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Tonight, the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the second incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets for the first time at the MTS Centre.
Quick Hits:
-Penguins forwards Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, and Tyler Kennedy will not play tonight. Kennedy reported concussion-like symptoms earlier this morning.
-Only 4 players who have played more than 1 game for the Penguins this year have failed to record a point: D's Ben Lovejoy, Deryk Engelland, and Zbynek Michalek, and RW Arron Asham.
-The Jets have the dubious distinction of being the only team in the NHL that has yet to earn a point.
-Noted offensive wizard C Jim Slater leads the Jets with two goals; his two points tie with D Ron Hainsey for the team lead. The Penguins have 14 players that have registered two or more points.
-G Ondrej Pavelec will start for the Jets. Pavelec has a 4.56 GAA and .833 save percentage in two regulation losses this season.
-The Jets are 29th in the NHL in goals against/game, 30th in goals for/game, tied for 29th (dead last) in power-play percentage with a Yeo-man's (get it?) 0% conversion rate, and 26th in penalty killing. Because of their triumphant return to Canada, however, no one has yet realized that they are fielding a potential lottery team.
-The "Jets" and Penguins haven't met since March 5th, 1996, when the Penguins smacked the monkey spunk out of the Jets to the tune of 9-4. The Penguins took both games of a two-game series with the Jets in the 1995-96 season.
Projected Lines, per the Pens website:
Kunitz-Staal-Dupuis
Sullivan-Park-Neal
Cooke-Letestu-Asham
MacIntyre-Vitale-Adams
Engelland-Letang
Martin-Michalek
Lovejoy-Niskanen
Fleury
For Winnipeg:
Ladd-Little-Wheeler
Burmistrov-Antropov-Wellwood
MacLean-Scheifele-Stapleton
Glass-Slater-Thorburn
Enstrom-Byfuglien
Oduya-Hainsey
Stuart-Bogosian
Pavelec
Injuries: The Penguins will be without C Sidney Crosby, C Evgeni Malkin, D Brooks Orpik, & RW Tyler Kennedy. Winnipeg will be without F Evander Kane, LW Kenndal McArdle, and C Ben Maxwell.
RULES:
-As always, no turkey. I'll hold open auditions for foodstuffs on power plays and, if we find something that works, will issue a declaration noting the new official power play dinner of Samsdog's GDT's.
-Keep negative posts CONSTRUCTIVE. I don't expect you to gloss over blatantly underwhelming play, but leave comments like "X is totally useless", or "If x were any worse at hockey he'd be y", or especially "this pp sucks" at the door. There are numerous threads available in the forum proper that you can voice such opinions and pad your post counts in. Instead, simply suggest what is going wrong and how it should be fixed in a calm and constructive manner. Thanks in advance.
-I took last season off due to a law-school related injury (it was my time...it was running out), so for those of you that don't remember, all of my GDT's feature a post-game 3 stars selection. More Juju = potential stardom.
-Pictures not specifically of the Penguins are WELCOME, so long as they are relative to the discussion in the GDT, the game at hand, or a joke and/or are bringing in good juju. I'm not too strict about this, outside pictures make the GDT more fun.
-On that note, we are here to have fun. So, do it, enjoy the game, and LET'S GO PENS!!!
