Today’s guest post comes from Mike of NHLSnipers.com and his take on how the Pens will do in the Playoffs.

I have been a partial fan of the Penguins over the past few years. I love the star power they have, but the team just seems like they expect to win, rather than actually show a true aspiration to win. I want to see the potential of this team fulfilled.

The 2008-09 season started off awfully for the Penguins. Sergei Gonchar went down early on and this in my opinion is worse than losing either Malkin or Crosby. Sergei Gonchar is the Penguins powerplay. You can have all the guns in the game, but if you do not have a quarterback to man the points, your powerplay will be useless.

That to me sums up the first half of the Penguins season. Therrien received the majority of the blame for the mediocre season thus far, and while he deserved some, the team just looked dead and did not buy into his system. I believe this was all because of the loss of Gonchar. The team does not stand a chance without him.

Fast forward to Valentine’s Day, Sergei returns and Therrien gets the boot. Since then the Pens have been 15-3-4 and went from a team that could possibly miss the playoffs to a team that no one wants to face in the first round.

But, I was not sold yet. The team just did not seem to have that desire to be great. I dare say it and I know it is a swear word in Penguin land, but they did not yet have that fire that you see in Ovechkin’s eyes when he gets the puck.

Fast forward to April 5 vs the Panthers. This is where the Penguins made the turn around in my opinion. Evgeni Malkin gets rocked by Keith Ballard on an arguable clean hit. The Penguins from January would have sat around and made sure Evgeni was alright and walked out of the arena just kicked in the nuts.

What do these Penguins do? And most importantly, their leader? Sidney Crosby comes out of left field and goes after the much bigger Keith Ballard. When this happened:

1. It did not matter that the Penguins lost the game

2. It did not matter if Sid won or lost the fight

3. It would not have mattered if Sid would have been knocked out.

The fact that this team showed the type of emotion and grit that is needed to win a championship was finally there. The Pittsburgh Penguins became a family at that very moment.

I guarantee every player on that team went into the locker room after that game ready to die for one another from now on. When your captain shows that type of leadership, you cannot ignore it.

The Penguins are going to be a scary team come playoff time. Unless they run into a hot goalie or someone goes down; I see a potential repeat of last years final.

[Source: PensBlog.com]

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