As the camera panned over the 20,000 plus Flyer fans clad in their fashionable orange shirts, the focus stayed on one fan’s sign. The sign depicted a penguin flat on its face and read: Penguins don’t fly, they dive. Okay, an A for effort and a B for originality. But there is another take on that statement. Obviously the slogan was meant to insult Crosby and Malkin, but let’s think about that again.
Penguins do dive – see Sergei Gonchar diving flat on his face to make a fantastic poke check and keep Mike Richards from scoring in tonight’s game. See Marian Hossa a few games ago as he made a similar all-out dive to keep the puck in the attacking zone. See all the Pittsburgh Penguins checking, hitting and diving for pucks to do whatever they could to win the game – and win it they did!

Mighty Flag Image Dominates Ice at Wachovia Center during US National Anthem performance
Funny, the Wachovia Center looked odd to me. The majority of the seats at Mellon Arena are orange, so when I saw all the orange, I had the feeling the place was empty since the shirts blended together. But the crowd was alive and noisy, until the Pens scored two quick goals and then went pretty much into “shutdown” mode. They shut down the Flyers and their fans. Pittsburgh’s defense was so good that the next time Big Ben from the Steelers attends a Pens’ game, he may hear the familiar cry, “Defense, Defense” from the crowd!
Stop Crosby and Malkin scores. Stop Malkin and Crosby scores. Stop them both? No problem, Hossa scores two, and Whitney and Malone chip in as well. This is a team with a capital “T” that scores from everywhere and plays defense everywhere.
With the 4-1final score, that means that the Pens have scored four goals in all three games against the cross state rivals. Four is a good number – we need one more win to make four and take this series, which will take us into the fourth round in the tournament. Scuderi wears number four, and Orpik wears number 44 – two important defensemen – it comes full circle! I love it when a plan comes together!
The seventh donut in our series should be covered in orange sprinkles, I think, that we can “crush” with our teeth! If you can’t find orange sprinkles, any color will do as you use your imagination and pretend they are orange.
Falling Stars
Dallas is finding out first hand that it’s hard to stop the Wings. They are so good, so talented and are frustrating the Stars at every turn. Again last night the Stars seemed to lack passion and urgency. Or maybe it’s just that Detroit doesn’t allow them to do anything they want to do. Whatever the problem is, this series may end in the fourth game as Detroit moves on.
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