Captain Clutch

   With less then three weeks remaining in the Mrfhl season, the favourites have started to shine out amongst the crop in the East division. Teams like the Ottawa Senators run by Mr.  Brown, the New York Rangers, run by Mr. Grote who has done an excellent job keeping them atop the league after making several moves to help better future, and the Islanders run by Mr. Dubach all look like the teams to beat in the Eastern Conference this year. However, one team remains above all of them currently and that is the Pittsburgh Penguins who have had a whirlwind of a year.

   The Penguins, run by GM Bennett sit atop the Eastern conference with a 4 point lead over the Ottawa Senators who have a solid 81 points. That being said, the Penguins still have 5 games in hand on the 2nd place Senators as Penguins stand with 85 points. Despite starting the season undefeated, then slipping, then getting back on the horse and on a role it seems as if the Penguins are ready to chase for Lords Stanley.

   And those winning ways of late have been from increased by the play of Captain Sidney Crosby of late who has points in his past 5 games and it starting to score at the pace we all know he can. Paying dividends for the team, Crosby leads the team in goals and assists as well as points.

   "I've just been doing the little things better of late. Certainly having players like Gabby and my boy in Kariya has helped get things going. We've found a chemisty that just immediately sunk in. I'd have to say were one of the fastest lines in the Mrfhl this season without a doubt! That being said, you have to thank our GM. Mr Bennett for putting our team in the place it is now. He stated at the start of the season he wanted to win now which sent confidence throughout our whole room and he was willing to do anything to do just that," Crosby said after a Thursday morning practice.

   Being one of the top teams in the East, breaking down the stats the Penguins look far more impressive. The Penguins are 8th in the league with scoring at 179 goals while being one of the defensive stalwarts while allowing the 4th least amount of goals in only 126 goals against. Breaking that down, that's an average of 2.9 goals a game and 2.05 goals against per game. Going even further, that's a full 2 goals less then the league worst Buffalo Sabres give up! Times are certainly tough in the land of the Wide right. Atleast they have Ryan Miller to back stop them. Wait a second....

   But back to the stats. When we look deeper at the Penguins, the Penguins only give up an average of 20 shots a game. The defense put in place by GM Bennett has certainly payed due. With the defense as well, the Penguins have if not, one of the best penalty killing percentage in the league at 87 percent. The Penguins being a full 10 percent higher then the Buffalo Sabres, ouch!

   This all done with a defense lead by franchise defenseman Shea Weber, sophomore sensation Tyler Myers and defensive specialist Marc Edward Vlasic followed by the likes of Marc Stuart, Mike Komisarek and Jay Mckee.

   "We took the tactic of a friend and former gm in another league where we believe if we have the firepower upfront on the first two lines, we can play a defensive system with excellent shutdown defenseman to get us to where we want. This system has worked tremendously for the Penguins and fortunately our club has adapted to that system during the year once we finally brought in the right players for it to work. Unlike that system in Buffalo where they have too many defenseman and believe you can keep adding to those defenseman to build a winner," Gm Bennett and fellow media reporters chuckled during the press conference today.

   With the defense the way it is, things only look to get better with the acquiring of Dion Phaneuf the other day for Jason Spezza.

   "In acquiring Dion Phaneuf, we believe we have our top 6 defenseman can play with anyone in the league and we firmly believe we do have the best defensive corpse in the league. All this being said, yes having Jason Spezza on the team was good for an offensive point of view but having him on the 3rd line just didn't make sense."

   A lot of critics questioned the motives of Bennett when he swung a deal sending Hodgson to Calgary for Spezza but as we find out there was a method to his madness.

   "Dion was targeted a while ago and the price was Hodgson +. Seeing the asking price for Spezza, we just couldn't refuse. Adding an nhl calibre player to your team would never hurt. Sure I took a lot of heat because he only had 1 year left but when we called the Coyotes GM, a deal was already done within the 5 minutes of calling him. Dion comes to the team with 2 years left on his contract while Spezzas negotiations would have gotten messy. As well, it allows us to put back together the 3rd line of Bozak, Kulemin and Armstrong which became our most efficient shutdown line"

   The deadline only weeks away, many question was Mr. Bennett will do to enhance his teams effort at hosting Lord Stanleys mug in the spring. As of right now, he has not let on to much.

   "I believe with this group we have the chance to win the cup now. There is nothing better then getting chemistry with your club and we are starting to finally find it. Sure some moves to bring in some veterans might happen but as of right now we are standing pat," Bennett announced at the ending of todays press conference.