Random Notes

∑ Today’s 5-0 victory over the Bruins was a wonderful thing. Wonderful because the Penguins finally did what a superior opponent should do to an inferior opponent. The Penguins dominated the Bruins in every aspect of the game. They killed every penalty and got a shorthanded goal. Their power play began the day two for two and put the team in a position to dominate the game. The Penguins’ goaltending was flawless (as noted by the score), but a defenseman even picked up the puck when Fleury lost sight of the puck. Overall, however, this game was a thing of beauty—no matter how disappointed the NHL on NBC was to see a blowout—precisely because the Penguins were performing as their talented dictated they should. When facing subpar goaltending, a frustrated power play, and a team that’s been losing more than winning lately, the Penguins did what superior teams are supposed to do. They crushed their opponent and won the game in the blowout.


∑ Much as I adore blowout victories for my team, any individual honors need to be set aside at this time of year. Do I want Crosby to win the league scoring title? Of course. Do I want Malkin to win the rookie scoring race? Yes. But not at the loss of such a significant player to an injury. When it comes to the last few minutes of a blowout game, Crosby, Malkin, Gonchar, Whitney, and certain other players need to be NOWHERE near the ice. (The bench is as close to the ice as these players should get.) It is stupid and reckless to risk injury in a game that your team has already won. Going beyond "rubbing the opponent’s face in the loss," as commentators mentioned today, the Penguins, who appear to be primed for the playoffs, are risking losing a key piece of the puzzle for nothing. As much as I yearn for the Pens’ players to garner as many individual honors as possible, it says a lot about the make up of this team that individual honors must take a backseat to the whole team’s chances at a postseason run.


∑ By the way, that statement about blowout victories also works the other way. Fortunately, the Penguins have not yet been in many games yet this season that are hopeless, and I hope and anticipate they will not experience a blowout loss for the remainder of the season. Plus, I should note the caveat that with the Penguins’, a blowout loss never seems a sure thing—unlike the Bruins, a team that just appeared to give up after being down 3-0, the Penguins always seem to think they can mount a comeback from such a deficit.

To further my point about keeping key players OFF the ice in the waning minutes of a game that has already been decided, recall last year’s playoffs. The Rangers against the Devils. The Devils had already won the game. The Rangers weren’t coming back from a three goal deficit, that’s for sure, and yet with perhaps two minutes remaining in the game, Rangers Coach Renney sends out star Jaromir Jagr. Jagr’s shoulder gets crushed, he can’t play the rest of the series, requires off season shoulder surgery, and has to rehabilitate his shoulder over the summer rather than train. There are times when the shoulder injury still appears to linger this season.

Now ask yourself a question, one that Rangers fans might have asked themselves all summer. Why in the world was Jaromir Jagr on the ice in a game the Rangers had already lost? Did Jagr have to be injured WHEN he was injured? Wasn’t it rather inane to have Jagr on the ice just to "set a tone" for the nexxt game?

As a Penguins fan, I like to think my team’s star players are invincible. Maybe it’s just that the kids are kids, and kids don’t break, right? (After all, wasn’t Jagr much less injured as a kid than as he got older?) But the wrong blocked shot at the wrong ankle, or a stick to the face, or a hit into the boards—it can happen to anyone, even Pittsburgh’s beloved, talented superstar children.

Hockey is a game of risks, and players risk injury every game. They know it, and as a fan, I know it. But there’s worthwhile risk and worthless risk. Most of the game, it’s worthwhile to put your best players on the ice. You let your best players play the game because you need them to win the game. But when the game is well in hand, when the scoreboard but not the time on the clock dictates that you have already won the game—or, worse case, you are, in the Bruins’ case yesterday, down by 5 goals with a minute left on the clock—coaches should not send out their best players in the midst of lopsided free-for-alls.

The Bruins were tired and sedate today, but not all teams will be; in fact, I’ll be curious to see how the Bruins respond to the Penguins later in the week. And yes, I understand that Crosby winning the scoring title matters—I get that. But hockey is a team game, and for a team, like the Penguins, that has a chance, perhaps, to go a long way, the team has to come before anything else—and that means protecting and preserving the health of your most talented players by not sending them out in the waning minutes of lopsided blowouts.


∑ In the previous note, I referenced Crosby, Malkin, Gonchar, and Whitney as players you probably don’t want on the ice late in games. I view those players are far too crucial to the Penguins’ overall team to have them experience an injury in the waning moments of a blowout. I probably should have added Jordan Staal to the list.

Yet glancing over the list of "top line talent" that I firmly believe needs to remain ON the bench at the end of a blowout, what strikes me is a comment made by the NHL on NBC guys (yes, I know, really). While taking pains to note that "Boston isn’t very good," the NHL on NBC guys nevertheless gushed over the Penguins. "When your fourth line guys are making those kind of moves (a reference to a Georges Laraque dipsy-doodle move around a defender), you know you’re good," said one of the guys, "and Pittsburgh is really good." That comment, along with the fact that fear was struck into my heart when both Maxime Talbot and Colby Armstrong had to leave a recent game due to injuries (they both returned and played that day), gave me pause.

The best aspect of this Penguins team is that it is a team, a team complete with four lines and players who play their specific roles well. The Penguins’ premier offensive forwards do not kill penalties; the Penguins have a group of penalty killers who kill penalties. The Penguins have a group of players whose job it is to score on the power play. The Penguins have four lines that can cycle the puck and chip in goals. The fact of the matter is, yes, it would hurt for the Penguins to lose Crosby or Malkin for any length of time, and it would probably hurt more than losing some other player. And yet, well, you remove a player from the Penguins’ team—say Colby or Talbot can’t return to the game—you’ve lost a part of what makes this team so good. Hopefully, the Penguins, with their depth and those NHL-caliber forwards who are sitting in the press box most nights, have enough depth to compensate for any injuries that may come. What struck me about the commentary noting how well the lower lines cycled the puck was that perhaps it’s a little less obvious than first thought about who should NOT go on the ice at the end of blowouts.

Because, really, I’ve always believed the Pens can least afford to lose Whitney or Gonchar (their defensive depth just isn’t there yet), along, of course, with Malkin and Crosby. Staal’s intangibles (more on that in a second) have convinced me he needs to be preserved, too. Yet, seriously, in the midst of a blowout, what I am partially saying is that this player is less crucial than this player to the team’s success—and while that is true—Jarko Ruutu, Maxime Talbot, and Colby Armstrong—are important parts of this Penguins team too.

It’s nice to have a team that is a team, where you know and believe that everyone’s role is important to the team’s success. Still, when it comes to who’s sitting on the bench when the Pens have rung up a 5-0 lead with less than 5 minutes left in the game, I have to go with those players whose skills can’t be mimicked by other players. You have to preserve and protect those players who are the ones who could be eligible for individual honors at the end of the season. And, of course, it should be noted, you protect and preserve these players AFTER their skills have already helped to assure your team of victory. (Or, in the case of Renney with Jagr last year, when you need to preserve their health so they can give you a chance to win the next playoff game—but more on that issue as the playoffs near.)


∑ While Jordan Staal’s game winning goal against Atlanta may have been a fluke, as admitted both by Staal and Atlanta’s goaltender, the Penguins’ obscene 23-0-2 record when Staal scores a goal is something to behold. And for this fan, a logical question follows. Why do the Penguins have such a ridiculous (as in outlandishly good) record when their eighteen-year-old rookie deposits the puck in the net?

Prior to the start of the season, I figured the Penguins were a "borderline" playoff team with everything going right—no significant injuries, Malkin centering an effective second line, Gonchar playing like Gonchar did in Washington, Fleury giving us solid goaltending, and Crosby being Crosby. At present, with their magic number at 3, and tied for New Jersey for the Atlantic Division lead, the Penguins are not shown as one of the 6-11 teams who are "borderline" playoff teams. That magical statistic about Jordan Staal is a key reason why the Penguins are currently for home ice advantage, rather than just a playoff berth.

Jordan Staal’s emergence as a rookie who may add an additional thirty goals to the team's totals before the year is over (don’t want to jinx him, as he currently stands at twenty-nine) wasn’t anything that management or I anticipated at the start of the season. The Penguins have such a fantastic record when Staal scores precisely because Staal’s scoring shows depth that most of us, myself most definitely, assumed the team would lack until future seasons. While the statistic reflects quite nicely on Staal, it also says something else about why the team has one of the league’s best records since the start of 2007. The Penguins have goal-scoring depth now; they no longer have to rely on just Crosby, Malkin, and the power play to carry them.

Granted, it’s true that when the power play struggles, or when Crosby and Malkin both struggle, the Penguins likewise struggle. Yet at times when one of Crosby or Malkin has been ostensibly "slumping," how often has it been a goal from a second, third, or fourth liner has picked up the team? How many times has a shorthanded goal lifted the Penguins and put them back into a hockey game? (Against Ottawa, trailing 4-1, that deficit turned into a 5-4 win.) How many times has a timely goal from someone other than Malkin or Crosby been the difference in the ridiculous number of one goal games the Penguins have played this season?

The obscene 23-0-2 record doesn’t mean that Jordan Staal is the Penguins’ MVP (unsung hero, perhaps, though not all that unsung). Rather, that obscene record shows what happens when the Penguins have depth that goes beyond two superstars, depth that, to be honest, we haven’t seen in Pittsburgh since the EARLY (not the LATE) nineties. By the late nineties (prior to Mario’s first retirement), the Pens had the two best players in the world, but without team-wide depth, they didn’t have enough to win that third Cup. (Well, that and the officiating wasn’t suited to their team’s talents, but it’s best I don’t get started on that in the midst of my present enjoyment of the current team.)

Am I saying the Pens are ready to win the Cup this year? No. I am saying that the team’s gaudy winning percentage when Jordan Staal scores a goal reflects what happens when a team replete with two superstar talents begins to develop the depth to support those superstars. What happens with depth like that? Wins. Lots and lots and lots of victories, and the difference between contending for a division title versus barely sneaking into the postseason.


∑ Oh, by the way, the Penguins lost two consecutive games in regulation this week for the first time in memory (I think another blog informed me that the last time had been January 9 and 10th of this year). It had been awhile. I had forgotten how much losing sucks. I was particularly annoyed by coaching decisions that weren’t made (more on those in a little bit) and by the fact that the Penguins did not appear to be playing to their potential. Yet in the midst of writing something else, I found myself writing this. After two consecutive wins in regulation, including one blowout, it seems perhaps a good time to share what I wrote after that first regulation loss to the New York Rangers.

Question: Did I expect the Pens to make the playoffs before the season?

Answer: I thought they had an outside shot if everything—absolutely everything—went right.


Question: How many points do the Penguins still have?

Answer: Ninety-two.


Question: Are the Penguins fighting for home-ice advantage, rather than a mere playoff berth, at the moment?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Did you ever expect this team to be fighting for home-ice advantage in the month of March?

Answer: Well, not at the beginning of the season, but you know, my expectations have changed since January.


Question: How have those expectations shifted?

Answer: Okay, well, it would take a total, utter collapse for the team not to make the playoffs. At this point, I’m wondering about how far the Penguins can go in the playoffs. Oh, and I have to admit, I think it would be really cool (though perhaps not best for the team if they’d have to play Carolina or Tampa Bay in the first round) to win the Atlantic Division and take that title away from New Jersey.


Question: Do the Penguins still have a chance to win the division?

Answer: Well, yes.


Question: Have you seen this team go on a 14-0-2 run, and have you seen this team go 6-1-1 in their previous 8 games? Did you watch this team beat the best two teams in the Eastern Conference, points wise, on consecutive nights, less than a week ago?

Answer. Yes, and yes. And yes.

Question: Having seen what you’ve seen, what is your problem with the team’s loss to the New York Rangers? A team they had to play on the road, after being absolutely dead tired? A game where they had a chance to win until the last 30 seconds because their BACK-UP goalie played phenomenally and kept the team in the game when the team was being out shot by a 2 to 1 margin for most of the entire game?

Answer: My problem is that during this nationally televised game, the broadcasters in between periods were praising the Rangers as the flavor of the day for sneaking back into the playoffs without mentioning the Penguins’ improvement from the first half to second half of the season (save for the Eastern Conference standings, which showed that clearly enough, numerically speaking, I suppose). My problem is that the best player in the world didn’t look like he was on MY team for most of last night. My problem is that our rookie hotshots looked more like tired rookies than hotshots last night. My problem is that my team LOST a game that I wanted them to win. My problem is that I’m concerned about a dead-tired team being out shot by a team I regard as inferior. I’m concerned about my team’s tentative play. Are the kids going to play like this again? Are the rookies going to go back to being phenoms? Is the best player in the world going to be the best player in the world on my team? Is the lucky bounce going to go MY team’s way rather than the opposition’s way?


Question: Do you need a reality check?

Answer: Eh. Probably.

In any case, thanks to the Pittsburgh Penguins for winning two consecutive games in regulation over the weekend and, at least until Tuesday, having the same number of points as do the New Jersey Devils. Thanks for the reality check that I certainly needed. Thanks to the Penguins for playing so well against the Bruins that the NHL on NBC decided that I no longer needed to view the blowout but would better off watching an actual competitive game between two teams battling for their playoff lives rather than listening to commentators continuing to gush over how good my team is.

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