Will The Real Pittsburgh Penguins Please Stand Up?

And so, on the day before game 2 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal tonight between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators at Mellon Arena (7 PM EST, VERSUS) -- a game I'll be at personally -- all the talk was, perhaps understandably, about how the Penguins are now fully mentally engaged in the series down 1-0 and facing a 2-0 deficit if they don't bring a victory home this evening.

About how they perhaps didn't have enough hate for the Senators before Wednesday.

About how the 'slap in the face' (according to Pascal Dupuis) they got from Ottawa in game 1 will be a wake-up call.

All of which, of course, begs one question.

First, though, here are some pieces on those themes:

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/Playoffs/Pittsburgh/2010/04/15/13603866.html

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/b3G4K

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/Playoffs/Pittsburgh/2010/04/15/13603106-ap.html

Getting back to the transaction ---- the question which all of this begs should be plain.

Why do you need to put one in the loss column to wake up and realize the playoffs require more intensity, more committment, and more pure 'want-to' than you've been showing?

Maybe a team that's been through the Stanley Cup Finals 2 straight seasons and has seen games of higher gravity requires that?

Maybe a team that has been so inconsistent all year -- like Pittsburgh -- needs a test to put out their best hockey? It was my piece in this space about a week before the regular season ended, by the way, that talked about how getting the #4 seed and drawing the Senators in round 1 might very well be the best thing for this year's edition of the Penguins:

http://theboysofwinter.blogspot.com/2010/04/would-penguins-be-better-off-in-post.html

Still, there are clear and obvious risks to playing with fire the way Pittsburgh did to start this series, and I personally wish the Penguins would have had their game on right from the start instead.

Obviously, that wasn't the case on Wednesday night.

So, tonight in game 2, they will consider changes to their lineup, mainly the possibility of scratching forward Ruslan Fedotenko.

Rusty skated on the 5th line in practice yesterday, largely because he was invisible in game 1 -- as he has been most of the season.

Nobody, this writer included, is going to complain much if he takes a seat in the press box this evening -- despite his playoff pedigree.

If he does sit, Mike Rupp will likely take his place and join Craig Adams and Max Talbot on the 4th line.

Schematically, the Penguins need to do a better job of getting pucks behind the Senators defensemen, then retrieving them to create more offensive zone time. Doing that should help them get up their shot total, which was a miserable 21 in game 1 on Monday.

Hell, the offensively-starved Boston Bruins -- the team with the least goals of any team in the entire National Hockey League this season -- put up more shots in one period against the Buffalo Sabres in game 1 of their series last night, 24, than the Penguins put up on an openly nervous Senators' netminder Brian Elliott in their whole game Wednesday.

Another thing the Penguins clearly need is a better night from their goaltender, Marc-Andre Fleury.

Fleury has a history of bouncing back strong from poor performances dating back to the last two post-seasons, and it's not a stretch to say that if he falters again tonight, the Penguins could quickly find themselves in the deep water in this series.

For the Senators, they learned yesterday that they'll be without another top-6 forward for the remainder of this series -- the remainder of the season for them, in fact, however long that may last.

Forward Milan Michalek, who just returned to the lineup a few games ago after missing about 10 contests with a knee injury, tore his ACL in Wednesday's game.

He'll likely be replaced on Ottawa's second line with Mike Fisher and Matt Cullen by 4th liner Nick Foligno.

Foligno has has an up and down season in Canada's Capital, but has contributed in the past at key times for Ottawa, so we'll see what he offers when the chips are down.

Forward Ryan Shannon, with 16 points and a -12 rating in 66 games this seasoan -- and who was a scratch in 9 of the Sens' final 11 regular season games -- is expected to take Folingo's place on their 4th line.

That's it for now. The table is set for tonight.

The Penguins know what they need to do.

They're Out For Justice.

Recap tomorrow.

Let's Go Pens!