Sacrificing What You Have For What You Lack

Given the previous post on team chemistry, I must note that team chemistry with a group of young kids is different than that of an older, mostly veteran squad more accustomed to the "ways of the world" in terms of how even good and great players depart squads for various reasons. But more importantly than destroying any chemistry and cohesion that might develop among the young Pittsburgh nucleus is the fact that before you decide to make a trade, it is best to know exactly who you are losing.

Various ideas are currently bandied about the Internet; some are reasonable, and some are not. People wonder which of the Pittsburgh children might be turned into a player that could immediately put the team "over the top" as one ready to contend, now, for a championship. And yet, as Ray Shero appears to know, now is not the time for those wonderings or decisions. Now is the time to watch and learn what you have.

If the Penguins discover, as I suspect they will, sometime not next season but in the 2008-09 season, that they have too much of one particular skillset and that giving up some of that skillset will ready them for a championship run, then, well, let's be obvious. A highly skilled "artist" might have to be flipped for an equally skilled "bull." A young player who will develop into a good player, if not a star, might have to be sacrificed in order to gain the veteran defenseman who is just what the team needs to win effectively in the postseason.

But before you can give up what you discover you have too much of, you'd darn well better know exactly what you have. And this season, the Penguins won't know exactly what they have in many of their young players. They'll have a better clue the season after that. In the midst of watching and enjoying the skill of the children, the organization must be consistently and constantly evaluating and studying--so that when the time comes, and hear me, impatient fans, it's probably at least a year and a half away, minimally--they know exactly what they are prepared and willing to sacrifice to gain those pieces that will enable them to win a championship.