind the one seed. Both teams have major star power with Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Nicklas Lidstrom for Detroit and Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marian Hossa for Pittsburgh. You have two hot goaltenders that will be facing off against each other. You have two great hockey cities and you have the young, up and coming Penguins pitted against the wiry, veteran "been there before" Red Wings.

Plus Detroit and Pittsburgh are both teams that have rich hockey history that older fans can remember the days of back-to-back Cups with Mario Lemieux or the days of Steve Yzerman. The last three Stanley Cup victors have been Anaheim, Carolina and Tampa Bay. Not exactly the three Meccas of hockey. I'm sure kids growing up in Southern California just can't wait to hit that frozen pond in their backyard and maybe someone would of cared about Carolina's victory if they were still in Hartford (at least Chris Berman would). Tampa Bay...come on. It was hard for people to get into watching those teams and I can't blame them. Hopefully this will change with Pittsburgh and Detroit.

I don't think you will see a sweep or a five-game series either way. I believe this series will live up to expectations and be a strong, hard fought six or seven-game series that could help acquire interest in hockey from all over the hockey world again. The NHL is banking on it.