The Simple Play and the Kids Showing Off

Frequently speaking, the Pens’ young players do not make the simple play. Perhaps this syndrome is nowhere more evident than on the Pens’ power play. The Pens seem to try to set up the perfect play on the power play, and on the night I visited the arena, several fans frequently screamed, "Shoot!"

Usually I ignore the fans who scream "Shoot!" the puck. I remember Pens’ teams, eons ago (a decade ago and a decade and a half ago) who screamed "Shoot!" at one of the best producing power plays in the NHL. I really did believe that future HHOF players knew better than fans when to shoot the puck, and I still firmly believe that players know far better than fans when it’s appropriate to shoot the puck.

That being said, the Pens’ youngsters do have a problem, and it’s not what my mother termed their problem. Mom basically said, "They’re a bunch of kids showing off." If you’ve watched Crosby and Malkin try and fail to split the D this year, or if you’ve seen a Ryan Whitney pinch gone bad (c’mon, Whitney bashers!), you might be tempted to agree with my mother. You and Mom would also be wrong.

Granted, Crosby and Malkin have all-world skills. They’re trying to figure out how their all-world skills will manifest themselves at the NHL level. And sometimes it looks like they’re kids showing off—although Malkin’s goal against New Jersey gave Mario Lemieux pause when he saw it on TV, so it’s not like the coaching staff needs to start reigning in the kids’ all-world talents.

Still, the Pens’ coaching staff does need to make sure their youngsters—even the most gifted ones—learn how to make the simple play. There are times, for example, when splitting the D is not going to work, and there are times when that risky pinch-in is just a free 4 on 2 give away to the other team. And there are times on the power play, when, for example, the defenseman needs to shoot the puck at the open lane and Crosby or Malkin will need to score a goal that won’t be aesthetically pleasing.

Right now, I’d venture to say that one of the Pens’ biggest issues—when it comes to their power play—is learning when to take the risk to set up the play that only the best players can make and when to avoid the risk and go for the simple play that can also produce surefire rewards. Frankly, I don’t believe putting a lasso on Crosby and Malkin and telling them not to pass to set up a surefire scoring chance is a good idea. Crosby and Malkin might be kids, but they’re already elite players. Oftentimes their passes are going to result in an awesome scoring chance that very few other players could produce. Yet even as I say that the coaching staff has to be careful not to lasso Crosby and Malkin, every youngster on the Pens still needs to learn about simple plays.

What do I mean when I talk about simple plays? Watch a tape of Jaromir Jagr his first season in the NHL. Seriously, look at the goals he scored. They’re great goals. Also notice how often Jagr makes things more difficult for himself—he’ll try to beat the same player three times. Sometimes he was so good that young that he was successful anyway; other times he didn’t succeed.

Watch a tape of Jagr now; watch a tape of Jagr in the years when he was winning scoring championships. You’ll still see a player who can produce some of those gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing highlight reel goals. You’ll also see a player who learned to make the simple play. Who learned when to take a simple shot, who learned how to dish the puck off to a teammate and get it back—you’ll see a player who dominates not just because he can do things no one else can do but because he learned how to apply his talents to making the plays that helped him to pile up more goals and assists than anyone else in the NHL for the past sixteen years.

Interestingly enough, Rangers’ fans still scream at players like Jagr and Straka to shoot the puck and get frustrated when they don’t. And still, Jagr and Straka know far better than do Rangers’ partisans as to when the puck should be shot. And when Jagr and other players on the New York power play use their skills to do two things—things only the best players can do, and the simple play executed by all-world players—the Rangers power play works. (An aside: The Rangers power play was scary at a moment when Shanahan and Jagr were controlling play from the points. While that might be scary if anyone got an odd-man break the other way, the way Jagr and Shanahan were controlling things, for a few seconds, from the points, was scary—scary good even if I wondered if that had been planned.)

The Pens’ superstars and superstars-to-be are still kids learning what the simple play even is. Sometimes, I seriously feel like the players—who’ve always been able to do things their opponents couldn’t do—still have to learn what the simple play is and how to make it. They also need to have the freedom not to make the simple play. Sure, it’s a fine line to walk—make the simple play or take the risk and try to do something only a player like you can do.

And yeah, we might want to scream, "Shoot!" But I recommend the coaching staff, rather than following the lead of fans, teach the players what the simple play is and tell them when to make it—while also giving future and current superstars the option and freedom to try for something greater, learn from their miscues, and learn how to make that great play—or opt for a simpler one—the next time.

Sure, it might drive us crazy. Yet I still remember Jagr as a rookie, the way he "doesn’t finish all the chances he creates for himself," as Mike Lange said. And now—well—look at the result.

Teach the kids the simple play, have patience while they learn how and when to use their skills to complete the simpler play or to, well, you know, start piling up the goals that might someday land them, too, in the Hockey Hall of Fame.