Penguin Odds and Ends

During an unusual 3-day break before the Penguins' next game tomorrow night against the Carolina Hurricanes, I wanted to catch up on various things surrounding the team -- some current and some I've been meaning to get to.

Let's first talk about the present.

There has been no word thusfar from the NHL office and head disciplinarian Colin Campbell on whether LW Matt Cooke will be suspended for his shoulder-to-head hit on Boston Bruins' star center Marc Savard Sunday afternoon.

Savard suffered a grade 2 concussion on the play and may not be back in action for Boston again the rest of this season.

Interestingly, while Cooke's hit on Savard came at a time when NHL GM's were about to start meeting in Florida and already planned to further discuss hits to the head, Campbell released a statement yesterday that somewhat defended Cooke's actions, saying that he and his team looked at the tape for 90 minutes and it was plain to them that Cooke didn't use an elbow to hit Savard, but instead used a shoulder and kept it in tight to his body as he followed through.

Despite the tenor of that statement, I don't believe that means Cooke won't be suspended. In fact, I still think he's going to sit several games. The only question will be how many.

The Penguins will probably find that out today.

Assuming Cooke will be out for tomorrow's game, it looks like RW Bill Guerin will be back in the lineup.

BG has put in some practice time this week getting over his back spasms and is probably a 75/25 bet at this point to get back to game action against the Hurricanes.

On a different note, an interesting story cropped up about the Penguins' Captain yesterday.

Apparently, Sidney Crosby turned down an invitation recently from the David Letterman show to come on -- not as a guest, but simply to read the top 10 list while he the Penguins were recently in New York.

Presumably, the list was likely to focus on the Olympics and his golden goal.

This story came out in the New York Post and, when the subject was first publicized yesterday, it also was reported that Crosby had also previously decline a similar invitation to come on the show for the same purpose.

All of this led Penguins' GM Ray Shero to defend Crosby's decision yesterday, saying that he was focused on the team's upcoming 4 games in 6 day stretch, and stating very plainly that nobody -- not Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux -- did as much for the game as Crosby does.

That's up for debate, but there's no question that Crosby promotes the game today as well as anyone who even approaches his current stature does, so it's difficult to begrudge most decisions he makes about those things.

Speaking of Crosby and the Olympics, there are several pieces of interest I want to share with my readers about that subject.

I've collected several good articles over the last week or so, including ones that talk about whether Crosby's goal was the greatest marker in the history of the game.

Happy reading:

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/31941-THNcom-Blog-Crosbys-goal-the-greatest-ever.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thn_daily_20100308


http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/penguins/s_669738.html


http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=312058


http://olympics.fanhouse.com/2010/02/28/sid-the-kid-becomes-canadas-best-man/?icid=mainmaindl1link3http%3A%2F%2Folympics.fanhouse.com%2F2010%2F02%2F28%2Fsid-the-kid-becomes-canadas-best-man%2F


More later this week.