Penguins Are In

Having clinched on Tuesday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins are now officially in the playoffs and will hope to have a healthy Sidney Crosby (Benson) for the whole run to the Cup. In the wild Eastern Conference, it's pretty much anyone's guess at who's going to represent the Conference at the face-off of Game 1 of the Finals, so there is nothing wrong with putting your money down on the Penguins, since they have been playing some of the best hockey in the league, without the star of the NHL, Crosby.

Crosby is set to return tonight against the Islanders and he should get a good five games in before the playoffs start. That should give his healed ankle plenty of time to get into game shape for their first round match-up.

Of course, the rest of the team is well on it's way to getting healthy or just staying healthy. Their 2-0 win in New Jersey was a good indication of how well they have been playing. Marc-Andre Fleury (Dennis) has been playing very well since coming back from his high ankle sprain, while Ty Conklin (Jeff) has also been seeing some time in the crease.

Ryan Malone	Sidney Crosby	Marian Hossa
Jeff Taffe	Evgeni Malkin	Petr Sykora
Connor James	Jordan Staal	Tyler Kennedy
Jarkko Ruutu	Maxime Talbot	Georges Laraque
Pascal Dupuis
Christopher Minard

Sergei Gonchar	Ryan Whitney
Hal Gill	Kristopher Letang
Darryl Sydor	Rob Scuderi
Brooks Orpik

Marc-Andre Fleury

Ty Conklin

Dany Sabourin

All players on the Playoff Pool sheet are highlighted in bold.