Staal Falls

And an abundance of autumn alliteration. The Pens returned home after a long (and successful) road trip to play the Tampa Bay Lightning. And...they wore the blue sweaters! Riz was disappointed as she hates all things Carolina blue, but I like to see them mix it up. Plus this gave them an excuse to show footage from last season's Winter Classic, when the Pens moved outside to play on the Pittsburgh Steelers' turf (it even snowed...innit cute?) It appeared the Pens were channeling UNC in more ways than one, as Brooks Orpik began the game by losing his contact on the ice after being checked. Damn you, Tyler Hansbrough!

Moving on:

++Times Jordan Staal fell: none!

++Most people involved in a Staal fall: not applicable...

++Staal falls resulting in a goal: Still at 0...what goes on here?

++Number of times Malkin ended up in the box: again 0, but then again, they really weren't playing very hard in this game

++Number of fights: 1...the Lightning had to try something, since that whole scoring thing was totally not working

This game actually had more penalties called than any game I've witnessed. By my rather shady counting, they got up to 13. Most were called against the Lightning, as the announcers identified them as "one of the worst teams in the league". Ouch...burn. They did spend more than 5 straight minutes shorthanded at the end of the second, as they had 3 successive penalites called on different players. Yet, despite all of that, the Pens didn't manage too many power play goals. As noted above, they really weren't trying very hard. Guerin scored during the first, followed by a really awesome slapshot by Sergei Gonchar. Dupuis was given credit for the Pens third goal, and Rupp was able to bring the game to a 4-1 Penguins victory.