It’s not too often a team can lose its superduperstar and still keep chuggin’ along, but such is the case with the Penguins. No Sidney Crosby? No big. Not with Evgeni Malkin taking full advantage of the extra puck availability by lighting the lamp three ways: early, often, and pretty much continuously. Would that San Jose could find such a player. And for a thought certain to keep all aficionados of Los Tiburones up at night, imagine this team if either Joe Thornton or Evgeni Nabokov were to go down for any length of time.
It’s hard to look at this game and not flash back to last year when the Penguins visited the Tank in what was certainly the best single game of the year as Crosby and Thornton made it a crusade to prove who was the true king daddy of the NHL. It was non-stop action of the sweetest kind, with the Sharks emerging victorious. Hopefully the road trippers will bring a similar spirit into this contest, even without #87 on the ice for the other team. It’d be a great time for Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo to click. And given how Malkin is treating games like an extension of shooting drills minus the goalie, it’d be a really great time to notch two or more tallies.
Okay, let’s drop the puck.
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