Friday, December 16, 2005

Game #33 - at Sabres

Pittsburgh Penguins at Buffalo Sabres

Pittsburgh - 8-16-7 - 23 pts - Last in Atlantic
Buffalo - 21-10-1 - 43 pts - Second in Northeast

This seems mighty familiar... maybe because the Pens just played the Sabres last night?

I think the best way to preview this game is to highlight where the Pens can improve on their performance:
  • Quit taking dumb penalties.
  • Use the speed you have (Hussey, Surovy and Malone were a good example of how to do this last night).
  • Quit taking dumb penalties.
  • Keep working hard on the power play - the team netted two goals last night with the man-advantage... something the Sabres hadn't given up in over a month as I noted in my preview
  • Did I mention about not taking penalties?
Michel Therrien agrees, according to the writeup in the Post-Gazette -
"We took some bad penalties," new coach Michel Therrien said. "Endicott took some really bad penalties."
Now that's refreshing. He also talked about the team being out of shape and needing better conditioning. We haven't seen this type of thing in Pittsburgh since Kevn Constantine was coach. That wasn't popular back then - it'll be interesting to see how it plays now.

No word on the goalie yet. Game time is early - 5:00. After this one, the team is off for five days until they play Philly at the Igloo on Friday. I'll be at that game (finally get to go to one!)

VandenBussche is still with the team. He cleared waivers and was a healthy scratch last night. Probably kept him around to see how Roy did.

Let's go Pens!

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