Remembering That Patience is a Virtue
And
The Right Approach

Prior to the start of the 2006-07 season, I stated that patience would be a necessary virtue for Penguins fans. While the Pens started the year quite well (well above .500) and raised expectations, reality has hit home lately. As reality has sunk in, as the team has experienced stretches of losing far more frequently than winning, I find myself repeating the refrain that patience is a virtue.

The past week and a half was not really been a great time for me as a Pens fan. The kids I love to watch are experiencing growing pains. Eighteen-year-old Jordan Staal was a healthy scratch for the first time this season, and twenty-year-old rookie sensation Malkin wasn’t exactly performing up to his usual level. Additionally, the Pens returned young, promising defenseman Noah Welch to the minors, and well, there have been games where Marc-Andre Fleury hasn’t been perfect. Even though it’s already been made very clear that I like and appreciate Ryan Whitney as a player, he, too, has experienced the growing pains that come with every young defenseman.

In any case, as the kids have experienced some trials, the Pens have lost games. Frankly speaking, I far prefer to see my team win than lose. I want to see the kids do their thing—be really, really good and win games.

Except, as you knew it would, here comes the caveat. Honestly speaking, coach Therrien and GM Shero are taking the right approach with their young, talented team. Shero will not be trading away young talent (who haven’t yet shown what they’re worth) for immediate help. Therrien’s lines about coaching this young, talented team are hysterical. When it comes to taking too many penalties, Therrien’s referred to his youngsters as "like telling a baby not to touch a hot stove, but you know, sometimes they have to learn by touching the stove." In today’s Post-Gazette, Therrien is quoted as saying that a team doesn’t go from 29th in the standings to the top 5 the next season. Therrien is also quoted as saying that you have to learn how to walk before you can run—there’s a process, and even if you want to skip learning how to walk, well, guess what, you really can’t skip learning how to walk before you learn to run.

Here’s the thing that sucks for Penguins fans and yes, also, for the players who I’m sure want to win every game they play. Therrien’s right. He has a young, talented team that (from his quotes) I can infer that he loves to coach a great deal and that will also, occasionally, drive him batty or at least add more gray hairs to his head. And while Therrien loves his team, he also knows that his core players are still kids learning what it takes to win in the NHL. And sometimes, well, that means his young team, as it has done recently, is going to lose close games, not going to know how to hold onto leads against more experienced opponents, etc. And the thing is, experience is really the best teacher. Therrien can talk until the cows come home to roost (a favorite, absurd phrase of mine that deliberately makes no logical sense)—forever—but it’s not going to make a difference until the young Penguins see. Oh, that’s what I have to do on the PK. Oh, that’s how we have to play to maintain our 2-goal lead. Oh, I have to make that save, or that clear, or take that shot there. And really, the only way the kids are going to learn is by playing.

And for fans, and for the coach and GM who are still in the midst of evaluating talent to see what they have and what they might eventually trade away for what they need, it’s what we as Pens fans have to accept. We have to accept that trading away for immediate help isn’t going to happen if we’re trading away an unknown commodity (e.g. a young player) who could someday be a key component of a perennial contender. Likewise, we have to accept—seriously—that all our young players are not yet who they are going to be. Even our young stars aren’t who they’re going to be (and for those who’d forget, Jaromir Jagr, year 1, Jaromir Jagr, 6 years later, not the same player; ditto for Chris Pronger and so many other current elite NHL players).

So what’s it mean for Pens fans and for Pens players and for the organization? For the organization, it means to keep doing what they’re doing. Because the organization’s approach, despite the fact that I’d love for the kids to make the playoffs this year, is the right one, even if the team does miss the playoffs this year. The organization needs to find out who players are, how players gel together, etc.

As for the players, well, they just have to play. Some of them might still need more (hopefully temporary) minor league seasoning. Others, like Malkin, like Whitney, like Fleury, guess what? They have to learn what it takes to be elite NHL players, and they only way they’re going to learn how to play at a consistently (consistent: every game) elite level in the NHL is to play in the NHL and learn what it takes. The kids have to put in the effort and learn from their mistakes, and the coaching staff has to work with the kids to accelerate their development.

And what about me, the Pens fan who grew up watching a perennial contender as a child throughout most of the nineties? As the Pens fan who yearns for her team again to be a perennial contender and sees so much hope and promise for the future in her team’s current roster? What about fans like me, who really, really want to see playoff games this year?

Much as it sucks, patience is a virtue. And the reason patience is a virtue is because patience later bears fruit, sometimes and often abundant fruit that never would have resulted without patient endurance.

So I’m going to cheer for the kids to win—and also cheer for them to learn from their mistakes. I’m going to be patient and know that the lessons learned this year—even if it means, in Therrien’s words, that the kids have to learn by touching that hot stove—will bear fruit in future seasons.

M