Top scorers faceoff tonight

Playmakers will take their shots

Friday, January 18, 2008
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Pittsburgh Penguins' Evgeni Malkin, right, of Russia is congratulated by teammate Sidney Crosby after hitting an open net for his third goal of the game in the third period against the New York Rangers in NHL hockey action at Pittsburgh Monday, Jan. 14, 2008. The Penguins won 4-1.
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Any appointment between the Penguins and the Tampa Bay Lightning (the Bolts, as the hockey-savvy Floridians like to call 'em), now demands some direct comparison of two pairs of skaters, tonight's Mellon Arena juxtaposition being no exception.

The reason is that it's pretty difficult, statistically, to walk into any NHL rink anywhere in North America and find four of the league's top 13 scorers, much less the prospect of seeing them on the same sheet of ice at the same time.

"No idea," Sidney Crosby said yesterday of the chances that he and linemate-of-late Evgeni Malkin will skate directly into the vortex of Tampa Bay's equally splendid Vincent Lacavalier and Martin St. Louis. "You have to be aware of the things they can do, but it doesn't really change our approach very much."

Crosby and Lacavalier were in a three-way tie atop the list of NHL point producers with 63 before last night's game in Atlanta, where the Thrashers' Ilya Kovalchuk had an opportunity against Montreal to snatch the lead exclusively. St. Louis was 11th on the point list, Malkin 13th. Crosby and Malkin have a combined 115 points in 45 games, Lacavalier and St. Louis 116 in 46.

Penguins coach Michel Therrien was moderately coy after practice yesterday on the matter of whether he'd use the last line change to deploy his top two offensemen against Tampa Bay's, but he had to be thrilled about the opportunity to even discuss it after Monday night, when Crosby and Malkin collided behind the New York Rangers net at a near calamitous intersection.

"Two players going Mach 1," Penguins broadcaster Phil Bourque said yesterday.

Funny, when Crosby and Malkin are analyzed, no one ever brings up their relative Insurance Industry for Highway Safety Crash Test Ratings, which are both apparently in the five-star range for side-impact collisions.

On the night in question, Crosby had just centered the puck from the outside of the right circle for Malkin, who was roaring down the slot toward Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist. Crosby began to curl around the cage at a rate similarly in excess of the speed limit. Malkin fired the puck wide, temporarily delaying his hat trick, and veered off to his right, directly into Crosby's path.

"I didn't see him until it was too late," Crosby said yesterday. "He tucked his head and I think that's where my skate got him. I fell on my side, and my back, and, well, you just hope you get down in the right spot."

So essentially, Crosby tried to vault Malkin like a pommel horse, caught his skate on Malkin's head, flipped and landed mostly on his back on a surface with all the give of a winter sidewalk.

Both players lay there for several seconds as the Arena went quieter than an Xplosion game, and both got to their skates and took their next shifts without complaint.



NEW YORK - JANUARY 08: Vincent Lecavalier #4 of the Tampa Bay Lightning skates against the New York Rangers on January 8, 2008 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Tampa Bay defeated the Rangers 5-3. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Crosby said he was not affected at all, and Therrien said Malkin reported no problems either, though in Malkin's case, that was perhaps because there is no Russian-to-English construction for "Holy @#$%^&!"

In a similar instance in the exhibition season of 2006, Malkin and John LeClair had just about the same tango. Malkin was out until the fifth regular season game, and LeClair began a final, abbreviated NHL season.

Having had the ice-level view Monday night, you'd imagine Therrien is barely resisting the urge to rest both Crosby and Malkin until about April.

"We have two lines we feel can play against [Lacavalier, St. Louis, and Vinny Prospal]," Therrien said of tonight's adventure. "Crosby's line is really very responsible defensively, and [Jordan] Staal's line also. You've got to be very careful with match-ups, you can lose momentum if you don't do it right."

Not just the momentum of one period or the momentum of one game, of course, but the very kind of momentum the Penguins happen to be all about at the moment. The Penguins are 10-0-1 since putting Ty Conklin in goal, and Therrien's not about to mess with anything in the vicinity. Tampa Bay is on the exact opposite side of that dynamic, which is why Lightning coach John Tortorella had an entirely different take on first-line matchups when the teams met last week in Florida.

"We're not going to hide our best players," Tortorella said that day. "Let's play. Let's let [those players] decide what's going to happen."

Tortorella's team, booed lustily in its own building the other night against Colorado, has won five of its 22 road games.

Lacavalier was pointless last Thursday and has been pointless since, which earned him a separation from St. Louis and a spot next to Mathieu Darche and Jan Hlavac.

I imagine Lacavalier and St. Louis will be reunited tonight, because just as Therrien has found with Crosby and Malkin, you can't turn it on and off in this game, but you can certainly try.

First published on January 18, 2008 at 12:00 am