Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Tuesday, there are 56 days remaining.
As far as modern defensive monsters go, Mark Eaton has been a bit forgotten. The Wag has imprinted Dikembe Mutombo's image in all our eternal memories; when you think of blocked shots, you think of Deke.
But Eaton can lay claim to the blocks title, in terms of seasonal average. In 1984-85, Eaton racked up a whopping 5.6 blocks per game.
I don't know how Penguins general manager Ray Shero pulled it off, but he managed to not only retain the services of Ruslan Fedotenko and Bill Guerin, two of the teams top-six forwards from their Stanley Cup winning team, but he did so while getting them to take paycuts.
After signing Guerin to a one-year deal on Monday, the Penguins announced that they agreed to terms with Fedotenko Friday afternoon. Rob Rossi of the Tribune Reviewreports the deal as being worth $1.8 million, down from the $2.25 million he made a season ago.
The Pittsburgh Penguins ended a 17-year Stanley Cup drought on Friday night with a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings, giving the franchise its third championship. While current general manager Ray Shero will get his name on the cup for overseeing the hockey operations the past three seasons, former general manager Craig Patrick also had a hand in putting this team together.
After the jump, a player-by-player look at how the 2008-09 Penguins were built over the years.
When the calendar flips to June, and the Stanley Cup Finals start, it seems to be a tradition for NHL officials' whistles to suddenly malfunction.
So far in this year's series, we've seen plenty of evidence that the officials are determined to "let the players play." This has been endorsed by members of both teams, but may have helped lead to a rather embarrassing display during Game 3 Tuesday night.
So the rematch is set: Pittsburgh vs. Detroit. For the first time in 25 years, the same two teams will meet in back-to-back years for the right to fight for Lord Stanley's Cup, and while one of these teams is relatively similar to last year's version (with one big exception) the other is very, very different.
We're a little less than 24 hours removed from Friday's Red Wings-Blackhawks game, which saw Chicago claw its way back into the series with a 4-3 overtime win, while a lot of the debate has been centered around Niklas Kronwall's devastating hit on Martin Havlat.
While Havlat was knocked six ways from Tuesday, Kronwall was issued a five-minute major and a game misconduct for interference which set off a firestorm of discussion around the hockey blogosphere and message boards. Was it interference? Was it charging? Was it a legal, clean hit? We asked the NHL for comment.
After suffering a "lower body injury" in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final, Erik Cole's status for Game 2 has been up in the air during this painfully long two-day break. Cole was injured during Monday's game when he was on the receiving end of a Matt Cooke hit that included knee-on-knee contact.
According to Adam Harris of WRAL, Cole participated in Thursday's morning skate, and it appears he will be available for the Hurricanes when they hit the ice for Game 2. The news doesn't sound quite as promising for his teammate, Tuomo Ruutu.
Well this is kind of a letdown. After watching the Penguins take on long-time rivals Philadelphia and Washington in the first two rounds of the Eastern Conference playoffs, they're now taking on the Carolina Hurricanes in the conference final. It's a match-up that offers nothing in the way of hatred, bitterness or rivalry. Hopefully the Staal brothers pull a Keith and Wayne Primeau and fight sometime in the first two games. You know, just to stir the pot a little bit.
Having said that, this is an interesting match-up when it comes to hockey and that, of course, is the most important thing. It should be an exciting series, and who knows, perhaps by the end of it both teams will end up hating each other anyway.
As if the second round series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals couldn't get any more entertaining than it had been through the first five games, it did on Monday night. There were three lead changes, shots off the iron, goals off the most unlikely of sticks and, of course, overtime.
After the dust settled on a wild game that saw both teams go through the motions numerous times thanks to playing four games in six nights, it would be Washington's David Steckel who sent the Mellon Arena crowd home unhappy and this series to a seventh game on Wednesday night.
When most of us got out of bed Wednesday morning, we probably didn't expect to see Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang in the lineup for the Penguins that night, not after the way he left the ice in obvious pain during Game 2 in Washington. But whatever vitamins they're feeding the players in Pittsburgh, they worked on Letang.
He gutted out three-plus periods before scoring the game-winning goal in overtime to give the Penguins a needed win in Game 3 of their second round series with the Caps, cutting Washington's series lead to 2-1.
Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Tuesday, there are 56 days remaining.
I don't know how Penguins general manager Ray Shero pulled it off, but he managed to not only retain the services of Ruslan Fedotenko and Bill Guerin, two of the teams top-six forwards from their Stanley Cup winning team, but he did so while getting them to take paycuts. 
When the calendar flips to June, and the Stanley Cup Finals start, it seems to be a tradition for NHL officials' whistles to suddenly malfunction.
After suffering a "lower body injury" in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final, Erik Cole's status for Game 2 has been up in the air during this painfully long two-day break. Cole was injured during Monday's game when he was on the receiving end of a Matt Cooke hit that included knee-on-knee contact. 
Well this is kind of a letdown. After watching the Penguins take on long-time rivals Philadelphia and Washington in the first two rounds of the Eastern Conference playoffs, they're now taking on the Carolina Hurricanes in the conference final. It's a match-up that offers nothing in the way of hatred, bitterness or rivalry. Hopefully the Staal brothers pull a Keith and Wayne Primeau and fight sometime in the first two games. You know, just to stir the pot a little bit. 
As if the second round series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals couldn't get any more entertaining than it had been through the first five games, it did on Monday night. There were three lead changes, shots off the iron, goals off the most unlikely of sticks and, of course, overtime. 
