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The Penguins revenged last year's first round loss to the Senators with a sweep of this season's matchup. Now, this Ottawa team was playing nowhere near the level that carried them to the '07 finals and they had many key players injured or just returning, but they fought hard the last three games after catching their footing late in game one. The Pens played well in all areas of the game with goalie Marc-Andre Fleury showing why he was a first round draft pick(finally). Now they gotta sit and wait. A long layoff is never good for playoff momentum, but should be beneficial to Sidney Crosby and the nearly 42 year old "Scary"Gary Roberts who are both returning from the dreaded high ankle sprain.
Now it's time to settle in and see how the other series play out.

Here's some local off ice stuff: Between 1,000-2,000 folks watched last night's roadgame on a giant TV screen in front of Mellon Arena. All Pens playoff games are being shown there and the crowd has grown with each contest. Last Friday night's game was played during, at time, a driving rainstorm so folks brought tents for shelter.
The Arena is set on a slope just above downtown and the first thing you see is that screen on the way uptown. This could get to be pretty stupid though with all the, mostly, young fans going crazier after each win. Of course, my 17 year old daughter is looking for friends to go watch a game in the next round.
The Pens don't have anywhere near the impact of the stillers locally, but I'd bet that there's at least a coupla NFL teams who wished that they had the same kind of fanbase in size and enthusiasim.
Let us know what's goin' on behind the scenes in your town.
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Wow, crazy game one between Pitts/NY. The Rangers withstood an early Pens onslaught to take a 3-0 lead. That third goal and scorer Sean Avery's celebration seemed to wake the Pens up. They scored on back to back shifts about 5 minutes later and added two more in the third to take a lead. The Rangers tied things up, but a late powerplay led to the winning Pens score when Sid Crosby smacked a one timer off of Malkin's knee with 1:41 left.

This Pittsburgh team has won a lot of games coming from behind this season, but I never figured that they could overcome a 3 goal defecit in the playoffs. This is gonna be a tough series and I look forward to Sunday afternoon's game two.
'guins win, 'guins win.

Grady
You are certainly allowed your opinion. I have no problems with what you wrote.
Here's how I see things, this is not rebuttal to your comments, just my personal opinion.
Since their inception in 1967 the Pens have been pretty awful for much of that time.
The original owners nicknamed the domed arena the big igloo because the team was called the Penguins even though those wingless birds are from the South Pole while igloos seem to be a North Pole feature. Those early teams definitely played like they'd had their wings clipped. When they finally got decent they blew a 3 game to 0 lead and will forever be mentioned whenever a hockey, baseball or basketball playoff series goes to 3-0.
Beyond on ice failures, the IRS padlocked their offices twice, I believe.

There's much about Mario that I don't care for and if he left today I wouldn't worry about it.
He did raise the franchise from the dead, but if he didn't smoke like a chimney early on or just tried to work out a little, he'd probably have been healthier throughout his career.
To his credit, Mario was able to lead the team to two championships once he had the talent and top flight coaching around him.

Jaromir Jagr is undoubtetly a great player as was Ron Francis(the best all around center I ever saw), but this was Mario's team, for better or worse.
Folks my age tend to give Jagr slack, but the fans who pack the arena these days are primarily of the generation that grew up watching a back to back Stanley Cup champion and contending team afterward. As much as they loved him for his skills(his combination of strength and ability to make mind boggling plays in tight spaces is not contested by anyone) the final coupla years here stick in their craw. He worked real hard to get traded and made statements that alienated him from some of his biggest fans. I understood that it was a business move, but they didn't. I don't endorse the boos, but can see where they come from. Stories like his need for more money again and again because of gambling debts took on a life of their own regardless of their truth. His need to leave here was seen as a money thing more than a powerplay between two superstar egos. Similarly, his time in Washington is viewed as the fleecing of a franchise in order to get his finances in order. That's the local opinion of the guy from the younger fans.

Anyways, I enjoy watching this Penguins team play. I don't know nor do I care if Crosby is as great as they say. He makes plays individually and to set others up that are fun to watch. There's a great deal of young talent here that seems to be maturing at a pretty fast rate.
I can't recall any comebacks from 3 goals down here and was somewhat impressed by what they did the other night agaisnt a veteran team with a lot of fight in it. I don't, however, believe that this team can move on if they keep digging themselves holes such as that one.

Most folks around here wanted them to play anybody, but the Rangers at this point because of Jagr and their experience. My feeling is that you gotta beat the man to be the man so we'll see what happens.
GO PENS, beat Rangers

I wouldn't go as far as to say the series is over grady. I'm hoping for a split at MSG where the pens were 0-4 in regular season. Two Ranger wins there and it can go either way.
The best part of all this is that Fleury continues to look strong in net, aside from a pretty stupid jump on the one NYR goal Friday night.
GO PENS, beat Rangers