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B21

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B21 last won the day on May 6 2018

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  • Birthday 02/16/1975

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    Atlanta
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    Penguins

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  1. I mean he's only averaged 31 games per season for the last 4 years in the Czech Extraliga so he's really a young 51...
  2. Wow. I thought for sure we would... - Have to include a 1st AND a top prospect. In the end, only had to give up the 1st... - Would only lose the salary of either Petry or Granlund. Got rid of both.... More than happy with the deal. I guess the "worst" part of it for the Pens was San Jose only eating $1.5MM per year so it's live or die with Karlsson at $10MM per for the next 4 years...
  3. I'm resigned to the Pens' going "all in" - for better or worse - so long as Crosby and Malkin have a pulse. Once that era ends, we'll deal with the ashes that are left. If nothing else, they'll have a lot of cap space to work with which we know they'll use. In the meantime, if Karlsson moves the needle - and I think he does - then go get him. One thing I haven't seen mentioned by the talking heads is how Karlsson offers some insurance if Letang's medical issues surface again. The Pens don't work without Letang...especially on the PP. That's less of an issue with Karlsson on board.
  4. Good idea? Asking for a friend... Piecing together weeks worth of speculation, any deal would involve the Pens giving up Jeff Petry and/or Mikael Granlund (to make the cap work), at least one and maybe two 1st round picks and/or a young defenseman (that's you, Pierre-Olivier Joseph) and a third team to assist with said cap crunch along with San Jose retaining some of the $11,000,000 or so Karlsson is due each year for the next FOUR years. He is only 33 and is coming off the first 100 point season for a defenseman since 1992ish. Still...I dunno.
  5. Photo taken of Clark, Holmgren and Barber when the Flyers took Michkov....
  6. @pilldoc Thx! I've been meaning to be on more. All well and good. That life thing comes at you fast.
  7. So he's back at practice. Not surprised he's back...just that it happened so fast. Officially, he's day to day. I copied the article from the local paper. Sheds some light on his situation. He was born with a small hole in his heart. Not sure if that is connected to the strokes but it does seem that he (and the team) are very keen to recognize symptoms (and quickly treating them) and that playing hockey will not make his situation worse. I have to think his physical conditioning helps as he's known to be a health and fitness wackadoo even before the strokes. The Pens partner with UPMC which is one of the finest hospital systems in the world so he literally has arguably the best possible care available to him. If the Pens and their medical staff have anything going for them it's the ability to deal with these possible career-ending conditions. Mario and cancer. Crosby and concussions. Letang and strokes. Less than two weeks removed from suffering the second stroke of his career, defenseman Kris Letang is back in action. During Thursday’s practice at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, Letang sported a yellow sweater, signifying that he was a full-contact participant. He had the stroke Nov. 28. As for playing in games, Letang’s status is “day-to-day”. “I think everybody is excited when he gets to join the team,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said after practice. “It’s just an indication of the progress that he’s made. He’s obviously a huge part of this team. “To see him on the ice, I think for all of us, it’s just a little bit of a sense of relief.” Letang was cleared to practice by the team’s medical staff led by Dr. Dharmesh Vyas, who has served as the team’s head physician since 2013. Vyas was around for the first stroke of Letang’s career in 2014, which caused him to miss two months worth of games and practices. Letang’s diagnostic assessment was much quicker than in 2014, considering the team already had been through one stroke with the longtime Penguins blue-liner. “His stroke this time was much smaller than it was last time,” Vyas said. “His symptoms have resolved a lot quicker than they did the last time, as well. We know what to expect. The data has also evolved in terms of how this hole (in his heart) is to be treated.” Letang, who said he typically gets one to two migraines every couple of months, started to get them every three hours on Nov. 28. He made notice of the cycle, informed Dr. Vyas, was booked for an MRI and then went to the hospital. Three days later, Letang first skated on an individual basis on Dec. 1. Prior to the team’s morning skate at PPG Paints Arena before Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Letang did a full on-ice workout. On Thursday, he rejoined his teammates in a formal practice setting, rotating in with fellow defensemen Pierre-Olivier Joseph and Chad Ruhwedel. “He’s always surprised us with how well he heals,” Vyas said. “We don’t think this is accelerated in any way. We’re taking all the right precautions to make sure he is safe to go out and play. And when that time comes, we’ll let him go back to playing his sport.” Vyas does not think that playing hockey itself is “risky” for Letang, who was born with a very small hole in the wall of his heart. Even with his quick return to practice, Letang is going to rely on Vyas to ensure that he doesn’t hurry back to game competition too hastily. “We’ve been through this, me and Dharmesh,” Letang said. “We have a clear understanding that we’re going to take all the time we need and make all the research possible to make sure that it’s safe for me to play and there’s no danger.” In addition to his own health, Letang has his family of four to worry about as well in his wife, Catherine Laflamme, and his children, Alexander and Victoria. Letang said dealing with his second stroke has been “scary” for his family. “My kids, they don’t care if I’m a hockey player or not. They care about having a dad,” Letang said. “Same thing with my wife, she can’t care less about hockey and everything. She knows that there’s so much more after hockey, there’s a long time. You want to be able to enjoy those moments with your family, with your kids.” As it pertains to his mental health, though, Letang said it felt good to get back to practicing with the team. The 35-year-old defenseman is in his 17th season with Pittsburgh, and despite his latest medical scare, it doesn’t seem like he’ll be cutting short the six-year contract extension he signed with the Penguins in July anytime soon. “It’s a scary word; stroke is a scary word,” Letang said. “I’ve been lucky that these things resolve on their own and I can go back to a normal life. People know me well by now and know that hockey is a passion for me. It’s something that it’s going to take a lot to drag me out of.”
  8. I know there was a "We Welcome You..." thread that had been going on forever...but I can find it. So... We welcome you, Louis Domingue, to Pittsburgh Penguins' back-up goalie playoff lore. Frank Pietrangelo Johan "Moose" Hedberg Jeff Zatkoff Matt Murray (Technically...) And now...Louie Louie. Edit: We can also call this list "Fonda Jane's Favorite Pittsburg Goalies".
  9. Copied from the Post-Gazette this morning. I knew he was a sharp guy but that's one interesting background. Wish the guy all the best... David Morehouse has four kids, but on July 7, at least for few moments, he probably will feel as if he has five. That is the first day of the 2022 NHL draft. Logan Cooley, born and raised in West Mifflin, is expected to be a top-five pick. Cooley is a significant part of Morehouse’s wide-ranging legacy with the Penguins. Morehouse, who resigned Wednesday as the team’s president and CEO after joining the organization in 2004, will be remembered for pushing hard to find the political support and financing to build PPG Paints Arena and the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. He oversaw a franchise that made the playoffs the past 16 seasons, including this one, and won Stanley Cups in 2009, 2016 and 2017. He hired Hall of Fame general manager Jim Rutherford. He made coming to games an event to the point the franchise attracted sellout crowds for 14 consecutive seasons, a streak that ended earlier this season. “The challenge is sustainability,” Morehouse told the Post-Gazette a few years ago. “There have only been a couple of teams in the history of sports that have sustained a championship-caliber organization. One just happens to be in town. Just look across the river at the Steelers, and you see a sports franchise that is run the way it’s supposed to be run.” Morehouse has played a key role in putting the Penguins in a similar spot. He has made the franchise stronger and put it in position to survive the post-Crosby-Malkin-Letang era. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Morehouse, 62, could have spent his adulthood as a boilermaker. Or maybe as a big shot in a Democratic White House. You might say Morehouse has had a rather diverse professional life. A Beechview kid who was known as “House,” Morehouse joined Boilermaker Local 154 on Banksville Road after graduating from South Hills Catholic High School. He still might be at that trade if a steel beam hadn’t snapped as he was welding it, striking him in the head and nearly killing him. He needed weeks to recover and months before he fully regained his memory and balance. “Getting hit in the head knocked me cold, knocked some sense into me and knocked me in a new career direction,” Morehouse told me in 2009. Never much for school, Morehouse began taking classes at Community College of Allegheny County. That was just the start of an education that led him to become a major political figure. To this day, he will tell you he has no idea how, years later, he was accepted into and then graduated with a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Read that again. Harvard. Morehouse was working as a docket clerk in inheritance tax at the Allegheny County Register of Wills in 1991 when he joined the Bill Clinton presidential campaign. He started at the bottom, driving in Clinton’s motorcade, but quickly rose through the ranks. At one point, he coordinated the president’s travels and estimated he made the equivalent of 17 trips around the world on Air Force One. Presidential candidate Al Gore hired Morehouse in 1999 as his campaign’s trip director and senior adviser. It was Morehouse who had to physically stop Gore from prematurely conceding to George W. Bush on Election Night 2000 because of problems with votes in Florida. Morehouse took one more crack at the White House in 2004 with John Kerry as Kerry’s traveling chief of staff and senior adviser. Had Kerry beaten Bush, Morehouse almost certainly would have been his deputy chief of staff. It was Morehouse’s connections with Democratic heavyweight and Penguins co-owner Ron Burkle that led him to the Penguins. Burkle recommended him for a consultant role on the team’s arena project. Morehouse stayed on as team president after that job was successfully completed in 2007 and was promoted to CEO in 2010. It has been the ride of a lifetime for Morehouse. “A perfect job, my dream job,” he called his positions with the team. It’s one thing to be in the White House. It’s another thing to hoist the Stanley Cup not once, not twice, but three times. Not even a billionaire like Burkle can buy that thrill. It has to be earned. Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby always will be remembered for saving hockey in Pittsburgh. How lucky have we been to have two of the five greatest players in NHL history, not to mention all of the other Hall of Famers who laced their skates here? There would be no Penguins without Lemieux and Crosby. But Morehouse deserves credit for making Pittsburgh, in his words, “a true hockey town.” He is not a lawyer or business genius, as most CEOs are. His strength is marketing. He did such a fabulous job with the Penguins’ brand that the organization, at various points, was No. 1 among all pro sports teams in fan relations, according to ESPN The Magazine, was named as the fastest-growing brand in the NHL by Forbes magazine, and led all U.S.-based NHL teams with record-setting local television ratings, website hits and merchandise sales. Morehouse saw the success that HBO Sports’ “24/7 Penguins/Capitals” national series had in 2010 by granting cameras total access to the players, coaches and staff. Why not do that regularly on a local basis, Morehouse thought? The result — the Penguins’ “Inside the Room” segment — brought fans closer to the team than ever before. Morehouse was all about community outreach. Think of the big screen outside of the arena for playoff games. That has been a popular promotion. Even as the Penguins became successful and an annual Cup contender, Morehouse was willing to spend more money to make them even stronger. Among his many initiatives were donating free field hockey equipment to elementary schools and building deck hockey rinks in the area through sponsors and the Penguins Foundation. Morehouse knew not everyone can skate or afford ice time, but this gave kids an opportunity to fall in love with a similar game instead of football, basketball or baseball. He also knew those kids might just grow up to be Penguins fans and ticket-buyers. More recently, Morehouse started the Penguins’ Executive Management program, which is designed to create opportunities for female and minority athletes. He introduced U.S. women’s hockey star Amanda Kessel — Phil’s little sis — as the first participant in the program. “The thing I’m probably most proud of is being a part of the growth of youth hockey in Pittsburgh,” Morehouse told the Post-Gazette last week. That brings us back to Cooley, the talented kid from West Mifflin. In 2009, Cooley joined Crosby’s “Little Penguins Learn to Play” program during its inaugural season. The program has Morehouse’s fingerprints all over it and is designed for first-time hockey players ages 5 to 9. Kids are given free head-to-toe equipment and eight-to-10 weeks of age-appropriate, on-ice coaching and instruction. Cooley eventually worked his way through the Penguins Elite Hockey program to become a world-class player. He is playing for the U.S. national under-18 team. “Obviously, hockey is a pretty expensive sport, especially just getting into it so young,” an appreciative Cooley told the Post-Gazette earlier this year. “It’s really nice what Crosby does to be able to give all those kids free equipment and being able to grow the game.” Just as Morehouse envisioned. No one who knows Morehouse is surprised by his success. “The first thing I can tell you about David is that he is very smart, an extremely quick study,” Gore said via email for Post-Gazette columnist Gene Collier’s brilliant piece on Morehouse in 2010. “He had a great feel for people, and he was very calm under pressure. “It was obvious to everyone he was a guy who was going places.” Now, Morehouse is moving on from the Penguins. The timing is right. Burkle and Lemieux sold the Penguins to the Fenway Sports Group in November. Although all parties said Morehouse wasn’t pushed out by the new owners, he didn’t have the same autonomy that he always has had. There also were health issues to consider. Morehouse has had two other heart episodes after having a major heart attack while traveling with the team in San Jose in 2009. Morehouse insisted he isn’t retiring, that this is a merely a pause to recharge. Clearly, Morehouse won’t have a problem finding another job. Just as clearly, the Fenway Sports Group would be lucky to find another Morehouse. Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com and Twitter@RonCookPG. Ron Cook can be heard on the “Cook and Joe” show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan. First Published May 1, 2022, 6:00am
  10. I cast my annual "Pens' Opponent In 4" vote. Like Bob Dylan said, "the times they are a changin'...". I think this is the swan song for this group. Crosby will be a Pen for life. Probably Letang, too. But...longtime President Dave Moorehouse just resigned. My guess is Fenway Sports Group really wants to put their mark on this franchise now and to me...gut feeling...that means Malkin does not get resigned. If that's the thought process, I can't argue. That's $9,500,000 million in cap space that could be spent elsewhere...on younger players, future core, etc. They go for it until Crosby can't go anymore.
  11. I am pretty sure that if Malkin...hypothetically ...took a knee in protest of the invasion he'd be hailed as a hero as that would be a total kick to Putin's icy balls. Shocked if he did it...or any Russian NHLer for that matter. Don't blame them for not wanting too, either.
  12. @WordsOfWisdom I for one don't think that Putin will ban Russian hockey players from playing in the NHL. There is too much pride at stake. We are talking about a country that is providing performance enhancing drugs to 15 year old figure skaters. Putin clearly wants Russian athletes to display their "legitimate" skills on the international stage. That said, sports on the international stage are a little different i/m/h/o than say...the NHL. No problem if they are banned from the World Cup, international hockey tournaments, etc. That's more about punishing the country than the player. Russian athletes do have to be very careful. Come out too "positive" and they risk looking pro-Putin and pro-invasion. Too negative and they possibly put their families back home in jeopardy. As for Hasek, I would think he understands this but don't blame him for his animosity. He was 3 year old in 1968 when Russian-led forces invaded what was then Czechoslovakia. I imagine he witnessed some not-so-nice things from Russians growing up. Me? Unless an athlete is clearly a pro-Putin, pro-invasion wackadoo, they get a pass. At the end of the day they had nothing to with the invasion of Ukraine. I do find it ironic how we as a country want politics kept out of sports (see: Kapernick, Colin) yet expect a stance from Russian athletes on what is going on. Not equating the two issues...just the attitude in general. If Malkin says nothing about the issue that's OK by me.
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