Penguins Nation

Jaromir Jagr no longer wears a "C" on his jersey and was not the poster boy for two Winter Classic games. He's not the main source of media coverage whenever he plays hockey.Sidney Crosby is.When Crosby returned from a concussion to play his first game of the 2011-12 NHL season, all hockey coverage focused on his return.NHL Network's On the Fly highlight show turned into watch every single thing Crosby did last night instead of being the usual here is what happened in the NHL last night.The simple reason why, Crosby has the highest points per game average in the NHL ...

The Pittsburgh Penguins are in a horrible situation down 3-0 against the Philadelphia Flyers in their opening round playoff series. However, as discussed on today’s podcast of the “TJ McAloon and the Sports Half Hour” show, the Penguins should not be left for dead by their fans or by the NHL community. The Penguins are getting awful play from their defense and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Fluery’s goals against average of 6.34 and his save percentage of .798 place him dead last among starting goaltenders during the playoffs.  However, sitting right next to Fluery at the bottom of the goaltender statistics ...

Heavy-handed hockey works for some teams. It does not work for the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Since Dan Bylsma took over the Pittsburgh Penguins, he has dramatically increased the aggressiveness and physicality of this team.  Bylsma has changed the Penguins from an offensive juggernaut to an adversarial group that is gaining a league-wide reputation for thuggery and poor sportsmanship.  All the players on this team—including stars like Sidney Crosby and James Neal—are now engaging in this physical play.  The Penguins now have to deal with the negative attention that their physicality attracts, both on and off the ice.  Their offensive efficiency and overall ...

The NHL chose Monday to uphold Craig Adams's instigator penalty and automatic one-game suspension for a fight with Scott Hartnell at 15:18 of the third period of Sunday's game with the Flyers.NHL Rule 46.12 states that an instigating minor assessed in the final five minutes of regulation or at any point during overtime is met with a game misconduct and automatic one-game suspension.From the Penguins Website: Pittsburgh Penguins forward Craig Adams has been suspended for one game and Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma has been fined $10,000 for Adams’ actions in the final five minutes of Sunday’s Eastern Conference ...

Toward the end of Pittsburgh's loss to the Flyers on Sunday, the ever creative Flyers fans began a chant of "You can't beat us!" As the NBC cameras scoured the Penguins bench area, there was their captain, lips pursed, looking up at the scoreboard like he couldn't believe what was happening.After consecutive eight-goal outbursts, Philadelphia is sitting pretty with a 3-0 series lead over Crosby's punch-happy Penguins. In a series where the offense was supposed to feature the NHL's all-universe duo of Crosby and Malkin, the Flyers and their superstar on the rise, Claude Giroux, have been stealing the headlines ...

The Pittsburgh Penguins have been the darlings of the National Hockey League since 2005, when Sidney Crosby joined the league as a young 18-year-old phenom.With the addition of Evgeni Malkin the following season, the Penguins became the league's showcase team. The Pens have made the playoffs every year since '06, have appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals twice, won one in '09, and have appeared twice in the NHL's Winter Classic in just five years, matching the Philadelphia Flyers' number.Sadly, they have become known by many fans, critics and writers not as the league's showcase team, but rather as the biggest ...

The Pittsburgh Penguins showed little class in a Game 3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers that put their team one loss away from elimination.In addition to Sidney Crosby punching Claude Giroux with a linesman between them, Arron Asham cross-checking Brayden Schenn in the throat, and Craig Adams jumping Scott Hartnell from behind, James Neal took part in two dirty plays.The first happened with just under 5:30 to play in the third period.Philadelphia's Sean Couturier touched the puck near the boards (which were to his left), roughly five feet into his offensive zone. He was skating up-ice to Pittsburgh's end when ...

Dan Bylsma is in his third full season, and fourth overall, as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins. In this time, he has accomplished quite a bit.After guiding the Penguins to the 2009 Stanley Cup after coaching just 25 games, the Pens have made the playoffs in each of the following three seasons. Last season, he took home the Jack Adams Trophy for the NHL’s outstanding coach after working through much of the 2010-11 campaign without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.This year, the Pens claimed fourth place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 51-25-6 for 108 points. ...

The biggest break the Pittsburgh Penguins got after their ugly and despicable loss to the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals was that it wasn't the last game of the series.If the Penguins had been eliminated in this game, what an awful and juvenile way it would've been for a team with such pride to exit the Stanley Cup playoffs.Obviously, the team still believes they can get back in this series and win. They certainly have the star power to do so. But if they are to lose in any one of these games, they'll have ...

Playing in his first playoff action in two years, Pittsburgh Penguin star Sidney Crosby has inexplicably decided to become a tough guy. This is not the right path for this skilled scorer. Hopefully, his recent behavior is just a result of his Penguins getting trampled by the Philadelphia Flyers. They trail in the series 3-0, and in the third game, this became more than Crosby's temper could withstand. The Penguins ended up losing, and along the way, Crosby started instigating fights. It started with grabbing and quickly escalated into a full-out scuffle with Claude Giroux.Crosby played this way almost the entire game, ...