Pens Gameday 3/28/10 - Poni Up

The Pens ended rivalry week with a win over perhaps the most hated team of all, the Flyers. Despite a few controversial plays (calling back a goal and the Hartnell penalty) the Penguins ended up outplaying their opponent. And for the players and the fans, that's good news. Why? Because beating your rivals boosts your confidence, plain and simple. But also the Pens clinched a playoff berth. Not that it was something any of us were worried about, but there's just something to clinching the playoffs and what that does for you the rest of the season.

Here's a short interview with Jordan Leopold by the great Brian Metzer. 

Chris DeVivo gives us some more pics inside the Consol Energy Center.

Mark Savard isn't ready to forgive Matt Cooke yet.

On to today's game, the Leafs. Toronto is coming off an OT win over the Rangers last night. A stellar performance from Jonas Gustavsson who stopped 37 of 39 and is now riding a 7 game winning streak. Despite having nothing to really fight for being eliminated from the playoffs, the Leafs have continued to play well as of late with an 8-2-0 record in their last 10; they've beat the likes of Boston, NJ, and Montreal. Equipped with their newest players Dion Phaneuf, JS Giguere and former Penguin Luca Caputi the Leafs look to build on their solid play as of late and take down long time Leaf turned Penguin Alex Ponikarovski. They're playing just 23 hours after their last game, so they should be a bit tired. 

Geno, Gonch, and Godard are likely all going to sit once again. They might as well get the rest while they can, especially Geno. As such, the lines will likely not change from yesterday...and keep Dupuis on the top line.

Ponikarovsky-Crosby-Dupuis
Kunitz-Staal-Guerin
Cooke-Kennedy-Fedotenko
Rupp-Talbot-Adams

Goligoski-Eaton
Orpik-Letang
Leopold-McKee

Fleury

Here is the PensU [pregame] and [recap] and subsequent highlights of last game.

Who can forget that insane one-handed goal by Sid early in the third. Just watch.

Keys to the game:

• SCORE EARLY: Nothing tells a weaker team they can't compete with you when they get down early. And the statistics behind "scoring first" are well known to everyone.
• WINGERS: We saw some great play from Dupuis, Poni, Kunitz...even Fedotenko and Cooke. The better these guys are playing the better the team will be. Sure, this goes without saying, but y'all know how inconsistent the Pens wingers have been.

Posted in: Maple Leafs,pre-game