It's the start of the preseason.
A time for us to finally say the offseason is over, the regular season is closer than "yesterday" and an opportunity for all of us to put hockey back on the radar for another nine months or so. And then hopefully at the end of that time the Pens can raise another Cup or, at the least, hope that at the end of that nine-month span there isn't a kid named Max being born in 29 NHL cities. Play on playa.
You have to admit one thing - we've all been a bit spoiled these past two seasons. The Penguins played postseason hockey well into the first week or two of the summer two years in a row, providing us all with some exciting opportunities to either talk about how great they'd be next year (following 07-08 run) or how awesome they were last season (following the 08-09 run). So to watch the Pens fall in the second round of the 09-10 playoffs, I started to think about what I blogged about when the Pens last got eliminated in an early round in 06-07 to the Sens. Bad part? I didn't have anything to fall back on, since I started this site the summer of 07. Good part? For a while there this wasn't even a subject worth considering.
We'll try and have a thread up for tomorrow's game, a 7 p.m. ET start against the Red Wings. I'm pretty positive WXDX will have a radio feed of the game, but the video side isn't so certain.
For what it's worth, Sid, Geno and Brooks are going to play in tomorrow's game. But here's to hoping we get to see - or hear - a little bit about some of the prospects and WBS guys mixing it up.