Roberts and Recchi

Excellent, but....

Both off and on the ice, Ray Shero delivered excellent news when he announced that he had resigned veterans Gary Roberts and Mark Recchi to one-year contracts. Neither contract is outlandish, and more importantly than just monetary factors, Roberts and Recchi provide a veteran presence sorely necessary, both on and off the ice, for a very young team.

What Recchi and Roberts bring off the ice is not disputed. Even as Pens' fans joke about Mark Recchi's usefulness as Jordan Staal's landlord, the fans understand that it's necessary for younger players to have a few older players around off the ice. And not just because some of the youngest Penguins literally need a billet house with an older teammate (which will be even more true next year if Kris Letang and, though it's unlikely, Angelo Esposito, make the team). Rather, Roberts and Recchi bring a wealth of experience to such things as travel, conditioning, eating properly, etc., to the team. Roberts and Recchi have won Cups, and say what you will, but most teams don't win Cups until they have players who have helped to teach them what it takes to win a Cup. Off the ice, Roberts and Recchi bring stability and experience to a young, talented team that could tremendously benefit from stable, experienced veteran leadership.

Roberts and Recchi aren't just useful as the "veterans in the locker room," but are likewise tremendously valuable on the ice--but not for the reasons one might at first assume. Gary Roberts and Mark Recchi are both valuable on the ice because, at this juncture of their careers, they are both no-maintenance players. By no-maintenance, I do not mean that they can play 30 minutes a game without problem, but that in the minutes they do play within a game, they are going to know what to do and how to do it. Fans already love Gary Roberts and know that he knows when to dish a thundering check that changes the momentum of a shift and a game. While fans are more likely to complain about Recchi, Recchi's "no maintenance" value is probably best seen in Game 4 of the Pittsburgh-Ottawa first round series. No coach had to tell Recchi to use those old legs and race back to keep the puck from going into the empty net; no coach had to tell him how to do it. In small plays that win and lose games, in the simple plays that talented kids sometimes haven't yet been forced to master, Mark Recchi and Gary Roberts both exemplify what it means to be a "no-maintenance" hockey player. And, in demonstrating what it means to be a "no maintenance" player, Recchi and Roberts will help the Pens' obscenely talented youth begin to develop, also, into players who wear the label "no-maintenance."

For all the on and off-ice good that Roberts and Recchi bring, I must return to a post that I wrote late in the 2006-07 season (called "The Veteran Myth"). The "veteran myth" states that players like Roberts and Recchi, because they have always fulfilled certain roles quite well, must continue to be relied upon to fill those same roles based upon their experience in said capacity. My current opinion remains the same one I held when I first typed out "The Veteran Myth." And that opinion is that Coach Michel Therrien and his coaching staff must not allow veteran players who have "always done that" to continue to do a job that could be better performed by a younger but more inexperienced player.

The power play unit for next season would provide an easy example of "The Veteran Myth." Sticking both Mark Recchi and Gary Roberts on the first team power play unit would be a mistake of monumental proportions. Not allowing all six feet four inches of Jordan Staal to have some time in front of the crease on the power play due to the "experience" of Roberts and Recchi is not just incredibly shortsighted, but fundamentally wrong. Young players need the chance to master a specific skill set, and young players can do this while still helping their teams to win games. The challenge for the coaching staff will be to monitor the playing time of the Pens' graybeards, to use them wisely, but not to overuse them--and not just to prevent injury and burnout, but to allow the kids, the kids who have to play starring roles when it comes to time to compete for the Cup, to begin the process of assuming such starring roles.

For the wealth of on-ice and off-ice experience and leadership that Roberts and Recchi bring to the Pens, for the fact that both wanted to remain with the kids, I welcome them back with open arms, clapping hands, and lots of loud cheers. However, Penguins' general manager Ray Shero needs to work in conjunction with Michel Therrien and his coaching staff to ensure that the veterans and the kids are utilized properly--and that might mean, perhaps more far more frequently than in the 2006-07 season--that a few of the kids start to do some of the things, such as, for example, stand in front of the net on the power play, a little more often than do the veterans.