Penguins v Canucks – Live at the CONSOL Energy Center

Well, any sort of pre-game blog got derailed while posting Amber’s piece and then getting interrupted by a sea of Pittsburgh radio folks who just rolled into the seats next to me. I wasn’t really going to get much done anyway, so let’s just get down to our usual run of thoughts, observations, analysis and hullabaloo!

We are underway here at the CONSOL Energy Center and the Penguins are decked out in their baby blues… the Canucks are wearing their usual white, green and blues… Mike Comrie is back in the press box for the Penguins tonight as the healthy scratch, he is joined by Ben Lovejoy and Eric Godard.

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Trib tale of the tape tonight: Crosby versus Henrik Sedin… each is deadlocked at 12 goals, but Crosby has the upper hand in assists and leads Henrik 28 – 25 in the league’s scoring race.

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Not a whole lot to report as of yet, though the fact that tonight was an official Student Rush game has the place filled.

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Craig Adams and Kevin Bieksa just tried to get both sides going with a scrap in the right wing corner of the Canucks zone… it didn’t seem to work. They wrestled around a bit before Adams was felled with a right to the chops…

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BTW, it is again 2 degrees in the CONSOL Energy Center… I am ready to start a fire in one of the trash cans with all of the sets of game notes that are laying around here.

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The seating chart showed that we we supposed to have a pretty full house here on press row, but to this point many of the seats are empty. The lack of bodies isn’t helping the cause with the heat situation.

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The Penguins have actually been able to generate a bit more pressure around Luongo than I thought that were going to be able too. However, getting the pucks in through to the net hasn’t been easy. The Canucks’ defenders are getting their bodies in front of a ton of rubber.

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Kris Letang just had a bit of a scary moment… or at least provided one for the crowd in the building tonight. He went head first into the boards before laying there for a few seconds. He did get himself up and skated it off, but for a brief second it appeared to be problematic.

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The Penguins just got a penalty kill and the Canucks must have forgotten who was coming out of the penalty box, as the Birds were able to hit Sidney Crosby and get him in on a break away. He made no mistake in going backhand to forehand and snapping a shot past Luongo’s blocker on the short side.

1-0 Penguins…

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Sorry about the lack of updates gang! Ran into a couple of internet issues… as well as an in depth conversation with Chris DeVivo. Always nice catching up with one of the brains behind the building of the CONSOL Energy Center…

While I have been away, there have been a handful of goals scored… first of all, we saw Max Talbot use some big time hard work to get in around the Vancouver net and bury a wrap around behind Luongo. Max was visibly pumped about scoring the goal… I hope one of the photographers captured a pic.

Then it was Arron Asham’s turn… He and Geno Malkin were crashing the Vancouver net as Luongo made an initial save. Asham got the first stick on it, knocking it back towards Luongo. Several Canucks got their sticks on it before Asham made sure that it crossed the line.

3-0 Penguins…

Moments after the Penguins third goal, former Penguin (Hey… they owned his rights for a brief period of time)Dan Hamhuis got the Canucks on the board. He got a chance in the left slot and buried it behind Fleury, who was trying to get into position. The goal was assisted by not only one Sedin… but two Sedins!

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We just received this press release…

PENGUINS’ SELLOUT STREAK TOPS 3 MILLION FANS

The Penguins’ consecutive sellout streak topped the three-million fan mark and reached 176 games (includes regular season and playoffs) Wednesday night against the Vancouver Canucks.

The Penguins sold out the last 166 games of Mellon Arena’s operation (capacity 16,940) and the first 10 at CONSOL Energy Center (18,087).

Heading into Wednesday’s contest 2,999,894 fans attended the first 175 straight games. With Wednesday’s sellout attendance of 18,252 fans, the total of fans that have seen the team over the streak reached 3,018,894 – an average of 17,149 per game.

The Penguins have sold out every home game over the past three-plus seasons. The sellout streak began Feb. 14, 2007 against Chicago.

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Brooks Orpik just gave Mason Raymond a shot in the mouth that sent him flailing to the ground… he had been in on Marc Andre Fleury as he made a save. There was a bit of a dust-up after he whistle…

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Again… sorry for the lack of updates. Been one of those nights here. Though this is a pretty impressive performance against one of the better teams in the Western Conference. Need to get through another 7:oo minutes…

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4:29 remaining in regulation… Fleury sitting at .963 save percentage as of right now…

5 thoughts on “Penguins v Canucks – Live at the CONSOL Energy Center

  1. anyone feel like this is one of those ‘big’ games for the year. Strong opponent, starting to play well. Need a win, changes in the PP line up, lets see how the team responds.

  2. Heck Walshy, the way things were a couple weeks back, they are all huge games right now. They have settled into a bit of a groove though and have been playing pretty well for a little stretch. (the PP aside) They have got to keep that going though…

    B

  3. Meh, non-conference opponent, who cares…. I care about someone curing the epidemic of Anal Glaucoma occurring amongst the Pens players….things are clearly better, but minor things need to improve

  4. EHH I thought it was a good sign until I saw that it was the last game of a LONG eastern Road trip for the Canucks

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