HOCKEY LAST NIGHT: SWEET SASSY MOLASSEY, MALKIN SCORES AGAIN FOR PENS

Your clever metaphors and catchphrases escape me. Like a fat girl waving her trophy from the smell contest.

Penguins 4 Devils 2: What was more enjoyable: Evgeni Malkin's goal, where he took a long pass from Sidney Crosby, split the Devils defence and deked out future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur, or listening to Penguins radio announcer Mike Lange describe Jordan Staal "smiling like a butcher's dog" after his tally?

After Crosby scored on a beauty feed from Malkin, Lange exclaimed, "Slap me silly, Sidney!" This apparently all comes off the cuff, straight from Mr. Lange's noggin.

You think the Saturday Night Live writers who wrote the "Sweet Sassy Molassey" sketch ever happened to catch Lange's act? Ya, me neither.

By the way, an old Bill Simmons column posted at ESPN.com talked about the rare athletes who have the "Oh My God!" factor: Who has it more, Crosby or Malkin?

Flames 6 Coyotes 1: The Alberta hockey bloggers had such a field day with the pitiful Phoenix Coyotes' loss to the Oilers on Monday that James Mirtle felt compelled to do a symposium.

James will probably have be enough material to do another one after Wayne Grezky's Coyotes got thumped for a second straight night to fall to 2-8-0-0. Calgary's Miikka Kiprusoff had a couple big stops on an early Phoenix power play. The Flames responded with two goals 1:05 apart late in the first period and the Coyotes, so used to being behind early, crumpled. Hey, just like the Leafs.

If Phoenix has a bright spot, it might be centre Mike Zigomanis, an ex-Kingston Frontenac who's been great on faceoffs (59.6%, third-best in the league). Naturally, he was scratched with a hamstring injury last night.

Senators 6 Leafs 2: Yes, the Battle of Ontario seems to be lacking spark. Already covered this in last night's live blog. The Sens were in pretty good form; if this wasn't Toronto's worst game out of their first 10, then it's definitely second- or third-worst.

It's probably a little much to expect the Leafs to reply back and sneak out a point on Thursday in the return game at Scotiabank Place. Oh, and the Sens will probably try to do something to Darcy Tucker after he picked a fight with Patrick Eaves last night.

(By the way, Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli, apparently getting increasingly desperate as his re-election hopes dim, claims up to 60% of local high school students smoke weed during the school day and by God, something will be done about that.

Tactics like this are no way to win votes. Too many middle-aged voters will be afraid that if their kids can't get high at school, then they'll start raiding Mom and Dad's stash.)

HOMETOWN BREAKDOWN

Seven. Seven losses in a row for the Kingston Frontenacs after dropping a close one on the road last night, 3-2 to the Sudbury Wolves.

From the looks of the scoresheet, this was brutal. Kingston's two big scoring stars, Bobby Hughes and Cory Emmerton, hooked up on a power-play goal that put the Limestone City shinny sextet (hat tip to the Whig-Standard's Patrick Kennedy) ahead 2-1 at 7:52 of the third. Both, however, were minus-2 on the night, which means both were on the ice when Sudbury's Kevin Baker popped a shortie to tie the game less than three minutes later. Three minutes after that, the Wolves scored again.

Next up for the Fronts: Friday at home against the Soo, likely in front of an intimate Mem Centre crowd of hardcore hockey enthusiasts, puck bunnies and the players' families.

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