Morning Dump 5/27

"You can spit shine your shoes Loretta, the Pens are going dancing with Lord Stanley."

What a great game last night watching the Pens sweep away the Drizzles. I was pretty confident heading into the series (I predicted a 5 game series), but wow, a sweep? Nice.

Now we sit and wait for presumably Detroit.

On to the links, and there's a lot of 'em today.

- Let's start with the recaps. Of course, the always classic Pensblog recap is here. The P-G's is here. The Trib's is here. Seth at the P-G's here.

- Anyone who watched the game was made sick by the repetition of stats: "the Canes are 7-0 when Staal scores, Cam Ward is 5-0 when facing elimination, Cam Ward has never lost a playoff series, the RBC is the loudest arena, the Canes never lose on the last Tuesday of the month following the first full moon after the spring harvest, etc etc".

Well after last night, they can take all those stats and shove them in their trailer's burn barrel. Staal scored...gak!!

Let's talk about Ward though. He was supposed to be the difference maker. He was supposed to be the guy that led them to the Cup again since he's done it before. Ah, piss on Cam Ward. Anyone who watched the series can tell you that he just wasn't that great. Last night was the exclamation point. Yup, I'm talking about 'the goal'.

First, the shit VS. announcer actually said "OMG" when the goal was scored. Someone check and see if he has balls. Also check and see if he has Jonas Brothers tickets too. What is he, 13?

Second, as for the goal, Puck Daddy at Yahoo said it best here. For those of you that don't get it, the shitty kid always plays right field in Little League. It's the kid that always gets in there because of that lame rule that everyone plays. For those that remember, and know too much about movies like I do, think Timmy Lupus. An original photoshop of mine here. Another great one here.

- Pens Eastern Conf Champs gear will be a hot seller. Me? No thank you. I never buy things like that unless they're 'final' Championship items.

- Puck Daddy again with a good ditty on Shero and Bylsma.

- Lastly, there's a little talk today about Sid touching the Prince of Wales trophy. So the tradition and superstition goes that the Captain isn't supposed to touch the Conference Champion Trophy since that's "not the one they want" (they want the Cup). Last year, he didn't touch it and we lost. This year, he listened to Joel Goodson, "Sometimes you just gotta say, 'What the fuck, make your move.'" Seemed to work out well in the past.

- Now as for the beloved Buccos, Snell shit the bed again last night. I'm about sick of Snell. All he ever has is excuses that aren't his fault for why he pitches poorly. Man up.

- Like I said yesterday, since I'm so damn smart, Capps may be heading to the DL.

- All of our pitchers can take a lesson from Duke, pitch inside from time to time. You can't let guys sit on top of the plate and tee off. Maholm should be studying this as we speak.