SID IN, GENO OUT FOR PRESEASON OPENER

#87 will be in the lineup tonight as he tries out a new stick, but Geno Malkin, sadly, will not be on the ice. I'm guessing that means Vladimir and Natalia will not be in the stands, either. Crosby will anchor a line with regular linemate Chris Kunitz and Twitter-addicted prospect Eric Tangradi in the preseason opener. Jordan Staal, Marc-Andre Fleury, Pascal Dupuis, Ruslan Fedotenko and Sergei Gonchar will also suit up for the champs. Gonch will be paired with 2009 first-round pick Simon Despres.

The full lineup:

Forwards:
Kunitz-Crosby-Tangradi
Dupuis-Staal-Fedotenko
Conner-Jeffrey-Bayda
Sill-Vitale-Godard

Defensemen:
Despres-Gonchar
Eaton-Engelland
McKee-Bortuzzo

Goaltenders:
Fleury
Thiessen

Gametime is set for 7:30 tonight at Mellon Arena.

Other Pens notes:

--Steelers Director of Football Operations Kevin Colbert watched practice with Ray Shero yesterday. Any chance they made a wager on whose team will repeat?

--Rick Nash will not play for the Blue Jackets tonight. But good news: Mathieu Garon will!

--Petr Sykora has a tryout with the Minnesota Wild, not coincidentally because Chuck Fletcher is the team's new GM. Minnesota is apparently thinking about a one year, $1.5 million deal. Fletcher is obviously more bullish on the former Penguin than Shero was.

--Fox Chapel's Bill Thomas, a Penguin last year, is trying out for Toronto. In 16 games with the Pens in 2008-09, Thomas had two goals and one assist. He had eight goals and 10 assists in 39 contests for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

--Ulf Samuelsson is running camp in Phoenix as coach Wayne Gretzky's status is up in the air during the team's bankruptcy proceedings. And in totally unrelated news, this paragraph was a little further down in the story (my emphasis):

The team is broken into three groups during the early stages of training camp. Monday's scrimmage featured a lot of hard hitting."I think the intensity level is up, the level of players we have is better," Samuelsson said. "Our younger players are older, better trained, know how to compete better and Donnie (GM Don Maloney) has added some veteran players who also are competing for jobs.

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COLUMBUS SIGNS GARON

The Pens are once again in the market for a backup goalie, because Mathieu Garon just signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets. The deal is reportedly for $2.4 million over two years, a mere $200,000 less than former Penguin backup Ty Conklin received in a similar two-year deal done this afternoon with St. Louis.

Garon was 2-1 in four regular season games with the Penguins, and played only 24 minutes in the 2009 playoffs, a bullpen call in the 5-0 loss to Detroit in Game Five. He was acquired in January from Edmonton in exchange for goaltender Dany Sabourin, forward Ryan Stone and a fourth-round pick in 2011. Being that he barely played, there's not much to say about his time here; but he did skate with the Cup and get a chance to play in the Finals, so I can't imagine it was all bad on his end.

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THAT WAS RATHER DISAPPOINTING

RED WINGS 5
PENGUINS 0

When Mathieu Garon is brought on to stop the bleeding, you know things have gotten out of hand. And that pretty much sums up the disaster that was Game Five of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals, a 5-0 Red Wings victory that puts them within 60 minutes of clinching a second straight NHL championship.

Down just 1-0 after a first period in which they held a 10-8 lead in shots, the Pens came apart at the seams in the second, allowing four goals in a 14-minute span, three of the power play variety. Pittsburgh seemed determined to do their best Philadelphia Flyers impersonation, racking up penalty after penalty (five in all) in the second stanza. What's even more frustrating is the fact that even someone as traditionally focused as Sidney Crosby would get caught in the penalty vortex, taking a two-minute time-out as a result of a slash on Henrik Zetterberg.

The Red Wings just refused to fight back, as witnessed by Chris Kunitz making Darren Helm into his own personal punching bag. Instead, the Wings were content to take a few bruises for the team in the name of goals. And they were cashing in their power play tickets like a high-roller after a couple hours at Dave and Buster's. The only difference is that they're playing for a prize much more valuable than a giant stuffed giraffe.

A total of four Penguins weren't on the ice by the end of the game, including three guilty of misconduct (Craig Adams, Max Talbot, and Matt Cooke), and Marc-Andre Fleury, who was guilty of allowing five goals on 21 shots.

It was hard to believe that this was the same team that had thoroughly outplayed Detroit in the prior contest, and after Saturday night it's safe to say that the "old" Red Wings probably shouldn't be fitted for wheelchairs just yet. Pavel Datsyuk was impressive after returning from his injury hiatus, getting second-star billing for a two-assist evening. Chris Osgood tossed a shutout, and has allowed just two goals in three home games in the Finals. Zetterberg, though, was the biggest star of all, with a goal and an assist in 20:55 of ice time.

As for the Penguins' "Big Four", Crosby, Malkin, and Jordan Staal combined for just four shots and eight penalty minutes, while Fleury's performance of 11 goals allowed in three Detroit games this series left little doubt that he doesn't mesh well with the surroundings of Joe Louis Arena.

What the Pens (especially Fleury) need now is a very short memory. The nightmares of Game Five need to be exorcised, and fast. There is no doubt that this team has what it takes to win this series, Saturday night aside. They have been counted out too many times and in too many rounds of these very playoffs to give up now. And my gut feeling tells me that this group will be rested and ready for a much better performance in Game Six. I'm sure they don't want to see the Wings skating around with the cup on their ice again. Right, Sid?

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SABOURIN NOW AN EX-PENGUIN

Dany Sabourin just joined a club that also counts Tom Barrasso, Johan Hedberg, Patrick Lalime, and Frank Pietrangelo as members: The Penguins' Ex-Goalies Club. Sabourin, along with forward Ryan Stone and a 2011 4th-rounder, just got shipped to Edmonton in exchange for goalie Mathieu Garon.

From the Pens' website:

Garon, 31, has appeared in 15 contests for Edmonton this season posting a 6-8-0 record, along with a 3.17 goals-against average and .895 save percentage. The 6-2, 192-pound goaltender posted a 26-18-1 mark in 47 games with Edmonton last season. He finished the 2007-08 season with a .913 save percentage and a 2.66 goals-against average winning the Oilers’ Molson Cup Award (most three star selections).

Little sidenote: Garon was the best shootout goalie in the league last year, posting a 10-0 record while stopping 30 of 32 attempts. He's like the Erik Christensen of goaltenders.

The move looks like a clear upgrade for the Pens in the backup department, which took a blow the second that Ty Conklin signed with Detroit. Plus, it shakes things up just enough without having to trade a marquee player or fire a coach. Seems like a good trade.

Pens Acquire Goaltender Mathieu Garon [Pittsburghpenguins.com]

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One more Pens tidbit: they're asking fans attending tomorrow's game against the Rangers to bring and wave their Terrible Towels. As we've seen countless times (and once again below), the Steelers, most notably Jeff Reed, Big Ben, Mike Tomlin, Casey Hampton, and Deshea Townsend, have supported the Pens when the shoe was on the other foot. I like the gesture.


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