Penguins v. Coyotes Preview

Hey boys and girls.

Sorry I've been missing the last few days. Things have been quiet in Penguin land since last Saturday's 4-3 shootout victory over the New York Islanders, but The Boys of Winter return to the ice tonight at home to face a Phoenix Coyotes club trying to deal Pittsburgh it's first loss of the season.

The Coyotes are led by captain Shane Doan up front. He gets help from summer free agent signee Radim Vrbata and former Penguin Robert Lang. They also have a few young guys to keep your eyes on in Peter Mueller and Mikael Boedker.

Ed Jovanovski leads Phoenix's blueliners and russian Ilja Bryzgalov mans the net.

Phoenix has only played 1 game this year so far -- and they won it -- so it's a little early to get a deep read on them for tonight's contest, but suffice it to say, the Penguins should prevail in this game. They need to avoid playing down to their competition, beacuse that's something they tend to do (witness Saturday night's game on Long Island), but if they come out of the gate strong tonight after 3 days rest, they should be able to up their season record to 3-0 and keep pace in the Atlantic Division with the undefeated Philadelphia Flyers, who beat Washington, 6-5, in overtime last night, and who the Penguins visit on the road tomorrow night for the first of 6 grudge matches this season.

Ruslan Fedotenko, who missed practice Monday while still recovering from the hit he took from Islanders' defenseman Brendan Witt in Saturday night's game, is expected to play tonight. Overall, I wouldn't expect any lineup changes from HCDB. That means Marc-Andre Fleury is expected to be in goal.

Fleury may also play tomorrow night in Philadelphia, while Brent Johnson may get the nod Saturday night in Toronto against the Maple Leafs.

One thing that's been ruminating around in my cranium since Saturday night's game against the Islanders is the aftermath of the Witt hit on Fedtenko, where Pens' defenseman Jay McKee came in and started a fight with Witt.

Witt's hit on Fedotenko was undeniably clean, but I remember during the game being happy to see someone step up and send a message to the other team about that.

Later on, I started to think about how I'd feel about that if I were an Islander fan -- or how I'd feel about it if Brooks' Orpik laid out someone like Richard Park like that -- and in short, it went something like this:

"What a bunch of nonsense. Can't anyone take a legal hit anymore? This is hockey. Not figure skating. Give me a break."

There has been somewhat of a league-wide trend in recent seasons for players taking umbrage to legal bodychecks, and doing so not just when the checks are leveled against star players, but other guys on the ice, too.

It's an interesting issue that goes both ways. If you're a fan of a team, you want that team to stick together and have a pack mentality. You don't want your players getting hit any more than necessary. You want to stick up for each other and send a message so the next time a player thinks of making a hit like that -- especially against one of your team's better players -- they think twice about it.

On the other hand, you want to be able to deliver hits to the other team and not have to back them up with your fists if they're clean bodychecks.

Of course, McKee paid for his actions that night by serving 17 minutes in the penalty box -- and so did the Penguins, who surrendered a power play goal to the Islanders during that time -- but there are bigger issues at hand in the scenario that played out that night, and this issue will be something worth watching over the next few years to see if it develops into something the league as a whole has to intervene on.

Enough of that. Game on tonight.

I'll recap tomorrow.

Let's Go Pens!