Game 20 Preview: Pens vs. Panthers

Penguins (13-6-0, 2nd in East, 1st in Atlantic)
@
Panthers (5-9-4, 13th in East, 4th in Southeast)

The Penguins travel to the sunny Southeast to take on the Panthers for the second time in 3 games. First of a 3-game road trip for the Pens which takes them through Florida, Carolina, and Montreal.


Well, normally a game against a basement dweller wouldn't have much of a storyline behind it. This really isn't much different. However, the media seem intent on designing one: the Penguins "seek revenge" on the Florida Panthers, who just so happened to be the team who they were playing when this happened:

 

We're going to keep posting this until people get comfortable seeing it.  Was it a nasty hit? Yes. Was it a dirty hit? We don't see it that way. Even listening to Steigy and Errey questioning the intent behind the hit and Gudbranson's "need to pay for what he'd done" was just a bit unbearable. No Malkin, no problem? Your words, Steigy. Idiot.

We're hockey fans. We like good players. But don't let the Pittsburgh Penguins hubris make you think that a clean hit can't result in a bad injury. It's a clean hit that happened in an unfortunate spot, and Malkin is injured.

But either way, there's a game tonight. We're going to go ahead and pretend that stupid, fabricated storyline doesn't exist, because there are enough inane, strange happenings in Pittsburgh to be analyzing already:

1. Tyler Kennedy is still a thing.
2. Still confused on the Eaton signing: http://penguinssauce.blogspot.com/2013/02/pens-sign-mark-eaton.html

Inanity overload.

Pens real storylines:
1. 11 straight games with a Power Play Goal.
2. 20 goals in the past 5 games. Pens are the second highest scoring team in the league right now.
3. Sidney Crosby.

Role players stepped up bigtime against Tampa in Malkin's absence.  Going to take a lot of that kind of stuff to keep the hot streak going. Guys like Cooke, Vitale, Sutter, and Dustin Jeffrey provide depth and have been chipping in a lot more for the past few games.  Glad Cooke found a way to fit into the NHL even though he supposedly doesn't belong (200 career assists? Get real).

We're going to adopt the following theory as a disclaimer before we put out the projected lines.  What should happen, what we expect to happen, and what Bylsheroma put on the ice are just pretty far apart. Don't even really know anymore. But hey, if it ain't broke, learn to use "broken" as a past participle, right?

Penguins Lines:
Kunitz - Crosby - Neal
Cooke - Sutter - Dupuis
Bennett - Jeffrey - Kennedy
Glass - Vitale - Adams

Orpik - Martin
Letang - Niskanen
Engelland - Despres

Vokoun

Gotta agree with Vokoun getting the nod here. Played for a long time in Florida. He's gotta be happy to see his family and all that happy stuff. Plus the Panthers suck enough that we should be okay with him in there, maybe build back some confidence after the performance against the Flyers. Also, he dominated Florida while he was with Washington last year. But then again so does everyone.

As previously mentioned, Florida kind of sucks.  Some of that is due to injury: Kris Versteeg, Scottie Upshall, Ed Jovanovski, and Sean Bergenheim have all missed lots of time. No excuse for the Penguins not to manhandle this team, even without Malkin.

Panthers Lines:
Justin Jonathan Huberdeau - Weiss - Mueller
Fleischmann - Shore - Kopecky
Skille - Goc - Matthias
Santorelli - Smithson - Parros' Mustache

Campbell - Weaver
Kulikov - Gudbranson
Strachan - Robak

Theodore

Florida sent Markstrom back to the minors.  6'6" is tall, but apparently not up to the task yet. Thank God we won't have to listen to that again, though we've got smart money on Markstrom still somehow being mentioned at least 3 times during this telecast.

Florida's not too potent offensively.  Kevin Dineen has been taking selfies to try and inspire the team to be more threatening:

Keys to the Game:
1. Look at the lineups. Just play the game, and the Penguins are just far superior to the Panthers.
2. No retaliatory penalties and no blood wergild on Gudbranson. The dude was just doing his job.  If Deryk Engelland puts that hit on Alex Ovechkin, we are all wetter than a bunch of school girls listening to Justin Bieber.
3. Kunitz - Crosby - Neal line could do lots of damage early again.
4. Moar Beauners.

Pretty simple really, just be better. Start this road trip off right. Win tonight puts Pens back in 1st in the East. Get in, get the two points, and ride that Airboat off into the sunset.

Go Pens.