Eric Godard

     Alright let's start this off by acknowledging the obvious; Mario Lemieux is one of the greatest players to ever lace up a pair of skates. But his spouting off about the recent melee between his Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Islanders reeks of hypocrisy.

I wasn’t watching the Penguins-Islanders Fightfest Part Deux live, but I should have been. You had to know there was going to be a carry over from the game just nine days prior.

Maxime Talbot flattened Blake Comeau, yet wasn’t suspended and Rick DiPietro needed facial reconstruction surgery after being one punch KO’d by Brent Johnson.

I should have set my DVR immediately.

David Amber, the host of NHL Network, broke the news of the disciplinary action coming from the New York Islanders' 9-3 defeat of the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night which included a 10-game suspension for Pens' Eric Godard, a $100,000 fine on the Isles team along with Matt Martin receiving four games and Trevor Gillies receiving nine.

Monday morning, the Pittsburgh Penguins demoted forward Eric Tangradi and defenseman Andrew Hutchinson to their American Hockey League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA.

With winger Arron Asham and blue line mainstay Brooks Orpik both returning to health and Tangradi and Hutchinson able to be reassigned without passing through the waiver process, the roster move made perfect sense from a logistical standpoint.

The Pittsburgh Penguins dipped into the free agent market yesterday and recruited the services of Arron Asham for the upcoming season. Asham signed a one-year deal with the Pens for 700K.

The question most Pens’ fans are asking about this signing is why. To some, this move is highly suspect. Fans obviously see that the most glaring hole in the Pens’ lineup is the lack of a top 6 winger to provide secondary scoring.

Arron Asham (RW) is a very tough guy. Logging 126 penalty minutes (PIM) gives a guy that type of reputation around the league these days. He works hard on the fourth line and can even do some damage on the third line as he does have a scoring touch (72 games, 10 goals, 24 points last year).

The NHL offseason is heating up with the entry draft and start of free agency fast approaching. Pen’s GM Ray Shero is gearing up for contract talks with several key players and perusing the lists of (un)restricted free agents for possible fits. Here is a uniformed, but hopefully logical, stab in the dark at how I could see the end product turning out on several of these topics.

When the Pittsburgh Penguins are being discussed in articles, on TV or any other media outlet the first forwards mentioned are inevitably Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal (usually in that order). There is very good reason for this to be the case.

Sidney Crosby is the face of the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise, as well as the NHL.

"...Gonchar lugs the puck out of the Penguins' end, tries to run the gauntlet through center ice. He dumps the puck in around the wall for Sidney Crosby, Crosby to Malkin. Malkin works his way up the half wall, back to Gonchar. Sergei Gonchar steps in, fires wide.