GAMEDAY 31: Meaningful Hockey

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS VS TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS 

PPG PAINTS ARENA – PITTSBURGH, PA

7:00 PM EST. AT&T SN PITTSBURGH

Saturday night is a hockey night in Pittsburgh with the Toronto Maple Leafs coming into town to take on the Pens.

The weather is turning colder and for some reason that just makes the hockey start to feel more meaningful. The Pens have been slowly inching their way towards the team we know they’ll be. It feels like what Popovich does with the Spurs every year. There’s some injuries and weird lineups. Tinkering with the pieces to see what fits. The stars go in fits and spurts, shining when needed, but conserving their energy for when it matters most.

The hockey is starting to get meaningful and tonight just feels like one of those games.

We already know the media is gonna be all about making this one to be Crosby vs Matthews. Old Guard vs Young Gun. But that’s really a slight to the true hero of this season so far.

Sidney Crosby is the best hockey player in the world, but right now Phil Kessel is the best player on the Pittsburgh Penguins.

I will present no stats to back this claim, because if you need statistics — hard, cold, icy numbers to understand this irrefutable fact, well, then buddy, you just don’t get it.

So remember, tonight it’s not Matthews v Crosby or even Leafs vs Pens. It’s Phil vs a bunch of assholes who chose to write mean words about him for the better part of his professional life. If someone wrote a blog post about me every time I ate a hot dog (allegedly) or was shitty at my job for a day I would have had a mental fucking breakdown like 4 years ago.

Phil is better than us and we don’t deserve him and fuck Toronto and all of Canada for tearing down what is perfect.

Lines:

Pittsburgh:

 

LW	C	RW
CONOR SHEARY #43	SIDNEY CROSBY #87	PATRIC HORNQVIST #72
JAKE GUENTZEL #59	EVGENI MALKIN #71	PHIL KESSEL #81
CARL HAGELIN #62	RILEY SHEAHAN #15	BRYAN RUST #17
TOM KUHNHACKL #34	CARTER ROWNEY #37	RYAN REAVES #75

DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS
BRIAN DUMOULIN #8	KRIS LETANG #58
OLLI MAATTA #3	MATT HUNWICK #22
IAN COLE #28	CHAD RUHWEDEL #2

GOALIES
TRISTAN JARRY #35	CASEY DESMITH #1

Leaves:

LW	C	RW
ZACH HYMAN #11	AUSTON MATTHEWS #34	CONNOR BROWN #28
PATRICK MARLEAU #12	NAZEM KADRI #43	LEO KOMAROV #47
JAMES VAN RIEMSDYK #25	TYLER BOZAK #42	MITCH MARNER #16
MATT MARTIN #15	DOMINIC MOORE #20	WILLIAM NYLANDER #29

DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS
MORGAN RIELLY #44	RON HAINSEY #2
JAKE GARDINER #51	NIKITA ZAITSEV #22
ANDREAS BORGMAN #55	ROMAN POLAK #46

GOALIES
FREDERIK ANDERSEN #31	CURTIS MCELHINNEY #35

(Lines courtesy of dailyfaceoff.com)

Raise your hand if you forgot Ron Hainsey existed.

If you want a Leaf to watch maybe pay attention to Tyler Bozak because the Pens might trade for him or something. Also, I’m pretty sure he was nice to Phil.

Let’s do that hockey.

Go Pens