Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Best Season ever...

From John Bomboulie at the Penguins insider

Janne Pesonen just finished the best single season in Penguins history. His 32 goals are the second-most in team history. His 82 points are a team record. He finished fourth in the AHL scoring race, behind Hershey's Alexandre Giroux and Keith Aucoin and Manitoba's Jason Krog -- heady company by AHL standards....Pesonen also turned in the most points by a Finn in a season in AHL history. The league office did some digging and found that distinction used to belong to Rochester's Kai Suikkanen and his 77 points in 1982-83.


I understand that it has yet to be seen if a similar level of production can be reproduced in the NHL, but with the Penguins having a significant portion of their cap space tied up between 4 players we need these type of role players on the low... It is possible that Janne may give the Pens organization the same FU that they gave him when they were calling up his lesser producing teammates, but Shero would be high to let this opportunity pass us by...

Anyways, other than this the Playoffs are starting up and to be honest I like the pens chances... The biggest thing that will make or break us is if the flower can go lights out like he did last year...

My predictions for the first round in the east...

Pittsburgh over Cryers in 6
Carolina over NJ in 5
Boston over Montreal in 4
Washington over Rangers in 6

Kevin's Picks in for first round.
I'm not going to pick the game totals, that is  just dumb luck there.

Pittsburgh(Teams are to even, revenge could be a huge factor with a healthy Cryers too this year. The deciding factor will be Biron, he likes to self destruct)

Carolina( To hot the last month, Erik Cole and Cam Ward is the best goalie in hockey)

Boston(just way to deep for a Montreal team with no face)

Rangers(two word and isn't not Lady Alex, Jose Theodore)

Ducks( 2 years removed and a lot of experience)

Canucks(this could be a shocker, I just don't think the Blues are ready yet)

B'Hawks(Hawks could be the surprise of the West if Khabibulin shows up.)

Wings( I can believe this the Wings would go out in the first, reigning Champs will be tested for sure, wings goal tending better be up to the challenge)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Way to go Janne! Just half an hour ago his former team Kärpät achieved 2nd position by losing 4 consecutive games in Finnish Elite League finals. Unfortunately Janne was not here to make some goals anymore...

Vince said...

Sorry about the loss Karpat fans, we here in the US were really pulling for them...

Hopefully Janne can lead his US team to the championship in the AHL...