Penguins/NHL
Jordan Staal scored two goals including the tiebreaker goal in the third period, and the Penguins scored four third-period goals to rally for their sixth straight victory, 5-2 over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night. Staal who got off to a sluggish start to the season has seven goals in his past six games. After losing three straight, the Penguins have now won six straight and are establishing themselves with the Rangers and Canadiens as the class of the Eastern Conference.
Evgeni Malkin extended his assist streak to 13 games and has a chance to tie Mario Lemieux’s record of 14 straight games with an assist, Tuesday night against Minnesota. Malkin finished the night with 1 goal and 3 assists and now has 30 points on the season. Malkin has a 8 point lead over teammate Sidney Crosby. Now onto the latest speculation surrounding the Penguins and around the league.
RDS.Ca is reporting the Dallas Stars have traded veteran defenseman Phillipe Boucher to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for blueliner Darryl Sydor. According to sources with the Penguins this trade has just gone official. Sydor has officially waived his NTC. The Penguins have also been in talks with the Tampa Bay Lightning about Sydor. What will be interesting according to sources is how long Boucher stays with the Penguins. Boucher has a cap hit of $2.5 million. Anaheim is believed to be interested in Boucher but the Stars would not trade within the division.
Penguins scouts have been very busy the last two weeks as they continue to target potential trade partners for later in the season. They have been scouting the Lightning, Avalanche and Blackhawks quite often the past couple weeks.
Around the League
Brendan Shanahan is expected to make an official decision within the next day or so. Penguins sources continue reiterate that there was minimal interest and an offer was never made. A reporter from Philadelphia was main reason there was speculation that the Penguins were interested which wasn’t true at all. While Shanahan was very interested in Pittsburgh his agent Rich Curran was against it.
According to a source Mark Recchi and Gary Roberts were very instrumental in the Barry Melrose firing. They are good friends with Tochett and are happy he got the promotion. As my source put it, just think how hard they tried to get Therrien axed when they were in Pittsburgh.
