Marco Sturm — remember him? — tries to sneak one past Marc-Andre Fleury the last time the Canucks and Penguins met, which was Oct. 6, 2011. (Getty Images photo.)
Steve Ewen is up bright and early to take a Hat Trick look at the Vancouver Canucks’ Saturday morning showdown with the host Pittsburgh Penguins.
1. Marc-Andre Fleury’s summer may have been as drama filled as Roberto Luongo’s, but he’s seemingly played his way back into the Team Canada conversation, alongside Luongo and others.
Could that be bad news for Canuck fans today, considering the way Team Canada candidate Carey Price of the Canadiens stood on his head in his recent showdown against Vancouver 2010 starter Luongo?
B.C. boy Price also had the FFF (Family and Friends Factor) in his favour during Montreal’s stop over at Rogers Arena. For what it’s worth, he denied that either played a factor in his performance.
For those wondering about numbers this fine morning, Fleury is 6-0-0, with a 1.67 goals against and a .932 save percentage to kick off the campaign. Pittsburgh’s goaltending options took a hit when veteran Tomas Vokoun was shelved with a blood clot.
2. Vancouver hasn’t faced Pittsburgh since an Oct. 6, 2011 tilt in Vancouver. This means a rare glimpse of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and the rest of the Penguins ballyhooed offensive line-up for Canuck supporters.
The Penguin I’m keen on seeing? Give me some Paul Martin. The 32-year-old defenceman from Minnesota leads the Penguins in ice time, at 25 minutes, 58 seconds per game. You can reckon that some of that is tied to Kris Letang being sidelined with an injury, but Martin averaged 25:19 in 2012-13, behind only Letang’s 25:38 on the Pens. Martin finished with six goals, 23 points and a plus-14 rating in 34 games for Pittsburgh last year. He then had 11 points in 15 playoff match-ups.
Here’s some highlights, by the way, from the last meeting between the Canucks and Penguins.
3. The mere mention of Malkin always reminds me of an episode at the 2006 world juniors, which were held in Vancouver, Kelowna and Kamloops. We were in Kamloops for exhibition action and the Russians were being coy about whether Malkin, who was already a marquee player thanks to being drafted second overall by Pittsburgh in 2004, was going to take part. He showed up at the rink one day, and a gaggle of media types attempted to get a word with him.
The Russians declined, saying that he didn’t speak English.
Ryan Rishaug of TSN shot back immediately: “That’s weird…I interviewed him at the draft on television and he spoke perfect English.”
