Because It's the Playoffs and You're Not Doing Work Anyway....

By Artistry

Don't kid yourself.  I don't care if you're going to Pitt part-time and busing tables at Mad Mex or if you're the CEO of Consol Energy.  You're not doing any work today.  And you need reading material.

- Breaking news! The PPG reports that Sidney Crosby is not ready to play.  The Trib reveals that Sidney Crosby is out for the playoff opener. I haven't heard such revelations since ESPN told us Maurkice Pouncey would not play in the Super Bowl.

- Contrast the unapologetic homer-ism of much of the Pittsburgh media - we're looking at you Ron Cook - with the the St. Petersberg Times.  These guys define the "just happy to be here" mentality.

- Has anyone ever put less time into a playoff preview than Dave Molinari?  Seriously, what does he do all day?  Delegate to Shelly Anderson?  Shelly!  Shelly!  I'm in the Hall of Fame!  I need some coffee.  Shelly!

"Shelly, get me a stamp so I can mail this one in."

- Tyler Ennis will need to wait to easily evade Chris Pronger until at least Game 2 of the Flyers/Sabres series.

- TSN's James Duthie thinks Sidney Crosby and Matt Cooke can serve as metaphors for world hunger, disease, famine, war, and the Rapture.

- Never afraid to challenge conventional thinking and crack us up in the process, Pensblog has the Pens in 3.

- USA Today's Kevin Allen has the Pens in 7, calling the Dan Bylsma Advantage "significant." 

- The Puck Daddy staff is split on the Pens/Lightning series. Imagine what GTOG could do if we had 83 people on staff.

- The Lightning Hockey Blog is even lazier than we are.

- Brian Burke says the Leafs are only 2 or 3 players away from contention.  Unfortunately, Sidney Crosby, Pavel Datsyuk, and Roberto Luongo are all otherwise occupied.

- One of the better Lightning blogs, Bolts2Cup, has a preview of a January 20th regular season battle between Tampa Bay and Atlanta.  Timely.

We all remember where we were

- Penguinsfan87 provides a clear-eyed picture of what the NHL scoring race would look like if fate didn't suck.

- And finally, let's let Finesse vent on Comcast: "Based on prompting by Loyal Fan George, I went searching the TV listings this morning for the Pens-Lightning game tonight.  After about 10 minutes, I finally figured out that it is airing on Comcast "Game Channel 13."  God forbid they put that on the actual menu.  To make matters even worse, which is Comcast's M.O., Game Channel 13 is not in HD.  They actually have only one HD channel devoted to the NHL package.  Oh wait, unless it is baseball season, like it is tonight.  And what baseball game do the geniuses at Comcast think is worthy of their precious HD channel?  That's right, the Brewers at the Pirates.  If someone out there is willing to bet me, I'm putting up $1,000 on us having more readers tomorrow morning than people who watched that game.  F-you, Comcast."