Previewing The Penguins/Blues And More

The Penguins put their 5-game winning streak on the line at Mellon Arena tonight in a 7 PM EST nationally televised contest (Versus) against the Western Conference upstart St. Louis Blues.

St. Louis is generally regarded in league circles as a team on the rise, and mainly that has to do with the young talent they've brought in over the last several seasons.

Defenseman Eric Johnson, and forwards Brad Boyes, T.J. Oshie and David Backes have given the Blues some solid young players to build around recently -- Boyes and Johnson in particular. Boyes scored more than 30 goals last season. Johnson already has 6 helpers in 6 contests this year.

But not to be overlooked are the veterans currently leading the way for St. Louis, including one of my favorite players and the Blues' leading scorer, LW Keith Tkachuk. He's got 7 points in 6 games.

He gets help from C Andy McDonald and LW Paul Kariya, who are 2nd and 4th in team scoring, respectively.

The Penguins will also match up against former teammates Darryl Sydor and Ty Conklin this evening.

Sydor fills a top 6 role for the Blues, and is a strong +6 on the year to-date. Conklin is 2-0 and coming off a 5-0 whitewashing of Anaheim over the weekend. There's no word whether he'll start against the men he battled with on the way to the 2008 Stanley Cup Final, but I'd say there's a good chance of that.

The New York Rangers finally lost last night (to the San Jose Sharks, 7-3), so Pittsburgh has an opportunity to take over sole possession of 1st place in the leaguewide standings and the Atlantic Division with a victory -- or even a point -- tonight.

In other Penguin news, Stanley Cup hero Max Talbot was given clearance to practice with his teammates for the first time yesterday.

Talbot still hasn't been given the okay to participate in contact drills, so he wore a the red jersey throughout yesterday's on-ice session, but having #25 out there again is certainly a positive step in his continued recovery and rehabilitation.

Talbot is still probably about a month away from seeing game action at this point.

I also wanted to share 2 good nuggets of information about Dan Bylsma, both from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

Many people know that, as a former player, HCDB often likes to join the shootout competitions he stages at the end of certain Penguin practices. He did that yesterday, and made the shootout stakes interesting when he said that the last person on the ice (the one who didn't score) would have to wash new defenseman Jay McKee's truck.

Guess who ended up with that duty.

Yep. The coach.

Makes you think that Fleury and Johnson let him score to feel good in the other shootout competitions, but wanted to stick it to him yesterday. Ha.

The other nugget about Bylsma is that he was recommended to coach at the highly regarded Shattuck Saint Mary's prep school in Minnesota when they had a vacancy 2 years ago.

Of course, many Penguin fans know that Crosby had a year of seasoning himself at that school, as have several other NHL stars over the years.

Ironically enough, Blues coach and Bylsma mentor Andy Murray was the one who recommended Blysma for that job.

When Murray put Bylsma's name forward, they told him that they felt he was "too inexperienced" to coach at "that level".

Two years and one Stanley Cup Championship later, here we are.

Great nuggets.

Finally, has everyone seen the video and story that his been circulating over the on-line hockey airwaves about the 9 year old player from Boston?

Here's a story and video about a recent goal he scored in a shootout competition that was held for his age group between periods of a Boston Bruins game last week. You have to see this to believe it (although frankly, I've seen it and I'm still not sure I do):

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Video-9-year-old-scores-greatest-goal-in-Boston?urn=nhl,195876

Pick your jaw up off the floor.

I mean, are you kidding me?

I bet 98% of NHL players couldn't pull that off.

I've seen several lacrosse-style highlight goals in my life, basically from the college or junior levels, including one that Crosby scored in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League several years ago.

All have been top-notch because so few people try that with the puck.

None have involved a spinorama and backhand toss like what that 9-year old did.

I felt bad for the goalie.

Just unbelievable.

Recap of the Pittsburgh/St. Louis game tomorrow.

Let's Go Pens'!