As it turns out, the Pittsburgh Penguins won't be at full-strength to start the playoffs after all.
Pens' LW Chris Kunitz has been ruled out of game 1 against the Ottawa Senators tonight because he's not yet fully recovered from a shoulder injury he sustained a few weeks ago.
Kunitz is one of the Penguins' more physical forwards, and the team certainly will miss his forechecking presence out on the ice tonight, but there's certainly no reason why the Penguins can't prevail without him.
Hopefully #14 will be back in the lineup soon -- if not Friday for game 2, then when the series shifts to Ottawa. I'd rather him be at 100% than risk coming back too early then having to go in and out of the lineup, anyway.
Meanwhile, one of the most interesting things I'll be watching tonight is how the Pens pair up their blueliners.
For most of the stretch run, the pairings have had Sergei Gonchar and Mark Eaton together, Brooks Orpik and Kris Letang together, and Jordan Leopold and Alex Goligoski together.
In practice yesterday, however, Head Coach Dan Bylsma reunited Orpik and Gonchar, as well as Eaton and Letang. Each of those pairs played together last post-season.
Assuming those are the pairings, I'm anxious to see how Bylsma deploys them. Letang indicated in today's Pittsburgh Tribune Review that he'll be given the assignment of shutting down Ottawa forwards Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson.
We'll see. I just as easily could see Orpik and Gonchar being assigned that task. We all know how good Oprik's defensive game usually is and, while Gonchar has had somewhat of an uneven season, he's capable of raising his game and being a 2-way force, as he was almost all of last year after returning from a shoulder injury.
Finally, here are two other pieces I wanted to share, one with another Ottawa perspective, and the series preview from Scott Burnside at ESPN:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Past+champions+anything+invincible/2903402/story.html
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/playoffs/2010/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=5077270
Game 1 recap tomorrow.
Let's Go Pens!
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