I've Decided To Take My Talents To...

(bleacherreport.com)

First, before I spill all the beans, the site will NOT be going anywhere, PKLC still remains a priority of mine and I will be updating it accordingly. Those of you who just wait for the 'New PKLC' message to pop up on twitter or facebook will not be disappointed. Now, for the decision..

Caps Make 'History'

(Bostonbias.blogspot.com)

There once was a time where there was really only two teams in the East, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals. (and 13 'other' teams)

The Penguins have been rolling this season, winning their 10th straight against the Devils. Crosby has been on fire, and this is without Evgeni Malkin or Jordan Staal.

The Capitals, on the other hand, while they're still sporting a record 9 games over .500 and second in the East and 1 point behind the aforementioned Pens, they're hearing footsteps in division a they've always seemed to dominate. Teams like the Thrashers and Lightning are making waves and the Southeast might not be the cake walk it use to be.

I mentioned above how Crosby has been rolling this season, his counterpart in Alex Ovechkin has been..lacking, compared to other years. This has sent some fans into a tizzy.

If Caps fans had their fingers quivering over the panic button before tonight's game against the Leafs..well...look at this..it's special..


I've spent the past few minutes (half an hour) pouring over a game log of every game since the lockout. There is nothing that shows this team blow a 3 goal lead and consequentially lose EVER. That's insanity. Granted the Caps sucked before two years ago, I mean when you're an expansion team since 2005..Wait..the Caps have only existed since 2005..right? oh shi...

- Jaye

PKLC Man Crush - Another Hat Trick?!

In today's NHL, we seem to be living in a world of Shut Outs and Hat Tricks. If we had Tim Thomas, Sidney Crosby & Stevie Stamkos in our fantasy hockey leagues, we'd all be laughing. Who ever had tonight's Man Crush..well I'd like to meet them and shake their hand for pulling one over on us.

Not to be outdone by the above superstars, is Chris Kelly. He had exactly 3 goals in 27 games before tonight, so said 'what the hell' and doubled it in one. His 3 tonight came a man down, even strength and to cap it off, into an empty net. (almost as good as Sid's 4 goals done 4 different ways, and Mario's 5) NHL.com has his SV% at a blistering 100% tonight against the Rangers. Biggest Question..can Chris Kelly keep it up?

(ESPN.com/AP)

- Jaye (Big Announcement in the coming days, so stay tuned)

The Ol' PKLC Switcharoo

We continue with our Guest Man Crushes. Tonight we've got Matt from the Flyers blog Down Goes Spezza.


Today Chris Pronger played a glorious game leading the Flyers as they fought the good fight against the evil New Jersey Devils. Pronger had one assist, as Mike Richards had a beautiful deflection-goal on a slap shot from Chris Pronger. Chris Pronger was +2 and he played very effective defense against the Devils today. His active stick and monster body were working well as they kept Devils players away from Flyers Goaltender Czar Sergei I. Assistant Captain Elbows also made usage of his nickname by elbowing many Devils players behind the backs of the referees so he never got sent to the box. At the end of the day, Chris Pronger was amazing, and the Flyers made easy work of the Devils 5-3.


Threw that out the window the second this happened...



Taylor Hall is becoming the Matt Duchene (2 points tonight) of the Oilers. His last two weeks have been beastly (at least in comparison to the start of the season, Magnus who?)...his points aren't mind blowing like Crosby (31 points in 15 games) or Stamkos (who's gone ice cold all of the sudden) but they win you hockey games, get you back into games. They're momentum shifters. The Oilers are going to need that going forward if Hemsky is out for the long term. To think I shit all over this kid. Now I just shit all over Matt. Boom.

- Jaye

Man Crush December 2nd

We're going to jazz it up tonight. The NHL was full of blow outs so we're going to blow this Man Crush out of the water and triple up the Man Crushes.

For the second time in less than a week, he had another hat trick, a natural one this time. Like we've said before, HT's are automatics here, so no doubt MC #1 goes to Sidney Crosby

(Yahoo!/AP Images)

This second one pains me. I think this next player is incredibly over hyped on a team that is going nowhere, but he got a couple geno's against a Leaf team that is..also going nowhere. Second MC goes to...ugh..Taylor Hall.

(Yahoo!/Getty Images)

The explanation for our third Man Crush comes from Jason whom you may remember from a little blog called Discard What You Don't Need...
  
Andrew "No one believed in me, including every Stars fan in the US" Raycroft threw up 37 saves on the one and only #1 team in the NHL, Washington Capitals.  He not only extended Alex Ovechkin to a new career high 9 game goaless drought, but denied Mike Greene (who was playing on his natural position of wing) of 4 shots as well.  The man deserves not only a mention in the Man Crush of the night, but considering everyone assumed Marc Crawford was trying to phone in the game and blame the inevitable loss on goaltending, he deserved the title "Master of the Universe" (right after He-Man of course).  Bravo sir...even if your first periods highlights included incredible saves of giveaways that you obviously induced to pad your stats.

(Yahoo!/AP Images)

Boom.

- Jaye

(NOTE: If you're doing nothing tomorrow around 10 ET hop on Skype to talk some puck with some of the PKLC Crew and guests. Find me @horbayj on twitter for the details)

Guest Man Crush

Once again we took the Man Crush vote to the streets. We have Pete from Up The Pucks who took it and just wrote the damn thing...

Man Crush is John Scott. Buying his player shirt tomorrow and also this..


Pete goes on to add..

John Scott is becoming more than a man. He is becoming legend. Any man the gets a penalty for just stepping on the ice is spawned from the toughest of trees. There you go, I just wrote it. 

(Yahoo!)

Honourable Mention goes to Dustin Byfuglien who basically ran roughshod over the Avalanche tonight. He also has a hell of a cannon. In the irony of ironies, it was Anthony Stewart, (brother of Avs forward Chris) who would score tonight's OT winner for Atlanta.

Big thanks to Pete for tonight's Man Crush writeup via Twitter.

- Jaye

Crosby Shows More Manger®?

(Editors Note: In lieu of PKLC Man Crush, we have another installment of Crosby Manger® Management)
 I love that registered trade mark thing. In case you didn't see the Penguins/Rangers last night (I didn't) the Pens rolled to their seventh straight win. Ho Hum. The below video was the real story of the night..



Thanks to Puck Daddy for the Video.

This above play shocks me for two reasons.

1) No penalty on the play (please no "of course not, it's Crosby", shut up and get a better argument)

2) An open ice slew foot, c'mon, how many times do you see that a year? (please let me know, cause I know all of Ovechkin's slew foots come along the boards) That's straight up slew foot talent.

I think anyone who has followed Sid's career with any grain of interest knows his comments are incredibly bland and 'by the book.' The guy did a commercial for Dempsters bread and made the bread look interesting by comparison.

But more to the point of our title, it seems Sid is trying to shed his 'Kid' image. Check out these post game comments..

From The Pensblog..
“How many penalty minutes do I have this year, if I’m that dirty?,” said Crosby, who has 15 penalty minutes this season. “I mean, please. Show me all those dirty plays. It’s a battle and he falls. I think Dubi has done his fair share of things out there that are questionable. I guess he’s talking again. But I’m not surprised. “It’s a battle (with Callahan),” Crosby added. “He’s holding me going up ice and I’m trying to push him off. Is it that calculated? I’m trying to get to the net. I’m not worried about that kind of thing. If I tripped him, I tripped him. Am I dirty hockey player? C’mon. I think Dubi is smarter than that.”

I find it a little difficult to defend Crosby on his '..and he falls' comment after see the video, but I digress..this is some tough talk from the Penguins captain.  My personal favorites are 'How many penalty minutes do I have this year if I'm that dirty?' and 'C’mon. I think Dubi is smarter than that.'  Not something I'd write a book over, but still pretty golden when compared to his usual stuff. If anyone has these comments on video, please pass them along.

- Jaye