Have a cigar. Glenn Healy thinks that Pavel Datsyuk is perhaps short of natural talent. Words fail me.
Sharks! pulling for them in the West. Love the way the team plays. Marlow and Cotoure have been outstanding.
Im pulling for the Sens but would be very surprised if they win tonight. Though theyve fooled me before
Coming off the back of Sunday's game, the building will be buzzing. Karlsson was much better last time out, Spezza will be better tonight than he was on Sunday, Neil is fine after his collision with the boards, it's in our hands. This team does not roll over, if Pittsburgh are going to get a win in our building they're going to have to fight every inch of the way for it and this Penguins team does not do fight - they win on skill and reputation, if we can draw them into a battle we will beat them.
Conacher scratched tonight for Mark Stone, who's a good young player but very inexperienced. Interesting decision, but In Stache We Trust.
Stone's bigger and faster than Conacher. One of Conacher's biggest tools is getting dirty in front of the net and Orpik is too big, too strong and too experienced to let him do it. My guess is that MacLean wants to give the Penguins more of a working over, they had problems with our forecheck at times on Sunday and while Conacher is a game lad, the Pens will cope with 5'9" and 170 lbs bouncing off them all day long. Stone is 6'3 and thirty pounds heavier than CC, so he might be rather more of a handful. I'm guessing he'll play with Neil and Smith to give that line a bit more speed and skill while keeping it plenty tough.
BTW, how's this for a refereeing conspiracy. From the Sens/Pens game the other night: Referees: Eric Furlatt, Stephen Walkom Linesmen: Scott Cherrey, Brian Murphy http://scores.espn.go.com/nhl/recap?gameId=400465759 Now read this article about Sidney Crosby's sister and Mario Lemieux's children, particularly his daughter Stephanie: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...-children-crosbys-sister-making-waves-335512/ So, the referee from the other night's Pittsburgh Penguins game coaches Team Pittsburgh alongside the GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Tell me, please, how this was considered to be an appropriate idea.
the director of officiating works games? edit: to clarify, Walkom coached Team Pittsburgh in 2009. That was also the last time he was director. He stepped down to resume on-ice officiating.
OK. The referee from the other night's Pittsburgh Penguins game used to coach Team Pittsburgh alongside the GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Doesn't really sound much better to me.
I don't know if it's appropriate but I think it would be much worse if he was currently doing it, as opposed to having coached team pittsburgh in the past if you dig into all the officials' history, I'm sure you could find similar stuff.
In soccer every referee has a list of teams whose games he is not allowed to officiate due to prior associations, be it the team he supported as a boy, the town in which he grew up, a family connection to a team or whatever. This would very much fall into that exemptions list. It is ridiculous that an official can serve as a coach alongside senior management of a professional team, and then be asked to officiate on that team's games.
I don't think they do that in American sports. If they allow you in as an official, they don't restrict which teams you can officiate. I don't think there was a conspiracy to have this guy officiate a Penguins game. I think it's the normal rotations and assignments at play.
There may not be a conspiracy to have him officiate a Penguins game, but it casts very serious questions over his ability to do it impartially.
The good news is that Pittsburgh won both games he didn't officiate and lost the one he did, and it's likely the last game he'll participate in in the series. I agree it raises questions but in American sports, you can come up with these things regularly if you look at the history of each official.
