Is Shero Repeating Patrick’s Mistakes?


The Penguins did not renew Craig Patrick’s contract because the team Patrick constructed last summer failed to make the grade in the new NHL. The Penguins hired Ray Shero as the team’s new general manager so that the former assistant general manager of the Predators could build a NHL team prepared to compete in the twenty-first century.

Unfortunately for him, Shero has been saddled with some of Patrick’s "mistakes." If Sergei Gonchar ever again consistently plays like he did for the Washington Capitals, then maybe that 5-year, $25 million contract will seem like less of a mistake/problem/albatross. While I wouldn’t necessarily call Patrick’s signings of John Leclair and Mark Recchi last year pure mistakes, and both players certainly can provide veteran leadership on a team, Leclair in particular should not be expected to play top-line minutes as he did when he was in his prime.

Yet my concern is that Shero in some sense has not learned from the mistakes of his predecessor in the general manager’s role. Shero is not pursuing a second line center (not that there are many centers left available on the free agent market, anyway) because he expects Malkin to be in Pittsburgh. Stop if that sound byte sounds a little too familiar; didn’t Patrick likewise expect Malkin to be in Pittsburgh? Didn’t Patrick fail to have a contingency plan for a second-line center should Malkin not be available to play in Pittsburgh? It’s the same familiar song when it comes to relying on Jocelyn Thibeault to back up Marc Andre Fleury. What if Fleury goes down with an injury and can’t play for ten games—we’re relying on the oft-injured Thibeault as a competent back up when he hasn’t shown he can play competently at the NHL level in a few years? Didn’t we deal with the lack of reliable goaltending issue for much of the early part of the 2005-06 season? Do we really need to repeat such mistakes? Has Shero really learned from what Patrick got wrong last year?

In some sense, of course, I know that Shero indeed has learned from Patrick’s mistakes. Shero appears to be building a team where different players have different roles. He appears to be finding role players to support his crop of young, talented, former extremely high first-round draft picks. He appears to know that the new NHL demands a team built on skill and speed but also a team, not a group of individuals. Yet if Shero is expecting Dominic Moore to play as a second-line center (third-line center is something I’m currently game to try) or expecting players to fulfill a role, whatever it might be, that a player can no longer fulfill (Jocelyn Thibeault, playing 20 NHL games in a season?), the Penguins are going to be in trouble.

I like many of the moves Shero has made thus far this summer: I was glad to see Fleury and Moore signed this week. While I don’t expect the Penguins general manager to share emergency contingency plans with me, I do expect that Shero actually has emergency contingency plans in place for certain gaping holes that could appear on the 2006-07 roster if he really expects his team to be even marginally more competitive than last season.