Michael Rupp

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.

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).

It took less than two minutes for Matt Cooke to face the wrath of retaliation and revenge.

It took Bruins fans not much longer to switch from booing Cooke, to booing their own team.

The media hype surrounding Thursday nights contest between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins gave fans around the league the impression that "old time hockey" would make its return, if only for one night.

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.