Thursday, March 27th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Hossa and Crosby to ever play together?
When Ray Shero made his blockbuster trade with Atlanta for Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis, everyone immediately assumed that Hossa would play with Sidney Crosby once Crosby returned from a high ankle injury. Last night, against the New York Islanders, was the first game that the two had played together, but thanks to the thuggery of the Islanders, fans must wonder if the two are ever going to actually play together for an extended period of time.
Hossa had already left the bench once, after being hit in the knee, when the Islanders’ Sean Bergenheim checked the winger from behind in the open ice, resulting in Hossa’s again leaving the game, this time for good. The incident was just many in several in a game in which Evgeni Malkin, Petr Sykora and Daryl Sydor all fought at least once. The Penguins are a team with legitimate title aspirations and one team’s disappointment at its own bad season is not enough to justify ruining the higher aspirations of Pittsburgh.
In other news, Michel Therrien has started playing Ryan Whitney at left wing, an entertaining and insulting experiment based purely on the fact that Whitney has played such terrible defense lately. Over the past couple of months, Whitney could be depended upon to either play a key role in a loss or else be the only player who played a bad game in an otherwise very strong contest.
Most Penguin fans also know that Therrien knows many of these players extremely well and is a master of head games, so Penguin fans should trust him with this newest one. (Of course, having Crosby and Hossa on the ice together for more than one game would also make Therrien seem like a genius.)
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