Gameday Preview: Leafs at Penguins

Toronto heads into the home of Sidney Crosby and the Penguins. Sidney Crosby just threw his head back and fell down at the mention of his name, for those of you listening on the radio.

Pre-Game: 7:00 p.m., Leafs TV
Game: 7:30 p.m., TSN-National, AM640
Post Video: mapleleafs.com

For those of you who like the Penguins instead of the Leafs, go on over to SBNation's own PensBurgh, where FrankD will be happy to talk about Miroslav Satan with you.

Toronto is 1-0 in preseason play, having beaten Buffalo. Pittsburgh is 1-0-1, having beaten the Lightning after losing to them in a skills competition.

The lineup:

Forwards:

Alexei Ponikarovsky, Mikhail Grabovsky, Nik Antropov

Jiri Tlusty, Alex Steen, Jason Blake

Nikolai Kulemin, John Mitchell, Niklas Hagman

Jamal Mayers, Kris Newbury, Tim Stapleton

Defence

Luke Schenn, Tomas Kaberle

Jonas Frogren, Anton Stralman

Mike Van Ryn, Josef Boumedienne

Goal

Justin Pogge

James Reimer

I'm loving the Soviet Bloc line of Nikola "Make Goal For Benefit Glorious Kazakhstan" Antropov, Alexei "Pretty Like A" Ponikarovsky, and Michael Grabowski. Luke Schenn alongside Tomas Kaberle is all of our wet dreams since the draft, so it'll be good  to finally see that happen, along with the debut of Frogren alongside Stralman.

Justin Pogge definitely earned himself a full start, let's hope he steps up and takes the reins. This is his chance to play so well that dealing Toskala at the deadline is a non-issue. Go get 'em Pogge, we're all waiting to buy #29 jerseys again.

“This is a big year for me,” said Pogge. “I’ve had two years of pro under my belt. Now it’s time to push for the NHL and we’ll see where it takes me."

The thing is, with all of our expectations, Pogge needs to deliver us to the postseason. I think he's ready to play in the NHL, I don't know if he's ready to play in the NHL for Toronto.

The Leafs lineup looks competitive, let's hope for as exciting of a game as Monday's.

From Pensburgh:

Forwards
Evgeni Malkin
Jordan Staal
Miroslav Satan
Ruslan Fedotenko
Matt Cooke
Petr Sykora
Pascal Dupuis
Jeff Taffe
Max Talbot
Paul Bissonnette
Tyler Kenndy
Connor James
Defensemen
Brooks Orpik
Kris Letang
Alex Goligoski
Hal Gill
Mark Eaton
Darryl Sydor
Goaltenders
Dany Sabourin
John Curry