This Week in Penguins Hockey

1st off so long Darryl Sydor. when you played, you played well. Hello Philippe Boucher, don't screw up. The fans here are a pretty unforgiving bunch.

Coach T says it does not appear to be serious but THIS BLOWS. Fleury has an undisclosed injury and will not be playing tomorrow night.

Courtesy of theTrib Jordan Staal wants to get a deal done.
Jordan Staal's representatives and the Penguins are now cautiously optimistic of reaching a tentative agreement on a contract extension for the center, who can become a restricted free agent on July 1, 2009. Friends of Staal say he has conveyed to his agents a strong desire to sign a long-term deal - preferably soon. Staal's agent is scheduled to be in Pittsburgh on routine business this week.

The Next game for the Penguins is on Tuesday, when the Minnesota Wild come to town. The Wild play some boring hockey with the defense 1st and score off of mistakes mentality. With Wild superstar Gaborik on the shelf with an undisclosed lower body injury this should be a game of clogging up the neutral zone turning the puck over. On Saturday the Wild beat the Bluejackets 3-2 in a shootout [recap]. Backstrom got the win in net for the Wild. Reitz scored his first NHL goal. I'm glad he got that out of the way, it seems like every game someone is scoring their first career goal or their 1st goal of the season against the Penguins. Russo's Rant has a solid view of the Wilds last game.

Thursday the Penguins travel to Atlanta to play Colby Armstrong and the Atlanta Thrashers. The Thrasher got beat 4-3 by the hated Philly Flyers yesterday [recap]. Whether you like the Thrashers or not, you hate to see a team lose to the Flyers. The Thashers are a surprising 7-8-2 this season. This game should be a win for the Pens, even if they own one of the best goal scorers in the League in Kovalchuk. Get the 411 on the Thrashers

Saturday marks a showdown with the Vancouver Canucks. I don't know much about the Canuks other than they hve the best goalie in Hockey, Roberto Luongo just came off a streak of 625 shutouts or something crazy like that. Canucks and beyond is where you wanna go for info.

Go Pens