As you know I gave up my Penguins tickets to the Rangers game so that I could rest up for and attend the Steelers-Ravens AFC Championship game at Heinz Field. It was a great game, although I question the wisdom of repeatedly running Willie Parker up into the offensive line for 1 and 2 yards all night and I still question whether Sweed is ready to play football after he once again dropped a pass after cleaning beating the defender. But the good news is that in the battle of the two best defenses in the NFL, Pittsburgh’s D reigned supreme and taught Joe Flacco what it means to get a good butt whopping, picking him off three times including one by Polamalu for a TD that sealed the deal.

Congratulation to the Steelers and good luck in Tampa Bay and Super Bowl XLIII. Ken Whisenhunt has a score to settle after not being offered the Steelers head coaching job so the team had better come to play and kick some butt in order to win.

Impressively the Pittsburgh Penguins played perhaps their finest game of the season against the New York Rangers on Sunday. It was a game the Penguins desperately needed to win to prove that they were worthy of being considered a playoff contender. The Rangers, who lead the Atlantic Division, are a quality team and with Sunday’s victory as well as a victories over Philadelphia and Anaheim in the last week have restored confidence in a team that needed something to hang their hat on.

Pittsburgh is now 4-4 in their last eight but 3-1 in their last four and scratching their way back into the playoff hunt.

Marc-Andre Fleury earned a shutout stopping all 33 shots the Rangers got on net and Crosby returned to the lineup after sitting out one game with an injury. With goals from role-players like Minard (1) and Kennedy (8) and also a marker from Sykora (17) the Penguins earned, truly earned, a victory. The players called up from Wilkes-Barres Scranton filled their rolls well and if they can keep playing with the intensity of Sunday’s game, it will lead to some tough decisions to be made as injured players become healthy over the next couple weeks.

The win moves their record to 23-20-4 (50 points) and leapfrogs them over Florida for the 8th playoff spot in the East. To hold onto that spot they will likely need to win against Carolina (21-20-5, 47 pts) on Tuesday. The game against the Hurricanes will be the last before the All-Star Break.