Gameday 11: Trickle Down Covidnomics

Penguins vs  NYI 

Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum | Uniondale, NY

Saturday, February 6 | 7:00PM Eastern

ESPN+ | MSG+ | AT&T-PGH 

Welcome back to weekend gameday the gameday that was a little drunk and kinda forgot about this post but will soldier on nonetheless.

The Penguins have been off since Monday after their tilt with the Devils on Tuesday was cancelled due to every NHL player contracting covid over the course of this season.

The Pens head to beautiful (shithole) Uniondale to take on the Isles. A team that has somehow(?) under achieved more than the Pens so far, sitting dead last in the wall street bets east division, but only 3 points back of the Pens who sit 4th.

I want to write about this game, Trotz’s boring ass and crazy effective style, Barzal and his wheels, maybe even a good Dipi GIF for good sakes, but it’s hard to concentrate right now on hockey. As the covid cases within the league stack up it’s hard not to wonder….what the fuck are we doing here?

I love hockey. I love hockey more than most people I know. I love hockey so much I’m typing out this post at 11:41 EST so you fucking animals can eat from the content trough. But at a certain point we need to acknowledge that this season is a fucking dumpster fire. Team after team is being shut down, it’s the Avs this week, it’s gonna be the Pens soon.

The NHL bulldozed this season through and, per usual, without any real plan to get through it. Players have always been expendable to them, the concussions, the player safety departments ran by goons, the continually punitive CBA’s, covid was never going to be any different.

It’s so hard to love this league, and we do it anyway. Even as it grinds up human beings and shills them out for trickle down economics that by the time it gets to the players someone’s grandma is already dead.

Honestly, most NHL seasons aren’t worth it. This is just the one where we’ve noticed.

Lines:

Reinforcements on the way? 

In addition, defensemen Kris Letang and Mike Matheson and forward Zach Aston-Reese were full participants in practice for a second straight day. All three players, who are currently day-to-day, traveled with the team to New York for their game against the Islanders on Saturday.

Who knows. Jarry probably in the cage.

Isles

Isles are also coming off a cancelled game vs Buffalo because this whole fucking league is a clownshow. Flyers beat them in OT before that.

Forwards:

Lee-Barzal-Bailey

Timashov-Nelson-Eberle

Dal Colle-Pageau-Czarnik

Martin-Cizikas-Clutterbuck

Defensemen:

Pelech-Pulock

Leddy-Mayfield

Greene-Dobson

Goalie:

Varlamov

I realize looking back at this post it might seem like I’m being negative toward the NHL. Don’t do that. This shit is just being thrown on top of the heap we’ve all been conditioned to tolerate.

Go Pens