New York Islanders @ Pittsburgh Penguins
Penguins Lead 1-0

ROOT, NBCSN, MSG Plus, TSN - 7:00 pm/et

Consol Energy Center - Pittsburgh, PA

Game two at home following a Penguins blowout in game one. Sidney Crosby will be back. The Penguins' worst enemy tonight could be becoming complacent. It would be a huge mistake to let the Islanders back into this series.

For a bit of a different look than we usually give, here are the Penguins and Islanders player usage charts for game one from Some Kind of Ninja.

PENGUINS

ISLANDERS:

You can click on them for a full size image. Here's a bit on player usage charts from Some Kind of Ninja:

The horizontal axis is the percentage of time the player started in the offensive zone, the vertical axis is a rating of how good the players he played against are, and the bubble sizes are a relative rating of how many shots were directed at the net while the player was on the ice. A blue bubble (good) means more shot attempts were made at the opposing team's net when the player was on the ice, a red bubble (bad) means the player was getting outshot.

For example, look at Paul Martin's bubble. Its positioning shows you that he started most of his shifts in the defensive zone and that he played against a relatively high quality of competition. The fact that his bubble is blue means that, while he was on the ice, more shots were directed at the Islanders' net than at the Penguins' net. Translation: He has a lot of responsibility and he handles it well.

For tonight's lines, see our line combinations post from earlier.

Likely Pens lines from Penguins.NHL.com:

Likely Isles lines from Arthur Staple on Twitter and from Daily Faceoff:

Via @Penguins on Twitter.

SIDNEY CROSBY IS BACK!! Returns to lineup tonight for Game 2 vs Islanders!! #Pens #PITvsNYI

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) May 3, 2013

EDIT from Rick: There was a Photoshop here before, but I totally stole the idea for it from Days of Y'Orr.

Their original post is here. I don't want to take credit for their creativity. We love them too much to do that. Sorry everyone. I just got excited.

Here's a video of cats jumping instead:

Scary situation in Montreal last night:

Eller sustained a concussion, plus dental and facial fractures. Everything got kicked up a notch when The Ottawa Sun decided to run this cover:

Reader Luiz wondered what a Trib cover what look like:

Well done.

We got more stuff...

Interesting quote from Paul Martin in this Rob Rossi article.

Defenseman Paul Martin opined that Crosby was “ready.” “We're excited to have him back in,” Martin said.

As was noted earlier Thursday, Crosby worked with the top power-play unit and practiced on a line with Dupuis and Kunitz.

Via the Pens:

The Pens are on the ice practicing. Only James Neal was absent. Paul Martin missed the early portion of practice (so he did not skate in rushes). Sidney Crosby skated with his former linesmates Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis. Here were the rushes...

Kunitz-Crosby-Dupuis
Bennett-Malkin-Iginla
Morrow-Sutter-Cooke
Glass-Jokinen-Adams
Jeffrey-Vitale-Kennedy

Eaton-Letang
Murray-Niskanen
Orpik-Engelland
Despres-Bortuzzo

It looks like Crosby might be in for game two, but Neal is still hurt. Orpik is there too. No idea why Martin missed the beginning of practice.

James Neal is at the top of the screen getting up. Watch his leg.

It very well could be nothing, but that doesn't look right.

Side view from the TSN feed shows Neal grabbing toward his knee:

Look at Neal's ankle:

Credit goes to @MikeColligan who spotted this.

For all we know, Neal will be fine, but something makes us think he may be out for a while.

EDIT: Looks like the top gif may be null and void, the shitty gif shows his right ankle, so who knows.