Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Pens gameday; Beware of the Wild Wild West

For some reason, this is always one of those road trips that the circumstances just don't seem to matter.

The Pens may have been considered great, good, bad or terrible, but headed out to Cali has been a disaster for the last several years.

Since the '01-02 season, the Pens are a combined 2-11-0-1 against the teams they're going up against on their California swing (1-3 against Anaheim, 0-4-0-1 against the Kings, and 1-4 against San Jose).

The Pens are saying the right things at least. Matching the intensity. Coming out strong. Working hard. Finishing their checks.

But they're really going to have to guard against several factors tonight, including soaking in too much California sunshine (and the eye candy as well), playing down to a Kings team that is not playing very well at all, reading too many press clippings about their surprising start, and just a general complacency after the long trip.

Reading some articles today concerning Army's lack of scoring any goals yet. Let's throw some good karma out to the Left Coast, Army gets his first tonight.

It should also be interesting to see the intensity of Jordan Staal tonight. Not that I think that he'd dog it now that he's staying with the Pens, mind you, but just the opposite, I think he's going to make a concerted effort on this trip to show the team that they made the right decision.

Let's Go Pens !!!!

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