Be Like Tike

Thursday, December 20th, 2007 by Adam Wagner

The rundown

Today was another one of those days where there were a ton of little things and the hype to two major big things, so here goes:

Sidney Crosby is no longer in the top five in points in the NHL. Vincent Lecavalier, Jarome Iginla, Henrik Zetterberg, Ilya Kovalchuck, and Daniel Alfredsson all have more points than Crosby’s 43. It says something about the recent play of the Penguins that their superstar is lower than, well, other superstars.
Speaking of Crosby, his favorite winger, Ryan Malone, is out indefinitely with an infected cut on his leg. That is not a good thing at all for the Penguins as the two players definitely clicked and Crosby will now have to gel with another linemate. The Pens need production out of that top line in order to be successful simply because they have played such awful hockey at times this year.
Apparently no one is happy with Dany Sabourin in goal, as there are rumors out of Toronto that Ray Shero has been calling about Andrew Raycroft and rumors that the Penguins may have spoken with Curtis Joseph. Neither one of these guys would be an upgrade, but then again, they would keep Tyler Conklin from standing between the pipes in an important game.
Anthony Smith has finally been benched. This should not be a surprise for anyone who has followed the Steelers closely for the last two weeks as teams constantly made Smith look stupid on the deep ball. At times, Smith has looked more like the namesake of this site, Tike Redman, than a safety getting ready to make a play on the football.
Pitt inked JUCO C Robb Houser to a commitment, beating out Syracuse for the signature of the three-star player. Houser is a valuable asset if not only because he prevents there from being a gaping hole in the middle of Pitt’s line next season, but he could be the answer for the next two seasons.
Though Pitt playing a more difficult non-conference schedule than normal and is still undefeated, the jury is still out on them as contenders. Prognosticators seem to like Duke tonight against Pitt, though it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the Panthers squeaked out a win. I generally agree with them, but it should be an extremely well-played and against game between two of the best programs in the nation over the last five years. Seth Davis from Sports Illustrated has an in-depth breakdown of the game and predicts Duke to prevail 78-76.
Also from Sports Illustrated, Luke Winn has a Q&A session with Pitt forward Sam Young.
West Virginians can’t take a joke. A Charleston, West Virginia DJ was removed from the airwaves for playing the Michigan fight song four times in one morning. The DJ, a Michigan native, struck a nerve with Mountaineer fans who are still bitter about the defection of Rich Rodriguez.
The Steelers are in the playoffs with a win tonight against St. Louis and a Tennessee loss Sunday. Pittsburgh has not looked like a team that belongs in the playoffs in recent weeks, with sloppy execution occurring on both sides of the ball, and will probably be an early exit unless they catch some particularly powerful lightning in a bottle.
The Pirates lost out on a really, really valuable replacement-level pitcher Chad Durbin, who signed with the Phillies yesterday. They are now chasing Octavio Dotel and Sean Chacon, who they just could not resign earlier this offseason. It is not good, to say the least, when your prize free agent signing could be Octavio Dotel.