Sidney Crosby PWNED Darren Dreger Last Night

(For the record, I have no idea what pwned actually means. I just find it funny)

Prior to last night's Atlantic Division-clinching win over the Flyers (Pensblog recap here), some fool by the name of Darren Dreger wrote a blog post about Sidney Crosby.

Dreger mentioned that Sid doesn't have the goal-scoring touch of guys like Gretzky, Lemieux...or even Ovechkin. He name drops Geno, which surely calms the Pittsburgh faithful a bit, but levels unusually odd criticism of a 20-year old, reigning league scoring champion who just happened to miss more than 1/3 of the current NHL season.

Let me repeat. Sidney Crosby missed 34% of this season, and still, before last night, managed to score 22 goals. Sid obviously took this to heart when he marked half the team's tallies in the win against Philly.

Imagine missing 4 1/2 months at your job, then having some dweeb call you out for not putting together as many TPS Reports as the dude next to you who never takes a sick day. If that happened to me, I'd probably come in the next day, fire off a substantial amount of reports, then papercut the idiot with said reports for making foolish claims (no, I don't work with TPS Reports, but Office Space was the first thing that popped into my head).

So Sid upped his goal total to 24 in 53 games played. Throughout a full season, Crosby would have averaged about 37-39 goals. That number puts him ahead of guys named Alex Kovalev, Eric Staal, Rick Nash and Thomas Vanek. But just because he hasn't put up freakish numbers like A.O., Geno and Ilya Kovalchuk, Dreger finds the need to complain. Does he want the kid to do everything? Despite missing 1/3 of the season, Sid merely sits in 28th place on the season points list. And that's 23 points out of 3rd place. His career 1.38 goals per game would squarely put him in contention for a second consecutive run at the points lead had he not missed 28 games.

Oh...and backtrack much? Immediately following the game, Dreger issued a clarification at the bottom of the post. It comes off as sketchy, to say the least:

I stand by the fact I believe Crosby is far more comfortable as a playmaker, but the two goals he scored in a 4-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers helped solidify my point.

Really? Because when I read the post, it seemed like Dreger said:

..when it comes to burying those grade A chances, Crosby gets the A for average.

He says that his two goals were his best two chances, and Sid put them away. Now, if you're calling a player average, then him scoring on his best two chances does not solidify your point. It actually nullifies your point. Because "great" goal scorers put away their best two chances. "Average" scorers might go 50%.

Please sit down, Darren Dreger, and call out players who warrant criticism. Not a team captain who battled injury for a substantial amount of time, only to score twice in a division-clinching win.

Sidney Crosby > Darren Dreger.

Go Pens!

Watch Your Back, A.O.

GENO IS BETTER THAN A.O.

I'll open that thought up to discussion, but in my mind, the best player in the 2004 draft was taken SECOND overall.

Now, I'm not doubting A.O.'s brilliance. Look at those NHL stats, and you'll see that his goal total to this point in the season is surreal. Kovalchuk can light the lamp, but I don't see him catching Ovechkin.

The same cannot be said for the overall points race. Out of nowhere, Geno has skyrocketed to within one point of A.O.'s league-leading total of 78. It looks like the reigning Rookie of the Year is going to notch his first 100-point season, and possibly take home the Art Ross (if not more) Troph(ies).

So how do you judge talent? Is A.O better because he scores more goals? Or is Geno's stat line better because its more well rounded?

You can have the flashy goals whenever you want, I'll take the guy who scores AND sets up his teammates with an increased regularity.

Geno is better than A.O. The Penguins are better than the Capitals because of it. And Sid's on the road back. Dirty.

End of story.

Malkin Wins Calder!

Evgeni Malkin, superstud rookie from your Pittsburgh Penguins, won the Calder Trophy as the NHL's ultra-cool, sweet-ass, gnarly, spectacular rookie of the year!

Malkin beat fellow teammate Jordan Staal, as well as Colorado forward Paul Stastny. Malkin celebrated by continually looking dumbfounded and confused. Malkin received 120 of 143 votes. Stastny came in 2nd and Staal was 3rd.

Pittsburgh and Sidney Crosby were denied the Calder last year, with the award going to phenom Alexander Ovechkin. Malkin made sure to finally bring the award back to Pittsburgh. And by Pittsburgh, I mean Russia.