Chirps from Center Ice

The Good News:

• Ben Lovejoy finally got his first NHL goal in a 5-2 win over the Florida Panthers. Lovejoy scored at 6:19 of the second period on Scott Clemmensen.
• Lovejoy also got in his first NHL fight, scrapping with Florida’s Shawn Mattias in the first period.
• Ben was the game’s first star.
• Sidney Crosby also continued his points streak.

For any of you who don’t know me, Lovejoy was my favorite player in WBS.

The Bad News:

• Brent Johnson got the nod in net for tonight’s game, with Pittsburgh playing Washington tomorrow night. Very late in the second period, Brent went down to make a save and tweaked something. I don’t know what it could be, official from the Pens twitter is a lower body injury. Could be a hip, could be a groin, could be nothing. He was not on the bench for the third period. He did finish playing the second period though.
• Brad Thiessen is in British Columbia and John Curry is in Minnesota (I think) off on Christmas vacation. I will be watching the morning news tomorrow watching for a call-up. Logistically you call-up Thiessen, because he’s next on the depth chart, according to Pens’ GM Ray Shero and this screen grab from last week’s 24/7 Pens / Caps HBO episode.* But, if Curry has less ground to cover, you have to call up John. Who knows.
• Also, Arron Asham was MIA on the Pens bench. We’ll see if Dustin Jeffrey or Eric Tangradi gets a call.
• Lovejoy left the game late, getting hit with a puck shot from Bryan McCabe. He wears a visor and skated off on his own power. He may need stitches. Deryk Engelland was a healthy scratch tonight.

So we will see. If there is a call up I’ll have reaction on the blog tomorrow.

Go Pens.

* – credit Mike Colligan’s tweet – follow him here

EDIT: Late update on the status’ of Johnson and Asham from Mike Colligan here. Johnson: likely out – Asham: questionable. We’ll see who gets the call tomorrow.