Is Chemistry a Concern?
Nope.
What About Reality?
Hmm...
Welcome to Reality

Among the most interesting reactions to the Hossa trade today was the concern for the "chemistry" of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Because, as Pittsburgh fans well know, Colby Armstrong is a hilarious guy, and Erik Christiansen seemed to be another well-liked member of the team. And, really, these guys were close-knit; how else do you explain them winning like crazy sans the league's reigning MVP and scoring champion (I'd contend they're winning due to having an "understudy" who can also play the game at the same rarefied scoring champ/MVP level, but that's a whole other tangent for another blog post, so I'll stop digressing for the moment)?

However, chemistry is not the issue. Not in the short-term and not in the long-term. You say, "Say what" Because, even those who love the trade and are excited about a genuine top flight winger for the first line can at least admit that chemistry, on some level, however minor or major, matters.

To which I say: Nope. Not for this group of Penguins. Chemistry isn't the issue. Reality, however, is, and reality, in this case, means growing up--but not in the ways we've come to think of players "maturing."

The young Penguins were hit smack-dab with reality today. With the reality of the NHL where your friends and teammates get traded, and it's part of the game...part of the business. Where a guy who helped you win games, with whom you hung out playing all kinds of crazy tricks, with whom you came up, is no longer part of your team's future. No longer someone who will be there when you (if you're lucky enough to) lift the Cup.

On some level, all hockey players get this aspect of the game, even relatively "young" ones--trades happen in the major junior leagues, and players leave teams at lower levels than the NHL. It happens.

Yet in the short and long-term, chemistry's just the wrong word for what concerns this group of still young, still otherworldly talented Penguins. Reality hit home today, and you could see the shell-shock of that reality check in much of the game against the Islanders (a game which the Penguins somehow won despite being outshot by a ridiculous margin, something which they need to stop making a habit of if they hope to advance in the postseason, and yet again, I'm going to have to stop digressing). The short-term shock of, "Oh, it's not a joke...friends and teammates and good players really do get traded, and it happens to OUR team." And while the Pens are all professionals, for some of the kids, it could be the first time they're experiencing such a feeling in the NHL.

Which brings me to a long-term concern about reality as it pertains to the kids who, as Shero's move today and ownership's approval of the move signifies, are no longer regarded as kids for whom the future is at some nebulous point in the distance but in the present. Today there was a lot of discussion about the salary cap and the business of resigning or not resigning Hossa, being able to sign our other young players as their entry level deals expire, if Hossa was a rental, etc.

But here's my reality question: I knew trades like today's would happen (though, of course, I was completely taken aback by this trade) eventually. Yet, I also know what happens when trades like these happen. Because I've seen it happen in the 20 plus years I've been a hockey fan. Young players learn the "rules of the game" and learn that the rules of the game are really the rules of the business. They learn to accept player trades as something that occurs, they learn no team stays together forever, and they learn--on an individual level--how to look out for themselves in the business.

My concern about future reality isn't to be cynical and jaded and to say that the current crop of young Pittsburgh hockey stars isn't going to want to remain in Pittsburgh. But it is to say that when reality crashes home, as the rules of the business are learned by the kids, the kids don't just grow up on the ice. They grow up off the ice, too. And some may be about the business of winning Stanley Cups, or of establishing them as a key cog on a Stanley Cup contender, or of making as much money as possible...(and I don't know who's about what, and I'm not trying to insinuate that I do, or make any erroneous assumptions about any player, and that's actually not a digression). But the bottom line is: For the youthful Penguins players, reality changed today. Reality changed in the form of a GM saying:
Your time is now...and, oh yes, in addition to your time being now, this form of reality (your friends and teammates being traded) is part of that reality.

Welcome to the grown-up world of reality, young Pittsburgh Penguins.

And as for us concerned fans? May as well just enjoy the whirlwind that comes from watching children grow up--and note that whirlwind will span the gamut from great to good to awful to bad to merely mediocre moments...but here's to enjoying reality. On what, hopefully, may become a long postseason run.