You don't say...Various "by the numbers"

After the jump, check out some random numbers and thoughts passing through my mind in the middle of summer....Like:


81 -- Number of giveaways that Hal Gill (45) and Rob Scuderi (36) combined for in the 2008-09 regular season

21 -- Number of giveaways (in 69 games) that Jay McKee was charged with in St. Louis last season

It's assorted stats that are probably meaningless, but they're all true!

3:44 -- The power-play time per night that Petr Sykora played in 2008-09 that Pittsburgh will have to fill.  (which should be music to Jordan Staal's ears)

1 -- game in his three pro seasons that Jordan Staal has missed

45 -- The combined age of Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby (as of August 7th)

39 -- Age of the retiring Jeremy Roenick

5th -- NHL season Crosby is entering in his career

199 -- points Mario Lemieux scored in his fifth season (85 goals, 114 assists)

6  -- Penguins invited to summer Olympic camps Crosby, Staal, Fleury [Team Canada], Orpik [USA], Malkin, Gonchar [Russia]

34 -- games Penguins goalie Brent Johnson won as a St. Louis Blue in the 2001-02 season

7 -- notable roster players that are set to be unrestricted free agents after this season (Guerin, Fedotenko, Cooke, Gonchar, Eaton, McKee, Johnson)

9 -- complete seasons those seven UFA's have spent with the Pens, a pretty low figure

309 -- hits Brooks Orpik recorded in the 2008-09 regular season

277 -- the combined season total of hits the other five expected members of the Penguins defense on opening night 2009 had.

1 -- projected starting goalie in the Eastern Conference that's younger than Marc-Andre Fleury (Montreal's Carey Price)…[Make it two if you see Simeon Varlamov usurping Jose Theodore]

2 -- only other starting goalies in the East who've led their teams to the Stanley Cup (NJ's Martin Brodeur, Carolina's Cam Ward)

4 -- consecutive seasons that the Penguins cumulative PIMs total has dropped (somewhere Eric Godard cries)