This is Ed L. (@billcovw), and he was the most loyal Pens fan in February. He played the game and came away with the belt. He's headed to Philadelphia. The entire Internet probably wants to know how he reached a Bo Jackson Tecmo level of Pens fandom for the month of February, so we asked him about it, and he has detailed his road to glory.

His story is after the jump, as is a rundown of the controversy surrounding PensPoints...

Jordan Staal and the Hurricanes knew who was coming over and had the tea ready. It wasn't a good time.

The Penguins aren't a bad team. They just aren't very good right now. In what was somewhat of a big game, the Pens let the Canes score two crushing goals at the end of the first and second periods.

There's not much that can be done at this point. Getting jammed up about a two-game losing streak doesn't really do much. But there is an uneasy feeling. How good exactly is this Penguins team? Especially without Malkin? We're about to find out. These past two games were against sub-8 teams. These next four games are against teams in the top 8: Montreal,Tampa, Philly, and the Leafs. 

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The return of Malkin will have to wait till next year, as seemingly the Pens season came to an end after a 4-1 loss to Carolina. Long summer ahead.

Pittsburgh Penguins (13-7-0) @ Carolina Hurricanes (9-8-1)

ROOT, FS-CR, NHLN-US - 7:00 pm/et

PNC Arena - Raleigh, NC

With Evgeni Malkin injured, Brandon Sutter has had to step up and move outside of his typical third line center role. Jordan Staal knows a thing or two about that situation. Tonight the Pittsburgh Penguins face Jordan Staal for the first time. His trade at the draft in Pittsburgh was a big deal and it changed the team.

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Last time we visited The Index, he Martin'd his way into a third star in the Flyers game. Three games later, Martin has scored 2 goals, added an assist, has been a +3, and has a .667 shooting percentage.

We scoured NHL history to find a defenseman who could come close to this level of production, and we found him:

Sandis Ozolinsh from NHL94.

John Buccigross tweeted this out. According to the guy who posted it, he stopped by the rink and filmed this today?

It is shitty video, but Malkin puts a puck in a bag sitting upright from way past mid-ice. Also, he did this with a concussion.

There's three technically four of us: Adam, Derek, Rick and Stephen. Since the 2006-07 season, Derek has not embraced FSN/ROOT and has listened to Mike Lange on the radio side every game. I (Adam) have stuck with the FSN/ROOT broadcasts because, really, it's given us the chance to get game information from both broadcasts.  We picture Rick up in Toronto, naked, watching the games on mute while listening to Beck CDs. Stephen just draws sounds.

But my ROOT ways have changed.  I have recently switched exclusively to Mike Lange and Phil Bourque on the radio side.

Getting synced up:

-If you use an old-fashioned radio or the iHeartRadio app, Lange is way behind the action. A quick fix for that is pausing your DVR to sync it up.

-If you don't have DVR, using the Pens' website radio feed has Lange leapfrogging the action and actually being 5 seconds ahead. Relatively speaking, Lange being ahead of the action isn't even that bad at all. What's interesting is that either ROOT or WXDX messes with their feeds, and it falls out of whack sometimes when it comes back from commercial breaks. A quick reload of the Internet radio feed remedies everything, and Lange goes back to being ahead of the action.

-Also, if you have $60, you can buy a Sports Sync Radio.

Keep reading for ROOT v. Lange breakdown...

Matt Cooke is March's mustache boy. Mustache...

Staal story at the Trib... -Speaking of which, new Staal Drinking Game tonight. If there's two Staals playing on the same team, do a shot and light yourself on fire.

PuckStopsHere says Evgeni Malkin is already on the fast track to the Hall of Fame...

No timetable for Mark Eaton...

@RealDanaHeinze tweeted this. Some new mask for MAF:

Got some other stuff. Milbury ripped Ovechin and a great pic from a school textbook...