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)