The Wrong Question

Dad and I were having a phone chat about the Penguins and Jordan Staal’s name got brought into the conversation. Dad referenced a particular talk show host in Pittsburgh (one who shall remain nameless, not one of whom I’m fond). Dad said the talk show host contended that saying, "Staal doesn’t look out of place" isn’t really what we should be aiming for—and I agree with the host.

If a general manager or coach is asking himself, " Does Staal look out of place here?" that general manager or coach is asking himself the wrong question. When it comes to players like Staal who come with a particular high draft pick pedigree, well, such a player should not merely not look out of place in the NHL. Such a player, even at a young age, should already be a good player. Granted, such a player isn’t going to be the best player on the ice or perhaps even among the top five on your team, but such a player needs to stand out as a good NHL player. Not as a good young NHL player, not as a player who shows the glimpses of being good eventually, but as a player who is already a good NHL player.

Think back to Jaromir Jagr’s first NHL season. Jagr wasn’t yet the dominant superstar he would later become, but he was already a goal-scorer, already capable of scoring points, and already a very good NHL player. In his good play, fans saw the glimpse of the greatness that was later to be. To take an even more extreme case, look at Sidney Crosby’s rookie season. There were games when Crosby was good, games when he was very good, and a few games when he was great and when he was already dominant. Granted, Crosby broke Mario Lemieux’s team rookie scoring record, so it’s probably safe to say—barring catastrophic injury or illness—that Crosby is a once-in-a-generation player.

While not all high draft picks are going to be once-in-a-generation players—indeed most will not be—when teams are deciding if one of their high draft choices is NHL-ready, they shouldn’t be looking to see if the player merely "doesn’t look out of place" at the NHL level. They need to know if the player is already capable of contributing at a good level, and in the player’s play at the NHL level, they need to be able to see glimpses of future greatness and dominance. And frankly, in the view of this fan and wannabe GM, a player like Staal needs to play at a level where he can learn what greatness, control, and dominance of the game should be. If Staal is merely capable of being an average NHL player now, he should not yet be in the NHL. If Staal is capable of being a good NHL player—a la Jagr or even slightly less than that—in his first season, then fine, he can stay in the NHL. But if we’re merely saying, "You don’t look out of place," that’s not the point. That can never be the point with players like Staal. Because you do want them to look out of place, to some degree—you want everyone’s eyes to be drawn to them because of how their skill and talent stands out and towers over that of other players. "You don’t look out of place" isn’t what you’re going to want to be said of Staal five years into his NHL career, and it’s also not what you want to hear at the nascent point of his professional career.

All that being said, this fan—if she had Ray Shero’s job—sees no harm, particularly considering Evgeni Malkin’s shoulder injury—to keep Staal on the roster for the first few games of the season. Let the kid get his feet wet in the NHL; let him get a taste, and let’s see how he fares in the real, live NHL games. For very practical financial reasons (let’s say Staal and Malkin have extremely productive careers from the outset, do you want to be signing both to ridiculous contracts in the same year?) as well as for personal development reasons (often players are harmed far longer by rushing them than by waiting a year), this fan would then send Staal back to his junior team for the remainder of the season and allow him to dominate there. Unless, of course—unless he proved to be, let’s say, the third or fourth best player on the Penguins team and one who could help make the team immediately competitive. Yet even then—the question has to be asked—do you want Staal to help now, or do you want him to learn how to dominate and be able to dominate in two or three years time when the Penguins are seriously built to take a run at the Cup?

Ask yourself the right question. And for the sake of Penguins fans, let’s hope that Shero and his coaching staff, et. al are asking themselves the right question when it comes to Jordan Staal.