As every fan who follows my work closely knows, I stated that the
Penguins were going to be awesome this season. Well, they may
not be quite awesome yet, they're definitely pumpkininny.
The Birds are starting to play like I expected them to all along.
They're getting goals from their stars, timely points from their
role players, and everyone is chipping in to help on defense.
What does all this mean? The Pens were able to put together one
of the longest winning streaks this NHL season, reaching a big
six games.
The six-game streak has allowed the Penguins to improve their
record to 19-10-7 for 45 points. This puts them only seven
points behind the Flyers for first place and four points behind
the Devils for second place in the Atlantic Division. The Pens
are heading out west for a four-game road trip, and if they can
find a way to beat the Coyotes Wednesday night, they could easily
turn their streak into a 10-gamer because they play San Jose, Los
Angeles, and Anaheim after that. Not to mention that when the
Pens return to the Igloo they have a few easy games there too,
but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Once again if you follow my column closely you know that I am a
huge Tom Barrasso fan... a huge fan. Barrasso has been, no
doubt, the biggest key to the streak. Hey, you can score all the
goals you want, but if you don't have a decent netminder backing
you up, it doesn't mean squat! And Barrasso has been more than
decent to say the least.
Barrasso has improved his record to 12-6-3 with a goals-against
under 2.50. Barrasso accented his stellar play by stuffing Sami
Kapanen of the Hurricanes on a penalty shot January 7th. The
penalty shot was awarded with just over a minute to go in the
game with the Pens hanging on to a 3-2 lead. Kapanen skated
down, made absolute zero moves, and shot low on Tommy. Barrasso
easily kicked the puck away from the net and the Pens won the
game 4-2.
Who got the fourth goal you ask? German Titov. That's right,
our friend German put the puck in the empty net and scored his
first goal since Hector was a pup. Since I was knee-high to a
grasshopper. Since, well, you get the point. But hold up!
German wasn't done there. He scored two nights later against the
Blues. Marty Straka sent a long wrist shot to the net, Fuhr made
the initial save, but Titov was there for the rebound. Yee-haw.
Hopefully Titov has broken out of his funk. Before Thursday
night, Titov hadn't scored in something like 1,832 games. That's
a lot of games. Just kidding, German.
Robert Lang has also been hot this season. He has 17 goals and
27 points, including the game-winner Saturday against the Blues.
As a matter of fact, all the Czechs have been playing well.
Jagr, Straka, Lang, Slegr, Hrdina, and Fairish have all been hot
this season, but I think Lang has been a very pleasant surprise.
He will be able to make the second line very strong, thus making
the Pens a dangerous scoring threat to all teams.
I would like to make a request right now... this goes out to
ESPN's Linda Cohn. Please stop calling Robert Lang, Robert Long.
I know it's only one letter, and I know SportsCenter's hockey
coverage is weak and you don't care, but I care and it would mean
a lot to me.
Thank you.
Finally, we here at LCS love to get e-mail about how well we're
doing. So if you have time send some e-mail. Who knows? Maybe
you'll make a new friend...
P.S. GO JETS!
