Pittsburgh Pens Defeat Los Angeles Kings 4-1: A Personal Account

With the hiring of new coach Dan Bylsma, the Pittsburgh Penguins have picked up the slack and have played with intensity and fire. With the Penguins continuing to win, I got very excited for a simple reason.

As a birthday present, I got to go to see the Penguins play the Los Angeles Kings Friday at Mellon Arena. I usually get to go to one Penguins game a year, and the Penguins have never lost a game when I show up (somebody get me season tickets). So with that said, I guaranteed a Penguins victory and headed off to the arena.

My seats were fairly high, as I sat in F28 but I had row A seats four and 5five. It seemed sort of secluded from the other seats and a five seat row which made it easier to move around.

While their wasn't that much room, I felt like a VIP, and also felt that my right knee cap (which had been affected by tendinitis for 10 weeks and will continue to have it for another month and a half) had something to rest on.

Before I got to my seat, we took a front row look at shoot around and it was really cool, and pounding the glass made me feel like a kid in a candy shop. After that, we got to our seat with 20 minutes to spare. I chatted with my seat neighbors and soon enough the game was under way.

I was certain the the Penguins would win, as the Kings are not that good and their best player statistically, Anze Kopitar had 60 points. The main person I was worried about on their team was No. 23 Dustin Brown.

Brown is very comparable to Chris Kunitz (who plays for the Penguins). While Kunitz is a little more noticeable offensively, Brown leads the National Hockey League (NHL) in hits so I certainly expected fireworks from him.

 The Penguins seemed to dictate play despite being short-handed early in the period. My thoughts were confirmed when on the Penguins first power play of the game, Sidney Crosby took a back hand against Kings goalie Jonathan Quick and scored making it 1-0 Penguins.

The place went nuts and I more than joined in the cheering. A few minutes later, the place went nuts again, as Evgeni Malkin scored on a nice pass from Crosby. He had a wide open net, and soon chants of "MVP" followed. The Penguins had a 2-0 lead after the first period.

In the second period, the Penguins added two goals, one from Tyler Kennedy and another from Bill Guerin to get a 4-0 lead, a lead they kept at period's end. I then decided to leave my seat and walk around the arena.

My main mission was to buy a media guide, but just like the year before, I got lost. I walked around and found the steps for F which said that F28 was the way I was going, but the stairs only led me to F11-F20. I fell for this twice, and when I finally got back in my seat, I had missed 3 seconds of the period.

The third period confirmed my previous thoughts on Brown. Brown had a couple of tenacious hits within a little less than a minute of each other and I knew that I had properly done my homework. The Kings got another power play, and the Penguins had handled short-handed situations well but this time was different.

The Kings had a two man advantage that was helped when Craig Adams broke his stick and helplessly defended. A few seconds later, Michal Handzus scored for the Kings (the goal was originally given to Drew Doughty) to make it 4-1 and ruin Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury's chances of shutting out the Kings

My plan all along was to go for autographs after the game, so with two minutes left, I left Mellon Arena. The Penguins won the game 4-1 and Fleury made 24 of 25 saves. I met some of my friends outside the Arena and we chatted for a bit in the freezing cold while we waited for the Penguins to come out.

After a while, the Kings bus finally left, and Penguins started making their way out much to the joy of the Penguins faithful.

When I saw them driving away, I saw my chance. I brought an official Penguins puck from the early 90's to the game with me and was ready for some signatures. By this point, the tendinitis in my knee was flaring and I was really hurting so I knew it would take a lot to pull this off.

The first car I see is Petr Sykora and my friends and I run to him. Some how, I stay with them, and after one of my friends got a game used stick, I got my first ever Penguins autograph (I had gotten autographs from Peter Taglianetti, Ken Wregget and Phil Bourque but they were retired at that point as they signed over this past summer).

I was very excited as I gimped to the next car.

After this brief victory, we make the long run to Evgeni Malkin and at this point, my knee is on fire. I took my friend's advice and pushed and shoved my way through. At this point, Malkin had signed for two people, and I had done such a good job pushing and shoving that I had no competition to get the next autograph.

I saw Geno and surprisingly was not star struck, his parents were there and I saw Geno face to face. Unfortunately, he left after two autographs. I considered running after him, but with cops there and with my knee on fire, I figured that I could wait 365 days. I regret that decision immensely.

My friend who always gets autographs, saw me pushing and shoving my way through, which considering that I am a nice guy showed how close I was.

I didn't let this discourage me though, and I quickly recovered and ran to Hal Gill. He seemed very patient as I got to him just in time for him to sign my puck. I was the last person he signed for that night.

While it does sound mean and selfish, autographs are nice, but getting the last autograph from any body is even more special than just getting an autograph in general. It makes you feel important and makes others envy you for a few seconds.

This happened on Fan Appreciation Day at PNC Park last September when I made a last second decision to go for Pirate closer Matt Capp's autograph (I had him once already) and was the last person to get it. I was the last person to get his autograph that morning because I called him.

I felt really special and with getting the last Gill autograph helped me ignore the knee pain for just a few extra seconds.

The next person I got was backup goalie Mathieu Garon. He like previous autographs (except Malkin), didn't have that many people to sign for, but he seemed to have the least amount of people (Fleury starts a lot for the Penguins and Garon since coming to the Penguins has only started in goal twice winning and losing once).

He signed and again I was grateful.

The last player I got for the night was Jordan Staal. There was a crowd of people by him and my knee was in the worst shape of the night. This resorted me to standing by the rear view mirror of his car.

I moved up slowly, and Staal took my puck and signed it. He was very patient and easily could have been like Malkin and drove away. I can now see why so many people like Staal so much.

The last autograph of the night that I got did not come from a Penguins player. My friends ran into Mark Madden and I got an autograph on the Icetime program the Penguins hand out before the game to all fans. He was willing to talk with us and take some pictures with us which was very nice.

That is pretty much the end of this extensive Penguins experience. Hopefully, I will let you know in another 365 days how the next one goes. I am even more hopeful that I won't get lost in the Arena the next (and possibly last) time.