Getting the Best from the Best: Simple, Smart, and Safe

Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang are two of the most talented hockey players on Coach Dan Bylsma’s 2013 Pittsburgh Penguins roster.  Malkin and Letang can often successfully make plays on the ice that other players would never even dare to attempt.

Coach Dan Bylsma needs to get Malkin and Letang to knock it off, immediately.

In the first-round playoff series against the New York Islanders, Malkin and Letang have made both brilliant plays and terrible plays.  The sum result:  decidedly average performance from a former playoff MVP and a current Norris Trophy nominee.    And decidedly average performance from a team’s best players is not a way to advance in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

But what does Bylsma need from Malkin and Letang, and how does he bring it out of Malkin and Letang?

Facts

 Evgeni Malkin has won a Stanley Cup, a league MVP, and a scoring title with Dan Bylsma as his coach. 

 One of Dan Bylsma’s first moves upon becoming Pittsburgh’s head coach in February of 2009 was to make then-21-year-old Kris Letang a healthy scratch, being very clear that he expected Letang could be a much better player.  In the years since 2009, Letang has steadily grown from a promising, skilled kid playing protected minutes to a player who plays well enough in all situations to be in the conversation for the Norris Trophy every season.

 Factually, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang have produced—to elite levels— with Dan Bylsma as their head coach.

Regular Season Observations

 Ever watch the Penguins during the regular season?   Ever notice how Malkin and Letang can just toy with the opposition?    Ever seen Malkin annually part Tampa Bay’s defense and score an amazing goal?  Ever seen Letang—successfully—deke at the blue line and then set up a scoring chance?

Yeah.   They do that all the time in the regular season.   When there’s time and space to do so.  When teams aren’t focusing their entire game plan on—at playoff-level intensity—ferociously hitting them at every chance because they know exactly what Malkin and Letang can do and they’d prefer they didn’t do it to them.

Ever watched Malkin and Letang when games get out of control?   Ever notice how both players try to do way too much, and cause misery for themselves?   They try to take over with their talent.  They try to do too much; they try to do it all themselves (race up ice to create a scoring chance, thread an impossible pass that gets picked off, and things along those lines).   And they end up making mistakes that don’t make sense for players of their talent: they turn over the puck when they shouldn’t, make an inexplicable decision, or take a needless penalty. 

              

 And in the regular season—the good far outweighs the bad.   And you play Letang big minutes and you play Malkin big minutes and they help your team keep the puck away from the opponent most of the game and they put up points and they’re elite players who help make sure your team is one of the best teams in the NHL. 

Playoff Observations

Have you noticed that both Malkin and Letang are giving the puck away too frequently?  Have you noticed that both players have moments where they absolutely look like elite talents, and other moments where they look like anything but elite talents?

If you—as a fan—have noticed, be sure that the opponents have noticed.   Be sure that the coaches on both sides have noticed.

But what do you do?     When it comes to player who—all regular season long, can just toy with other players and general cover over any errors—what happens when there’s just not the same time and space to do that, the exact same way, and those plays that are there in more open ice just aren’t there for the taking? 

A Game 4 Moment (Replicate, Please?)

Did you notice the play that resulted in Pittsburgh’s third goal in Game 4?   Letang contemplated doing something fancy with the puck, and then he just dumped the puck to a place where Matt Cooke could win a battle and retrieve the puck.   It was the safe, simple, and smart play.  And it resulted in a Pittsburgh goal. 

 But did you notice—of course you did—Letang and Malkin turning over the puck and generally thinking if they just pushed and pushed and pushed, their talent would be enough?

Talent has to learn how to make the safe, simple, and smart play.    Malkin and Letang are capable of doing so.

But getting them to the point where they’re using their talent to make the safe and simple play as a matter of course—and only taking that “risk” when there’s no risk at all—

And getting this to happen as a matter of course in incredibly emotional, tightly contested playoff games. 

             

Suffice to say Malkin and Letang haven’t done that—regularly—in the postseason since the Penguins’ last championship (and that timing—while hardly on those two players alone—is not a coincidence).    Dan Bylsma has to hope video helps.   He has to hope conversations, or a kick in the rear, or whatever it is (because I’m not going to pretend I have a clue about the best way to get through to Malkin or Letang), somehow get through to two of his best players.

Because habits where talent alone wins you games—great as that is.   It’s of little use when the playoffs start.    And that’s when talent has to be disciplined to make the safe, simple, and smart play.

                

No matter what the coach says or does or doesn’t do, Malkin and Letang need to use their talent to execute the safe, simple, and smart plays.    But Dan Bylsma’s got to make it his mission that they understood that’s all they have to execute.  Because, if they do that, well—talent really can take care of the rest.   But no talent is sufficient enough to overcome a regular failure to execute fundamental plays.

And while it’s on the players to start executing, it’s also on the coach to let those players know:  “Use your talent to take what’s there, rather than force what’s not there—and trust that your talent making simple, safe, smart plays will be sufficient to take care of the game.”

              

It’s certainly far preferable than “Take this risk, and take that risk” and “then, since at least one of those risks—inevitably—went wrong, do everything you can to take more risks to make up for that risk you just took so we can get back even or reclaim the lead!”

You don’t want to stifle the creativity of your best players.  But just as Jaromir Jagr didn’t become the best player in hockey until he learned to stop beating the same player 4 times, Malkin and Letang—in spite of their already impressive list of accomplishments—still have growing and learning to do in terms of making the smart and simple plays every time.

And a coach doing whatever he must to get that truth to click in is likely a key for any hope the Penguins have for postseason success.    That’s no easy task for Dan Bylsma, of course—getting gifted players to perform at a level commensurate with their abilities is nowhere near as easy as “gifted” makes you think it should be—but it’s one thing he’ll need to figure out if he hopes to win another championship with Malkin and Letang.

A Love Letter to the NHL
“I Love You, But Seriously, Get Your Act Together”


Dear National Hockey League:

First, a few quick facts about me: I was born in Pittsburgh in 1982. How is this relevant to you? I was two years old when Mario Lemieux was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins. I was five years old when then Pittsburgh General Manager Eddie Johnston swung a trade for future Hall of Famer Paul Coffey to become a Penguin. I was seven years old when Mario Lemieux had an incredible point scoring streak and then got hurt and the Pens barely missed the playoffs. I had just turned eight when the Pens were able to draft the player who would ultimately become my all-time favorite, Jaromir Jagr.

Why should the NHL care about me? Because I’ve been a fan of the sport of hockey, and, specifically, of NHL hockey, since I was five years old. When I was five years old, it was Paul Coffey—the Doctor—who made me fall in love with hockey. Watching someone with Coffey’s skill skate the puck up the ice….wow. That kind of speed and skill in an athlete? But I could give a laundry list of reasons why I became a fan, and that laundry list is littered with the Hall of Fame players who defined Penguins hockey in the nineties:

-Mario Lemieux. Enough said.

-Ron Francis. Nicknamed “Saint” Ron or “Ronnie Franchise” for reasons that need no explanation

-The aforementioned Jaromir Jagr and Paul Coffey, still my all-time favorite players

Dear NHL: These are the players who made me fall in love with your sport. They are the ones I tried to imitate (terribly, I am in no way a natural athlete) when I’d play street hockey with my brother and his friends as a kid. These are the players my brother and his teammates (all the way through college) wanted to be. These were the players who made the sport worth watching.

But, lest anyone think I want the NHL to be an All-Star game, let me give you another laundry list of the reason your sport—yes, NHL, your sport, the sport of hockey—is my favorite in all of sports. And it’s going to have very little to do with All-Star players and future Hall-of-Famers. Let me tell you all the reasons why I love your sport, why I’d want my kids to play your sport, all the reasons why I think hockey at its purest, finest, is the greatest sport on earth:

TEAM CONCEPT:
There are lots of team sports, but hockey takes the cake in terms of “team” concept. A goalie will play the entire game. But the most gifted forwards and defensemen can only play half the game. When a superstar finally wins a championship, people throw out all sorts of idiocy like “He’s finally gotten it together!” when the reality, in hockey, especially, is that his general manager has finally surrounded that player with a championship caliber team.

But do you know the awesome part about hockey? A championship caliber team is one where the back-up goalie has to make a ridiculous save in Game 6 and win Game 7 (Devils-Pens, Round 1, 1991), where a team has to overcome injuries to future Hall of Fame talent (no Lemieux and Mullen, Round 2, NYR, 1992, and where the hero is not one of the guys who’s destined for the Hall but just a guy who’s always scored goals when needed in huge games (Max Talbot, Game 7, 2009 Cup Finals).

You know what’s also awesome about hockey? It’s a team sport, and until a team is good enough to win it all, it doesn’t matter how good Lemieux or Jagr or Crosby or Malkin are. It matters how good the team around them—you know, the guys that play the other half of the game—are. Talk about a lesson in needing EVERYONE to achieve results, right?


IT'S ALL ABOUT THE TEAM:
More so than any other sport, hockey players are taught, from an early age, to celebrate team accomplishments over individual ones. In other sports, you’ll find some (note: not all) athletes meaninglessly celebrating touchdowns or home runs in blowout losses. If you want an example of a typical hockey player’s reaction to upping their fantasy stats (and next contract) in a blowout loss, take a look at the response of two Penguins last night to meaningless goals when their team was already down 6-0. Jordan Staal and Kris Letang “celebrated”, if you can call it that, with a half-hearted high-five of the gloves. A trace of a smile barely cracked their faces. Their depleted team was losing, and they’d just scored two goals to make it slightly less of a joke. And their response—good job we scored, but who cares, it doesn’t matter—was entirely appropriate in the circumstances.

Tell me in what other sport you’ll see athletes who GET it. Who get that meaningless scores aren’t to be celebrated. Who could care less about their fantasy statistics when their team’s depleted. Tell me where, other than in the NHL, I can point to athletes who “get” that team matters more than fantasy stats….and who get that there’s no point in excessively celebrating meaningless wins.


"IT IS NEVER ABOUT ME"
Speaking of another thing about hockey players, they’re accused of being the most boring interview ever. And you know what, they are, and I love them for it.

Exhibit A: I listened to an interview with a first-time All Star player this year. Asked why he was playing well, he said not one thing—I am not making this up—about himself or working hard or practicing more or watching video (all things the player does). He deflected credit to his defensive partner, to his teammates, and to his coaches. All of these people, he said, help him. An All-Star player who could brag about how good he is and how awesome he is says not one tiny thing about himself but simply says: I have to keep playing this way and all these people around me, they help me.

And to note that in hockey, this player’s attitude is consistent, across-the-board, among most All-Star players. It is anathema in a hockey locker room to make yourself bigger than the team. An All-Star player is put in his place and fast, by teammates, if he ever thinks he’s bigger than the team.

Tell me where you can find this attitude permeated, consistently, in any other sport, and I’ll tell you won’t. Hockey, due its inherent nature where short shifts have to be the norm for a team to be at its most productive, insists that the most talented players conduct themselves as humble members of a unit. And you know what? What parent doesn’t want their child to learn to act like that?


PLAY THROUGH PAIN
Hockey gets a bad rep for this (too many players have played through serious injuries over the years). But hockey players joke about athletes in other sports because…what, a hangnail and he’s out? A sprained ankle and you’re not playing? In hockey, especially in the playoffs, if you can play, you do play.

The stories are legion: Sergei Gonchar played on a partially torn knee ligament. Players have played through all sorts of injuries, from the relatively minor (yes, seriously) separated shoulder to broken bones to who knows what else.

In hockey, there’s a culture that’s best exemplified by a player who returned to play for the Penguins: “It’s painful, but I can play.”

Exactly. Your team needs you. If you’re in pain, but you can go and help your team more than you hurt it, you do whatever you have to do to go. That’s hockey. And again….what parent doesn’t what their kid to learn that life lesson? Keep going when it hurts.


So, NHL, the above is my love letter to you. I love you. I love your All-Star talent. I love the inherent nature of your sport and all that it teaches. But you have a big problem on your hands, and you have to fix it, and fix it fast. So, hear me out with some issues you’ve got, and then we’ll talk about what to do to solve them.

Hits to the head: I’m talking about this as a separate issue from concussions. You’ve got to stop this and make it perfectly clear: None. Don’t take out hitting. But take out hits to the head. Simply put, take out hits to the head. The same players who don All-Star jerseys compete in the Olympics and were once World Junior stars. They’re fine playing games—physical, brutal games where players still get injured on clean hits—without hits to the head. Just make it clear for everyone, once and for all, and eliminate those hits to the head.

Player safety: This goes from everything to concussions to keeping the ice safe during a game (call the rulebook).
You have to have officials who can keep control of the game. You have to make sure medical protocols are in place.

Vigilante justice: This came up in last night’s Pens-Isles game (prompting this letter). But right now, due to unclear rules about hits and inconsistent discipline, teams are attempting to take matters into their hands. And when they do so in violation of the NHL “code” (you hit our guy, our tough guy will fight the guy who made that hit), the NHL has a major problem on its hands. The league is a joke. The players aren’t safe. If you were a mother or father who had a child participating in that game, would you have feared for their safety? If you were a wife whose husband was playing, what would you have thought? What would you have told your kids if they were watching their father play? Bottom line: Vigilante justice cannot and must not be tolerated.


Here’s the major issue with last night’s game that cannot be allowed to creep across the rest of the NHL: The Islanders were allegedly upset about two clean hits from two Penguins. Letang hit Comeau with a clean shoulder-to-shoulder check that got him ejected from the game (the Pens, it should be noted, accepted a call their hometown fans called “bull----” after it happened and played the rest of the game sans incident) when Comeau was fine. Talbot hit Comeau with another clean hit (deemed so by the league, but not Islanders or their fans), but this one hurt Comeau and left him with a concussion.

Here’s my thing if I choose to play hockey or someday let my sons play hockey: It is a physical, violent sport. The players who play it, each and every game, are going to risk injury, and they’re risking serious injury. In the course of a hockey game, completely accidental plays, with no one intending to hurt anyone, can leave a star player gone for the season with torn ligaments. Completely clean hits that are a part of the game can leave a player hurt, and sometimes seriously hurt. Guess what? If you play hockey, you risk that you’re going to get hurt.

But what I couldn’t stand about last night’s game was the Islanders’ reaction to the previous hits. Rather than do what championship teams are coached to do (take hits like men and get up and play their game), they sought vigilante justice. They were out to hurt people. To deliberately injure opponents. And not an injury that would come about as part of an actual hockey game where a hard, clean check to get the puck separates someone’s shoulder because of an awkward landing. Not a broken ankle that comes from a player blocking a shot. But injuries that came from a deliberate intent to seek revenge for….

Oh, what? The Penguins played hockey? Letang hit Comeau when he had a scoring chance in a game earlier this season? Talbot was playing an aggressive defensive game? Eric Tangradi, a call-up who was trying to prove his worth after having been sent down for being ineffective in two previous NHL games, ends up concussed for simply playing the game and finishing his check?

The Penguins, despite being down by a touchdown, trying to play their game? Letang, still trying to score goals and play the feisty, aggressive game that’s helped him to have his best season thus far in the NHL? The Islanders being upset with Letang daring to be a defesenman who plays physical on their top players (tell me, if Chris Pronger or Chris Chelios played that way, who would be whining..er, never mind, but point is: defenseman play physical)? How dare Letang try to stop Tavares or Okposo from scoring. How dare he go to the net hard. How dare Talbot check a player. How dare the Penguins, down by a touchdown and sans their best players, still attempt to play actual hockey and get back to playing the way they need to play. How dare they play hockey.

And, NHL, that’s the scariest part of what you’ve allowed to spread across the league. Because your discipline is so inconsistent and because the players don’t know what the rules even are, the players—on the Islanders, anyway—don’t seem to recognize actual hockey when it happens. They don’t seem to get that a clean hit is a part of hockey. That don’t seem to understand something that coaches of organizations that win in the playoffs teach their players about winning the Cup.

But let’s take a glimpse of a Penguin, OK (just cause it’s the team I follow, but I am quite confident the coaches of the Flyers and Red Wings and certain other teams could give the same lessons and their fans could point to examples of this with their own players)?

Glimpse: It is a first round playoff game against the Ottawa Senators. Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang is behind his own net to play the puck. He sees two of Ottawa’s highest profile checking line forwards coming at him, and coming at him hard. Both players are going to ram him, and ram him hard. He could bail on the play.

It’s the playoffs. Letang doesn’t bail on the play. Instead, he takes the hit to make the play, and he gets the puck out of the Penguins’ end. The hit hurts. Letang is not paying a bit of attention to the two players who hit him. That’s hockey. He’s already dusted himself up and is hurrying up the ice, either to join a rush or get the change to a fresh defenseman his team needs.

Coaches of teams that win playoff series get that hitting happens as a part of hockey. They get that their teams need to play the same way all the time: play hard, take a hit to make a play, make a hit to take away the puck. Play physical on their top guys, just as they play physical on our top guys. Play physical within the rules. Oh—and if they’re going to do something stupid, we’re going to make them pay by scoring on the power play.

Anyhow, right now, NHL, it seems only a few of your franchises really get this concept. Really understand that hitting is a part of hockey when a player is near the puck. Really understand that defensemen who aspire to be elite have to play hard against the league’s top forwards. Really understand that hitting, actual hitting—not blindside headshots or blindside hits when no one’s near the puck—is part and parcel of hockey and no one needs to defend against them

(FYI, the appropriate response to a stupid retaliation--for both teams-- against a clean hit can be seen in 24/7: Malkin was penalized for retaliating against a clean hit a Flyer made on Crosby. The Flyers scored on the ensuing power play. Due to that power play goal, the Pens lost the game. After the game, the Pittsburgh coach clearly told his team and player that such retaliation was unacceptable. The Pens' coaching staff would reiterate the same message about retaliating against hits in preparing for a game against another high-profile opponent.)

But, dear NHL and the sport of hockey I love so much….could you, pretty please, with your enforcement of the rules, and communications to organizations, coaches, and players, help them to understand what this fan of the Penguins understands and what so many Islanders failed to understand?

That Letang and Talbot—no matter if the rest of their careers suck loads—already have their names on the Stanley Cup for a reason. Because they understand that hockey is hockey. Not something else. Because they took hits to make plays. Because they made hits to make plays.

And you know how wonderful that is every year, NHL? Why everyone loves when the Stanley Cup is raised?

Because that’s what hockey is all about. The players knowing the game, and what it’s about and what it’s not—and every player, from the enforcer to the All-Star, doing that in a team concept until one team wins 16 times.

Last night wasn’t hockey. And it’s not because Kris Letang couldn’t go do what he did in the All-Star game and skate around with no one hitting him. It’s because the Islanders were out to avenge the fact that the members of the Pittsburgh Penguins dared to play physical, actual hockey against their team. It’s because the Islanders, in “retaliation” for a couple of clean hits and losing a game in embarrassing fashion, couldn’t settle for what the Penguins have been taught to aim to settle for (winning the game in embarrassing fashion on the scoreboard).

The Islanders didn’t play hockey. In winning a blowout, all they revealed is that they don’t know how to play winning hockey.

But the Islanders also revealed that the NHL has a lot to fix. The NHL has to teach franchises (sadly, in the case of the Isles, one that once epitomized the class of the league, and no longer does) about what hockey is and what isn’t.

I’d suggest starting with banning all headshots and with swift reaction to any intent-to-injure that’s not a part of the hockey game at all.

Clearer rules and clearer enforcement of expectations?

Maybe then, when a suspension has to be handed down for something else, it’s few and far between. Because the players are on the ice are actually playing hockey. John Tavares is cleanly beating Kris Letang, or Kris Letang is checking Tavares and taking the puck off him. But two NHL players are doing what they do: playing hockey. Attempting to score, attempting to defend.

That’s hockey.

Last night, in the words of the Penguins’ coach and one of their still-standing All-Star players, was not.

And NHL, I love hockey. So, please, would you do whatever it takes to make sure hockey is played?

And while you’re at it—defend all that hockey talent from those who don’t have a clue how to play actual hockey. Because, remember, who made you fall in love with hockey in the first place? I guarantee you’ll tell me something like mine: It was either a star player or some component of an awesome team game when a player who's never been a "star" stepped up and helped his team win a huge game that mattered.

It wasn’t a brawl.

Fix it while you still have a chance…..hockey is violent and physical and we lose enough players to injuries and illness that happen as part of life and part of the game. We don’t need more losses of real, live hockey players from unclear rules and terrible enforcement of existing rules.

Dear NHL: I love you, I love hockey, but you’ve got fix this.

Love,

Your Long-Term Fan

Perspective: They’re Still Just Kids

So, in order to put the end of the 2009-10 season for the Pittsburgh Penguins in perspective, it’s time for a fill-in-the-blank quiz.

Question 1: How many of the age 26-and-under players on the 2009-10 Pittsburgh Penguins roster have never missed the playoffs in a full NHL season? Bonus: Name those players, and do the math to tell me what percentage of a game-night NHL roster those players are.

Answer: Seven

Bonus Answer: If we are considering a full NHL season to be no time spent in the minors at all, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Tyler Kennedy, Kristopher Letang, Alex Goligoski, and yes, indeed, Marc-Andre Fleury and Max Talbot have never missed the NHL playoffs in their NHL careers. Thirty-five percent of the 2009-10 Penguins, on game-night, had no clue what it’s like not to be a member of playoff team. (This percentage shifts to twenty-five percent if we consider the 2005-06 season where Fleury and Talbot played partial NHL seasons. Note this “reduced” percentage is still one-quarter of a game-night roster.)


Question 2: How many of the age 26-and-under players on the 2009-10 Pittsburgh Penguins roster, until the 2009-10 season, have always played on an NHL team that plays into June? Bonus: Name those players, and tell me what percentage of a game-night NHL roster those players are.

Answer: Three

Bonus Answer: Kris Letang, Tyler Kennedy, and Alex Goligoski, until 2010, had no clue what it was like to have summer start in the month of May. Summer for these players, when on the NHL roster, has always begun after the Cup has been raised in June. That’s fifteen percent of a game-night roster that, until May 12, 2010, had no concept of how an NHL season could not last through June.


Question 3: Prior to the 2009-10 NHL season, how many of the age 26-and-under players on the 2009-10 Pittsburgh Penguins have never before lost an NHL playoff series they were expected to win? Bonus: Name those players, and tell me what percentage of the game-night roster they comprised in the 2010 postseason.

Answer: Eight

Bonus Answer: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Marc-Andre Fleury, and Maxime Talbot were not universally expected to beat the Ottawa Senators in the first foray into the NHL postseason in 2007. Those five players, along with Tyler Kennedy and Kris Letang, were not expected to beat the Detroit Red Wings in the 2008 Cup Finals, either. Until the 2010 postseason, those seven players and Alex Goligoski didn’t have a clue about playing on an NHL team that loses a series it expects to win. Their first experience with failing to meet expectations, failing to win when they were universally expected to win, came only when the seconds clicked off the clock and the Montreal Canadiens assured the Penguins had no chance to be Eastern Conference champions for the third consecutive year. Oh, and those eight players comprised, during the 2010 playoffs, forty percent of Pittsburgh’s game-day roster.


Question 4: How many of the 26-and-under players on the 2009-10 Pittsburgh Penguins would you guess expected to advance, as they’ve become accustomed, to the Cup Finals in 2010?

Answer: There were 8 26-and-under players on the team, and 100% of them no doubt expected, once again, to be playing for hockey’s holy grail in June 2010. Take a glance at the answers to questions one to three above and you’ll no doubt fairly easily discern how and why those players came to hold and expect to meet such expectations.


Question 5: How many of the 26-and-under players on the 2009-10 Pittsburgh Penguins already have their names on the Stanley Cup? How many of them, when they retire, will always come with the label of “champion” and how many of them will always be appealing to other teams due to their “championship experience”?

Answer: All 8 of the 26-and-under players played a role on the 2009 Cup champion team, and some players played significant roles. The 2009 team wins the Cup sans none of those players (Goligoski had to play when Gonchar was injured, remember) and while they only have a ring for one hand at the moment, they still have a ring. They’ve won.


With all of this winning, of course, came the 2010 disappointment of the players, of the franchise itself, and of the fans. Because, you see, having gloriously delivered on hopes and dreams and expectations that were, for most of us, still close to “eventually” winning than winning “absolutely right now” in the 2009 season, an expectation arose around the core players that were still, gloriously, the age of kids, albeit at last all kids able to drink legally in the States. The kids, no longer children but forever champions, were expected to win. Year after year after year. The expectations had morphed from “win eventually” to “you have won; this is now the expectation.”

Cup or bust, not merely so to speak, but in reality.

Perhaps, however, we should examine another series of questions to see if, truly, we can put some further perspective around the Penguins’ 2010 postseason failure.


Question: How many minutes—or, er, games--did a 23-year-old Alex Goligoski play in the Penguins’ run to the 2009 Stanley Cup? How many minutes—er, games, did a 24-year-old Goligoski play in the Penguins’ abbreviated 2010 season?

Answer: Alex Goligoski played in two games in the 2009 run to the Stanley Cup and averaged 10 minutes on the ice per game. He served as the team’s seventh defenseman. Alex Goligoski played in 13 games in the 2010 postseason and averaged 20 minutes on the ice per game.


Question: What was a just-turned 22-year-old Kris Letang’s role (and approximate average minutes per game) on the 2009 Stanley Cup championship team? What was a just-turned 23-year-old Kris Letang’s role on the 2010 postseason Penguins?

Answer: Letang manned the point on the number one power play unit in 2009, but saw little time against the opposition’s best players and was rarely on the ice to defend a 1-goal lead. In 2010, Letang continued to man the point on the number one power play unit, but he was the defenseman on the ice, often, to protect a 1-goal lead, and he and his partner were (unlike the previous year) often on the ice against some of the opponent’s hottest scorers. He averaged 19 minutes per game in 2009; by 2010, his 23 minutes average on ice per game included time on the penalty kill (nonexistent in 2009) and his 2010 role was closer to #1 defenseman than to his 2009 part of young, promising power play specialist playing mostly protected minutes.


Question: (Actually, a series of questions pertaining to Evgeni Malkin) How old was Evgeni Malkin when he won the Art Ross Trophy and Conn Smythe Trophy, and who were his linemates in the 2009 postseason? How old was Evgeni Malkin when his point total dropped off in the 2009-10 regular season, and who were Malkin’s linemates in the 2009-10 regular season and postseason?


Answer: Malkin was 22 years old when he won the Art Ross Trophy and Conn Smythe Trophy. His linemates, for most of the year, were Petr Sykora and Ruslan Fedotenko. Max Talbot became his linemate, along with Fedotenko, in the 2009 postseason. At age 23, Malkin had a mish-mash of linemates in the regular season and postseason, sometimes Fedotenko, but never even a player close to “Sykora” or “Max Talbot 2009 postseason” level of scoring.


Question: (Actually, a series of questions about Marc-Andre Fleury) How old was Marc-Andre Fleury when he won the Cup in 2009? How old was Marc-Andre Fleury when he was pulled from Game 7 of the Montreal series in 2010? Respectively, how many regular season and playoff games has Fleury won?


Answer: Fleury was 24 when he won the Cup and 25 when he was pulled from Game 7 against the Canadiens in 2010. Fleury has won 148 regular season games and, in 3 postseason appearances, has won 38 games.


Question: Who led the NHL in slashing penalties in the 2010 regular season?
Who took an inadvertent (what some would also say was a “terrible call”) penalty a few seconds into Game 7 against the Canadiens? Who had over 100 of mostly “unnecessary” penalty minutes in the 2010 regular season and led the league in high-sticking penalties?

Answer: While no one in Pittsburgh wants to admit that Sidney Crosby isn’t perfect, fact of the matter is, Crosby, at times, is still a kid. He’s come a long way in channeling his emotions, but those emotions can still get the best of him on occasion (much less frequent than in prior years, but it still happens). Speaking of emotions getting the best of an elite player, Evgeni Malkin was the player with over 100 penalty minutes and who led the circuit in high-sticking penalties this season.


If you take a gander at the questions above, a few things—er, “themes”—no doubt stand out. You can’t help but notice that none of the players played as well in the 2010 postseason as he did in the 2009 postseason. And you can’t help but notice, too, for some of the players, they, still kids, experienced new things, much to their—and yes, the franchise’s and the fans’—pain:

~There was Kris Letang playing like he did in Game 5 against the Canadiens; a two-way stalwart who looked every bit like the #1 defenseman at both ends of the ice the Penguins needed him to be this postseason. And then there were the awful moments of Letang looking more like regular season Mike Green (scoring goals but not exactly lighting the world on fire in his own zone) or of regular season Letang (missing the net).

~There was Alex Goligoski playing full-time in the postseason, learning about the night-in, night-out rigors of the NHL playoffs.

~There were Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, against the Canadiens, struggling to score, not consistently meshing with linemates, failing to take over games as they’d alternated doing the previous spring.

~There was the struggle of Malkin throughout the regular season and occasionally in the postseason to control his emotions, and though Crosby’s come a long way since age eighteen, there was the reminder, too, that even at 22, there’s still more emotional development to come in terms of positively controlling his emotions.

~There was Marc-Andre Fleury fighting the puck, being more “off” his game than “on” and not coming up with the big save he so regularly came up with (despite, yes, the soft goals and they were still there) back in 2009.

~There were the “young” role players, Talbot and Kennedy, so critical to the team’s 2009 run, scoring game-winning goals, not able to find that spark and that magic in the same way in the 2010 postseason.

~There was Staal’s quick comeback from surgery, but there was also a third line that never caught fire as it had in the 2009 postseason.


The overall twin themes that stood out were twofold: “They weren’t as good as last year, and they weren’t good enough.”

Yes. But here’s the thing. Take a gander, again, at their ages.
Seriously. Are not teams featuring a #1 defenseman in his prime, rather than one learning on the job, much more likely to play in the Cup Finals? (The Cup champion Penguins of 2009 and Cup champion Red Wings of 2008, along with Sergei Gonchar and Nicklas Lidstrom, say hello, not to mention the Cup champion Anaheim Ducks of 2007 and their two-top defensemen of Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger .)

Are not teams whose superstars, who have to be the center of attention (literally), more likely to win when those centers have linemates—not necessarily superstars—but linemates with whom they mesh, who can read the play, who can also play a key role on that line, including scoring a timely goal here or there?

Seriously. While hockey is undoubtedly a young men’s game, aren’t all these players still—for the next few seasons, anyhow—young men? Aren’t some of them still rightfully classified as “kids”?

Can we expect Crosby and Malkin to mature in terms of channeling their emotions? Can we expect Letang and Goligoski to understand the NHL game better by having gotten—however painfully it came—the experience they got this postseason? Should we not expect a still, by any standard, young goaltender to continually mature in terms of focus and concentration? Should we expect a 21-year-old already nominated as the league’s best defensive forward to continue to develop his two-way game even more as he learns how capable he is at both ends of the ice? Should we not expect role players, more and more, to grow into those roles and understand them and play those roles to the best of their ability, which, as they learn the game, are going to increase?


Final Question: How many age 26-and-under players were on the roster of the 2009-10 Pittsburgh Penguins, and how many of those players will return for the 2010-11 season? Bonus: Name those players.

Final (and Bonus) Answer: Barring trades, 100% of the 26-and-under crowd is under contract for the 2010-11 season, and Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Fleury, Letang, Kennedy, Talbot, and Goligoski have already won one title.

And the final summation is not a question and answer, but a fact. Look at the ages of the players. Accept that, though they’d won once and we—and they—erroneously assumed they’d learn all they’d ever need to know about winning and would thus never lose again—that they had more lessons to learn.

But if you remember back to this picture?

And to this one ?

And then this one?

Didn’t they learn their lessons?

Will they learn their lesson, this season, in time for next season?

Who knows? One can’t give two young NHL defensemen the equivalent of three years of experience in a single season, and a general manager has got to work tricks with his salary cap to give his superstar centers wingers with whom they “mesh”, so to speak. Plus, there’s the fact that injuries come into play, but good health for Talbot and Kennedy, and, of course, for all the young “core” players, matters (and not facing a white-hot opposing goalie could also be a very good thing). Along with the fact that, yes, mental focus and concentration, and more emotional control, could no doubt help in the case of the penalties taken by the superstar centers (and yes, Malkin took them way more frequently than Crosby for anyone who thinks I’m saying the two are equivalent—I’m not), and if Jordan Staal could add to his game the ability to plant himself in front of the net on the power play on a consistent basis, the Penguins, suddenly, might need to worry less about a “big winger”.

But the fact remains this. The kids are former champions now, as an AP article so aptly put it. They’re no longer the reigning or defending champs.

They’re learning how it feels to lose when they were expected to win. And, hopefully, they’ve learned what it’s going to take to win again.

So, you see, if, after a rest, this summer is spent on….

Fleury sharpening his mental focus

Crosby and Malkin practicing emotional control (and yes, despite Malkin’s more regular season penalties), both players remain young men who still need to the learn the fine art of channeling their emotions in the most productive fashion possible

Kris Letang remembers, in a positive way, missing that net in Game 7 against Montreal by spending the summer harnessing his shot to the point that he consistently hits the net

Alex Goligoski adds muscle and works on his defensive game

Talbot and Kennedy make sure they’re rehabilitated from injuries to health…

Staal, already so good, so young, adding continuing to up his physical, offensive game….

Then, of course, much of the rest will depend on the general manager and the coaching staff providing the right pieces and putting those players in the best position to win. And injuries could come, other issues could come, but the thing is….

If I’m the Penguins’ marketing department, I don’t talk so much about getting back to where we were (climbing the mountaintop) as much as I focus on playing as who we are.

Kids who know expectations are sky-high, and kids who have learned, and are continuously learning and are going to have to keep learning and improving all the time, how to play out of their explosive talent at the highest level in the NHL, as everyone—because they know they’ve won once—lines up against them and conceives and dreams up ways to stop them from winning again.

Because they’re still kids. There’s still learning and development and growth to come. For the franchise and the fans, and for players who, for the first time ever, and for the first time in a long time, felt the sting of failing to expectations and of losing, let’s hope these lessons, in the words of an old Penguins’ video, “bear fruit in years to come”.

Hopefully next season. But maybe not until their number 1 defenseman is an in-his-prime stalwart and the GM and coach have figured out how to put the right players in place and get the best out of all their players by making sure their trio of centers all has linemates with whom they can perform at peak productivity.

But remember these kids here and then here?

That's still who they are. Great kids.

So, boys, play like it. See you in October, and hopefully, sometime again soon, where you belong. On the ice in June.

The Oughts and Ought-Nots
Reality & Fantasy
Sports, Olympics, & Why We Watch
Oh, also, of course, Aleksey Morozov

When it came to hockey and the Pittsburgh Penguins, I spent my high school and collegiate years hoping against hope, and waiting impatiently, for the Penguins' 1995 1st round draft choice, Aleksey Morozov, to put it all together in North America. I remember my disappointment and impatience at the end of tenth grade, and rather than pay attention to content in a class I hated, spending moments recalling and reliving Morozov's previous evening failure to score on a penalty shot in a series against the Montreal Canadians. And I remember the stark fixation in my mind at age fifteen: someday, sometime, this kid--the fact he didn't score on a penalty shot aside--his talent's too obvious. He's got it put it all together at some point.

And I remember, perhaps four or five years later, sitting at a local Pittsburgh ice rink, reading an article about how Morozov--obviously counted upon to score goals--was enduring a 43 game goalless streak. Yeah, the kid who was once known as the "best hockey player in the world outside North America" simply didn't put the puck in the net for more than 40 games. And still, now a college student, no longer a high school kid, I kept holding onto hope. Surely this 43 game goalless drought was a mirage. Surely Morozov was going to emerge.

You see, in a previous Pittsburgh hockey player I'd "called correctly," I'd seen a young, European winger who was initially unable to adjust well to North American hockey. As a hockey-obsessed sixth grader, I wrote a "year-end" piece for a school project cricitizing Eddie Johnston for his handling of the then-rookie, Markus Naslund. Two years later, as an eighth grader, I'd "argue" with my English teacher when he suggested that Naslund "could be good if he'd play a little defense." And I'd stick firmly to my adolescent guns (at age 11, 12, and 13) when Craig Patrick decided to trade Markus Naslund. That Naslund, somehow, sometime, was going to be a star. That someday, sometime, the Penguins, and Craig Patrick, were going to regret trading him. That I, at age eleven, knew something that Patrick and the Penguins weren't willing to acknowledge, or at least weren't willing to wait on. That I saw something others had ceased seeing, or at least at stopped believing in: Naslund's potential. The obvious talent, albeit not talent showing out in the form of productive performance for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

During my freshman year of college, around the time Pittsburgh hockey fans were busy labeling a 23-year-old Aleksey Morozov a "bust" and providing me with the inspiration for a short story I had to write for a creative writing workshop, Markus Naslund was piling up honors as hockey's best player. Yes, you read that right. Naslund was close to leading the league in scoring. He was a world-class goal scorer. He had emerged that season not just as hockey's best player--voted on by his peers, fellow players who awarded him the Lester Pearson Trophy, as voted by the NHLPA--but as the heart and soul of his new franchise, the Vancouver Canucks. "Nazzy" wore the captain's C and was beloved by the Vancouver fan base. And the Sports Illustrated article I read in my downtime at a campus library job, rather than in high school geometry class, calmly noted that Craig Patrick's trade of Naslund was "the worst trade in NHL history."

I'm not writing to talk about all the facts so well known by fans of Pittsburgh's NHL franchise: that Naslund needed a change of scenery, that the development that had to happen for him wasn't likely to happen in Pittsburgh, that the former first-round pick who came in exchange for him suffered injuries that basically wrecked his chance at an NHL career, that Naslund still needed time, lots of time, before he'd bloom into the very heartbeat of the Vancouver Canucks. Because, I'm not writing about Markus Naslund.

Nope. As noted in the title of this post, I'm writing about what I made it a point to tape on my DVR. And what I made it a point to watch. And that was Aleksey Morozov, on his 33rd birthday, proudly wearing the captain's C for his national team. Aleksey Morozov, the kid who was labeled a "bust" by the Pittsburgh faithful, the "skinny, not confident," kid, as described by a former Penguins' beat writer, mucking it up on a North American sized rink. Forcing turnovers. High-sticked in the mouth, blood gushing from his mouth, Morozov doing what all hockey players, and, of course, all leaders do, getting treatment, and being back on the ice for his next shift.

But, really, I'm not writing about Naslund or about Morozov. I'm not writing about how nice it is to think that, as an 11-year-old, I had good "scouting" instincts when it came to Markus Naslund, or, though I was obviously wrong about Morozov ever exploding in the NHL, I wasn't wrong--given the statistics and honors Morozov's piled up in the KHL--that it's nice to know, in adolescence, I still, intuitively, recognized a talented hockey player when I saw one. Nope. I'm not interested in writing about those specifics.

What I'm writing about it why I, and so many other people, tune into the Olympic games, and not just to the Olympics, but to sports in general. Because, you see, too often in sports, as in life, everything we see is an example of what ought not to be. You know, a team giving up on a kid who screams and spills over with potential because he just can't get it together and because they can't figure out how to help him pull his game together. A player unable to adjust to a new culture, or a new league, and fleeing back to what's comfortable and familiar rather than growing and adapting his game to be all he could be--one of the most complete and best players in his sport. When it comes to sports, and oh so glaringly often and disappointingly frequent in the years when Morozov and Naslund wore the jersey of the Pittsburgh Penguins, I saw what I see all the time: what ought not to be. What's never supposed to be. When the talent's there. When it's obvious this isn't how things are supposed to work if, you know, everything would work right. The team would know how to develop players; the players would know how to produce.

Yet, every so occasionally in sports--usually once a year professionally, and once every four years in the Olympics--we get an example not of what ought not to be, but for one team, a glimpse of what ought to be. Of what's supposed to be. Of what we anticipate we should see. Of what we actually expect to see. Of what those Vancouver Canucks fans got to see in the years when "Captain Nazzy" was the heartbeat of their franchise. Of what I only caught a glimpse of, at one point in the awful, losing seasons when the Penguins were accumulating the many losses that would win them the rights to draft players of the ilk of Malkin, Fleury, and Staal, when Aleksey Morozov scored a goal and proudly tugged at his jersey, showing off the Penguin on his jersey crest to all the faithful Pittsburgh fans to an uproar of applause.

You see. Only one team's going to win Olympic gold. But in the competition. There are going to be those moments. Those moments like the ones in the Russian game yesterday. When Sergei Fedorov, at 40, still dishes off a saucer pass, and you think, for a moment, that Fedorov is still at the peak of his playing prowess. When Peter Forsberg, tonight, as an announcer noted, "doesn't look 36." When, as hopefully my DVR captures at some point, Jaromir Jagr still has a skating stride that reminds of the stallion strength that epitomized his game for so many years.

And, of course, of Aleksey Morozov. Of the kid who's become a married man, a 33-year-old captain, who carried the Olympic flag for his nation. Of the player his comrades elected to be their leader. And of the player who, as I finally got to see, oh, of course, in a game that Russia was expected to win handily against the team that's expected to finish close to last in men's ice hockey, doing what he, as a player, was always expected to do.

Shoot and score. Find that seam, that opening right in the slot, and go there. Oh. Play on the penalty kill. Play on the power play. Take a stick in the face and keep playing. Go to the corners and grind it out, force turnovers, and oh--

In those glimpses I saw of #95, the player I spend so many years of adolesecence just waiting to put it all together, I got another reminder of why I love sports. Of why I watch sports. Because, you see, it's in those moments when I see the reminder of what ought to be.

Sports, of course, as will likely be the case in this tournament during those moments when the pushing 40 crowd just looks old, as will happen when an NHL player turns the Russian captain inside out, will also remind, as did those years of Pittsburgh purgatory for Naslund and Morozov, all too often, of what ought not to be.

But there are beautiful glimpses and glimmers of glory in all these games. Of what's supposed to be. Of what ought to be.

And, honestly, I'm no longer an 11 or 13-year-old kid, no longer even a 15-year-old adolescent. The longer you're around, the more used you get to seeing the years of Pittsburgh purgatory. The more accustomed and acclimated you are to believing that what ought not to be is, simply, just what's always going to be.

When it comes to the youngsters (albeit they all already have Cup rings, so at least that huge expectation has already been met) comprising the roster of the current Pittsburgh Penguins, the soul of the 11, 13, and 15-year-old girl still lurks. The one that confidently states: "Do you have any idea what these kids are going to be?" The one who can only see glimpses, tiny glimpses, in the players' current performance, and yet who still believes.

Yet for the self-described "millenial professional" who's become accustomed to a world where proof is demanded before any human being can even begin to be predisposed to belief, the once-correct, oh-so-confident statements made about players like Naslund and Morozov, are so much easier to make with confidence about today's circumstances when I get the chance, flicking on the TV after a day of work, to see Aleksey Morozov, captain of the Russian Olympic hockey squad, do what he was always supposed to do: lead, shoot, and score.

And so I watch. And so the DVR records. And so I sneak a glimpse, when time permits. And, so, too, apparently, I still write, as I wrote back when I was eleven about Naslund. As I wrote, though it was under a fiction guise, about a fictional creation like Morozov. And, in so doing, I remind myself that while sports, in those moments and years of no production coming from those with all the potential in the world in Naslund and Morozov, tell me about the life I've learned so well, about what ought not to be, that sports, as in the Markus Nalsund I read about that freshman year of college, the Aleksey Morozov that former Penguins' beat reporter got to interview in Vancouver, and the Russian captain I got to watch on my TV tonight, those same sports also tell me about the life it's so easy to forget about: about what's supposed to be, what's always ought to have been, what actually ought to be, and what, sometimes, still, actually, is.

And what human being, in a world where so much is as it ought not to be, doesn't need those glimpses and glimmers of glory, those reminders that yes, it is possible and real, albeit never perfectly or constantly, but it's real and actual, to see and live out the possible reality that what ought to be actually is?

So, set your DVRs. Or, check out the streams online or read about the games from your phone. Because these reminders, when they come around, however they come around--for me, it's Aleksey Morozov as the captain of the men's Russian hockey team--trumpet the clarion call that seeing what ought to be portends that it's now possible to believe that what ought to be actually can be. And, really, c'mon, isn't that all I, even as a kid and teenager, was looking for in Naslund and Morozov....and isn't that, on some level, anyhow, why we tune in to watch these games?

Believing that there's a real "ought" when we're mired in the midst of all the "ought-nots". And, for those who need to see to believe, what better venue the spectacle of sports, at the Olympics, to have such belief restored?

Semi or Super-Serious "Life & Hockey" Post

Jaromir Jagr, Sergei Fedorov, and Peter Forsberg are considered the "veteran" old men of (respectively) the Czech Republic, Russian, and Swedish Olympic hockey teams.

I remember all of these players before they hit their primes. When I was a teenager, these players were just hitting their prime years. But I distinctly remember them as young and promising. And, perhaps more importantly, I remember them as dominant champions. Jagr twirling through 4 Blackhawks in the 1992 Finals; Jagr in the 1999 playoffs willing his Pittsburgh Penguins past the New Jersey Devils while playing through a significant groin injury.

The memories of Fedorov and Forsberg aren't as strong as are my many hometown-laden Jagr memories, but they're there. Fedorov on those dominant Detroit teams. Fedorov as the league MVP, as the NHL's best player, Fedorov playing on the same team as Steve Yzerman. Forsberg being an incredible mix of brute strength and scoring acumen, Forsberg winning championships and playing on the same team as Joe Sakic.

And then comes the 2010 Olympics. And the memories are mixed. Because, juxtaposed with the memories of utter dominance, come the more recent quotes.

Fedorov, at one point last season, quoted in the Washington Post. Along with his brother, watching old clips of himself on YouTube. And the quote: "Once, I was good." Fedorov, marveling at what he once was able to do on the ice.

Similar to last season's Fedorov quote, Jagr's most recent quote on regrowing his mullet is full of, well, poignancy probably sounds overbearing. Wistfulness? Here's the quote: "I thought about how I could be closer to the Jagr of 15 years ago. I'm not going to be the guy. I'm going to be a guy. I'm not going to score the goals I did. So I decided to grow the hair." Jaromir Jagr, at age 38 now, two decades removed from his NHL rookie season, closer to the end of his career than the end, no longer able to do what he once did on the ice, and, to remember who he was, he's reduced to restoring the mullet he abandoned back in the nineties, when, by the way, he was the best player in the dead-puck era of NHL clutch-and-grab hockey and regularly put up 100 point season with two defensemen draped all over him?

In sports, aging and retirement are inevitable, as evidenced, in the Olympics, by the fact that the executive directors of the Olympic hockey teams are, most typically, former star players. But former star players all age, and hockey, especially today, is a young man's sport. Close to forty in life means half a life yet to be lived, and yet, the to-this-point all-consuming life work of professional hockey is close to coming to an end for Jagr, Fedorov, and Forsberg.

And allow me to protest: I don't like it, and I don't want to accept it. I have always viewed the inevitable aging and retirement of athletes as a corollary for the fact that all human beings (though, in my late twenties, I don't like it think about it a lot) will eventually die. And frankly speaking, facing the inevitable, which is clearly seen in the stat lines that Jagr and Fedorov currently put up in the KHL, that all athletes age and retire--I've seen it. I accept it. I get it.

Because, you see, at my age, I've already seen this. Not yet for the players, like Fedorov and Jagr, I can recall as kids. But for Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Ron Francis; I've seen this before, I know this story, and I just get it. I accept it. It's part of sports, part of the game, and when it comes to "real life," this is just real life. People get old. People die. That, this side of eternity, is part of what it means to be alive: to acknowledge these realities.

Yet, allow me to be honest about the "graybeards," hard as it is for me to think of men who once flew all over the ice as "aged veterans". I get that they're not going to be "the" guy. I get that they're there not because they can still play thirty minutes a game with no issue but because they're to supplement the young stars who can play those thirty minutes a night.

But, because, this is, most likely, the last hurrah, allow me to admit why I'm going to use the technology I love to tape the Czech Republic and Russian games I can't stay awake to see (what with you know, real world responsibilities of work and other things). I don't need to see them be "the" guy anymore. The YouTube clips that Fedorov perused with his brother; contemporary technology allows me to see those clips of Fedorov, Forsberg, and Jagr in their dominant glory whenever I feel like it.

I'm not interested in the past at these Olympics. I'm interested in the present. And I'm looking for that reminder. Just that glimpse of what once was. That I saw of Fedorov, yes, even in the playoffs last season. That I hope to see in Jagr. That all Sweden is hoping to see, one more time, in Forsberg who was originally an amateur Olympic hero.

Because, you see, I'm an adult now. I get and grasp that players get old and retire, and I get the corollary of what that inevitability in the world of sports translates to in the realm of all human life. But, you see, in the midst of that grown-up, grounded reality, it's important to remember that reality isn't the whole story, the complete story, or the true story.

That Forsberg, Fedorov, and Jagr aren't just hockey players who had what happens to a human body when it's been playing a sport at an elite level for a half a lifetime happen to them. That, whether it's a one-time look at a sweet shootout move of Forsberg's, or a smart play by Fedorov, or Jagr easily shaking off a defenseman, that there remains a glimpse of what, along with the grounded reality that every pro athlete gets too old and has to retire, always has been true. That Jagr, Fedorov, and Forsberg; even though they're no longer at their peak, in their prime, still have something to contribute, and that contribution is based on who they still are, always have been, and always will be.

So I'll be watching those Olympic hockey games for a glimpse from the old graybeards, from the once-dominant stars it's still hard for me to acknowledge as slower, experienced veterans, and, if, because I don't have the time, as I once did, just to watch the hockey games with no other thought, I'm pretty sure someone, though they may not have blogged about it like this, will have a similar thought, even consciously, and upload the clip to YouTube as a "Check out what he just--and still--did!"

Because, really, isn't that part of what the Olympics are all about? That reminder that the whole story isn't always the ordinary but, however cliche it is, extraordinary?

Even if the extraordinary is no longer being the dominant driving forces who propel your team to a gold medal but rather playing on bottom lines and contributing all you have left to give, even if "all that" is a mere couple of points and lots of simply being a presence who's there to direct, guide, and nudge those still physically capable of making the extraordinary difference on the scoreboard to fulfill what they can in the oh-so-short time that remains when they're at the top of their games, the top of the world, and capable of competing at the most elite level?

Girls, Women, Ice Hockey & Sports

Much as I bemoaned NBC's advertisements at annoying times, I really loved one ad I watched tonight. It was an advertisement that I don't think airs all that well except in North America. It's a mother talking about what her daughter's going to learn from playing ice hockey. Lessons learned. Who she's going to become. And, really, I can't help but wonder how that particular ad would play, for example, in countries around the world where girls aren't expected to learn lessons from sports that they can draw on as adult women.

I'm female. I grew up loving hockey, but not playing the game in an organized fashion (backyard street hockey, fun as it was, doesn't count). And, I'll be honest. Watching men play hockey is and always has been more exciting to me than watching women play. Men's hockey is a different game than women's hockey--checking is part of the men's game; it's not in women's hockey. Most men, physically, are simply bigger, stronger, and faster than most women, and it is my opinion that men's hockey will always be played at a faster, better level than women's hockey by simple virtue of biological, genetic differences.

Yet watching that ad--as a girl who loved sports, as a woman who still loves sports--was encouraging in a way that Olympic women's ice hockey often isn't. Because, typically, Canada and the United States duke it out for gold in women's ice hockey every four years. More often than not, the United States and Canada blow out opposing nations. And when I think about the advertisement I saw tonight and about the quality of women's hockey in other nations, I can't help but wonder. Wonder how that advertisement about sports helping a girl become a woman plays in nations where--it's obvious, Olympic results bear this out--where, at the very least, sports for women are simply not invested in to the same degree as are those same sports for men.

I'm grateful I was born when I was: the chance to play girls' sports as a kid, the chance to learn about winning and losing and effort and so much more from sports, and the progress I've seen, even in the past ten years, in the programs that have sprouted up all over this country, given women the chance to play their own game, develop their own identities, and I'm especially excited to see this in the sport I grew up adoring. Excited to see that the same characteristics I'd want to see developed in all kids--teamwork and sacrifice, support and hard work--can now be developed and cultivated in both boys and girls given the opportunities now available to both sexes. It's thrilling to know that children yet to be born will grow up, in the States and in Canada, anyway, that boys and girls both will get the chance to play sports, and, in so doing, learn all those things so essential to life, whether commitment, endurance, or getting up after you get hurt or beat.

Yet the Olympic results linger. The blowouts of the United States and Canada. The need for further development, and not merely of better developmental women's ice hockey programs in nations around the world. And, without getting too serious on a hockey blog, what the women's sports training reflects about how far we've come. And how far we've yet to go.
About how that ad I adored shouldn't just be played in Canada and the United States. And that it's not about the women playing "with" the men (honestly, women's and men's hockey are different games and should be) as it is, simply, having it said: You're not the same as we are, but you're equal, and as such, you get the same chance we do to learn, to play, to grow, to develop.

So, you know, I'm hoping that, in subsequent Olympics, women's ice hockey becomes way more competitive. Not that I, an ardent patriot when it comes to the women's games (no conflicting interests with NHL players here!) don't still want the American women to win gold. But because, when that level of hockey rises, it's not just about women's ice hockey being more competitive.

It's about that mother/daughter ice-hockey ad being able to be played in countries around the world, and it's about girls having the chance to experience for themselves--not just from watching men--and learn all those lessons that it was once thought they couldn't learn, or, at best, didn't need to learn, and stating, clearly, explicitly: Not only can you learn those lessons, you've got to learn those lessons. So you can show us. So you can teach us. So we can see what you do so we know and learn how to do it for ourselves.

Here's to hoping women's Olympics hockey doesn't remain a 2 (to 3 or 4, at best) nation competition and that future generations of girls get to learn all the lessons of triumph and sacrifice, loss and progress, from heroes of both the men's game and the women's game.

The NBC Post
Also, The Technology Post*

I hate NBC.

I hate NBC's hockey coverage.

I hate a network that's losing millions of dollars on the Olympics believing it is more important that I see advertisements than a power play.

I hate a network telling me I can expect to see a specific match-up at a certain time not following through on what they said I should expect to see at that time.

I love technology that allows for live streams of actual, adequate hockey coverage.

I love technology that allows for live streams of actual, adequate hockey coverage to be recorded and watched and replayed and enjoyed for posterity.

I love technology that allows me to record, and later watch, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin playing with elite wingers, while also allowing me to get the necessary human staple of several hours of nighttime sleep.

*Note: Love and hate are strong words, here used for impact. "Dislike" and "like," while perhaps more true, do not appear to have the same impact.

The Trade-Offs of a Salary Cap Era

Quick historical facts:

• I once watched a championship team comprised of: arguably the most talented center of all time, a "second-line" center who would be a first ballot entry into Hockey's Hall, a bevy of scoring wingers (at least four) who would end their careers having scored hundreds of goals in the NHL, and two defensemen who ended their careers atop the list of the highest scoring defensemen of all time.
  

• The first championship team I watched played in 1991. Before NHL salaries skyrocketed. Before a salary cap had to be implemented.

• While I grew up watching superstars do what superstars do by default--star-- for my team, I watched a team owner try to keep a team together, saw my team fall into bankruptcy, and watched superstar talent, quite literally, auctioned off for very little in return (the initial "return" was years of losing, the later "return" would come in the form of very high draft picks earned during those losing seasons).

Quick present-day facts:

• The NHL has a salary cap designed to ensure that a well-managed, well-run team can remain competitive. That no "rich" team or "rich" owner can merely "outspend" and in so doing, capture a championship. To level the playing field, so to speak. And, of course, in an attempt to keep salaries, at least relatively speaking, in appropriate line with revenue.

• I watched a flawed, imperfect team capture a championship last year. Make no mistake: the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins earned the right to be called champions. Make no mistake, either, that the Cup champions of 2009 were no match for the depth of the 1991 Cup champions. That 1991 team had centers of Lemieux-Francis-Trottier (admittedly Trottier in the twilight of his career), flanked by wingers named Recchi, Stevens, Mullen, and Jagr, and, were not that enough, the back-end featured the names of Coffey, Murphy, and Samuelsson.

• In the 2009-10 season, I watch Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and know they have no equivalent of wings who went by the names of Jagr, Recchi, Stevens, Tocchet, or Mullen. I watch deep, deep teams, like the Chicago Blackhawks, and know that there is going to be "cap space" trouble as soon as next season. The salary cap and contemporary salaries simply do not allow for a team with the depth of the 1991 Cup champions to be comprised, or, if somehow comprised, to remain together for more than a season.

Reflections on the Inevitable "Trade-Offs" that come with a Salary Cap:

• I watched my team go through bankruptcy. I watched superstars and even just above-average NHL players traded because of poor financial decisions, sure, but also because the league didn't have an appropriate economic structure with a salary cap in place. I saw the heights of hockey glory in championships captured and the dearths of superstars traded for a bag of money (yes, literally in one case) and the hockey equivalent of dead weight.

• Trade-offs have to happen. In a salary cap world where it is simply impossible to have it all, choices have to be made. You want the best top three centers in hockey, it means you're simply not going to have an elite winger, unless you somehow luck into a kid like a teenaged Jagr, who can pop in around 30 goals on a rookie contract. If you want to pay for a clutch goaltender, for an elite #1 defenseman, you give your superstar centers the best you can give them. But you can't give them everything. And, yeah, that means, in some sense, you will never have a team that's as deeply laden with future HOF talent as were the previous championship teams of your franchise. It's simply no longer feasible in the actual circumstances of reality.
  

A Few Conclusions About the Inevitable "Trade-Offs" that Come with the Cap:

• Trade-offs get made. You want an elite winger; you're likely going to have to give up an elite center. Your team is going to change. Or, if you want to keep your center depth, you live with the fact that your wingers will can never match the "elite" skill set of your centers, and you go for players who can complement rather than seek ones who can independently dominate.
  

• If there ever comes a day when someone marvels--as I do when I look back at the HOF-laden roster of the 1991 Cup champions--at how in the world the Penguins once had Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Fleury, and, for kicks and giggles, let's hope Letang and Goligoski and Kennedy and Talbot all develop really, really well, on the same roster, there's going to be an answer that anyone who watched the 2009 playoffs knows too well. That Crosby and Malkin, while already dominant, were only becoming who they would be. That Staal showed glimpses of the utterly dominant two-way force he'd eventually become in his prime. That Goligoski didn't even see the ice except for an injury to Sergei Gonchar, that Kris Letang( who we can dream becomes a dominant two-way stalwart) was a 21-year-old playing protected minutes who didn't see any penalty killing time, that Talbot and Kennedy weren't yet known for who they'd later be known as: clutch, incredibly important, supporting role players who threw in key goals. We'd know that we watched a championship team that had the fortune of having many of those "kids" still on rookie contracts. And we'd know that when those kids became champions and started consistently performing as they did in the playoffs, that, given the cap, given real-world constraints, at some point, without the NHL exploding in new revenue, it wouldn't be possible to keep that core together, forever. Not if five of those kids somehow become worth $10 million dollars apiece.
  

Overall Summary:

Having seen what I saw when the Penguins couldn't sustain the superstars in the old NHL economic model, I get the need for the new one. For the cap. For long-term sustainability. Simply put, it just makes sense.

And, I get, too, the reality of the salary cap means that it's only going to be at the Olympics, or All-Star Games, where a trio of three expensive, superstar centers gets to have equally elite wingers as playmates/linemates.

More than that, though, go, the salary cap speaks of a reality I've learned too well, that nothing good in sports lasts forever. That contenders contend for a finite amount of time.

That, for the moment, I need to enjoy whatever I have the chance to watch. Whether that's an infuriatingly underperforming Penguins' power play featuring, perhaps, three future Hall of Famers (or, who knows, maybe there could be five depending on how the kids develop) or last year's championship team or this year's defending champs, the thing is: the trade-offs happen. In a cap era, for the promise that every team will have a real shot to experience what my team got the chance to experience last year (the Cup!), I live with the inevitable reality that I will never again see--except for All-Star Games or Olympic games--a power play that looks anything like the one the 1991 Penguins iced. And that, on the off chance I'm seeing five future Hall of Fame players on the ice at the same time, I'm likely seeing them before they're who they're going to be with time and development.

But do you know what? For every team to have a fair, equal shot at hockey's holy grail? Seeing that glimpse of glory, achieved last season, by those Pittsburgh kids--it's only right to make sure there's an even playing field. An actual chance.

That's what the cap, and 21st century economic reality, provides for every NHL team. Every season.

So when your flawed team captures the crown, rejoice in what you've had the chance to witness rather than wince because you've just watched an inevitably, in some way, flawed team win it all.

In economic terms, is this "satisficing"? Yes. It's not going to be the Penguins of the early nineties or even the Red Wings of early this millennium. But ask the players who capture the Cup each season, and ask the fans.

It's the best trade-off we can make. And, when the Olympics and All-Star games, or that one special season comes, just sit back and watch.

As I've already done tonight....Sidney Crosby with a playmate, now Evgeni Malkin with one, too.

Please, simply, just, only, always, enjoy the show.

My Wild Imagination
American Inferiority Complex
The Canadian Hockey Complex

I love hockey. I'm capable of spending hours a week (if I can find the time, or if I just want to relax, or whatever) following my favorite sport. World Juniors. Prospects. KHL. And, of course, reading everything and anything about my favorite and hometown team, the Penguins. But, let me admit this: before the start of tonight's Canada-Norway match-up, I had no idea what the name of the Norwegian goaltender was. Seriously. It just wasn't a piece of information I had bothered to acquire. I look at a Canada-Norway match-up and assume "easy win for Canada".

And then comes the first period. And, though Canada is outshooting Norway and the Norwegians are taking penalties, and penalties galore (for those who don't follow hockey closely, this is typically a recipe for later disaster), my mind starts to dance as only the mind of a non-Canadian hockey fan can dance.

How much fun would it be to see.....oh, how fun, how spiteful would it be to see:

• The heavily favored Canadians failing to win their first game on home soil
• The Canadian media and fans freaking and flipping out (and that's an understatement); widespread worry and panic; a complete loss of all perspective--and all over 1 "little" loss that could cause a day of mourning in Canada
  
• A totally unknown goaltender, a team with very few NHL players, shutting down the home team, the team favored to win gold

Yeah, I'm a hockey fan. I'm a fan of the Penguins, a fan of Sidney Crosby and of several other players on the Canadian team. And still, I'm having these--um, perhaps the best terms are "malicious" and "evil"--thoughts in regards to an epic 1st game collapse by the Canadians?

Why do I have those thoughts?

Because, you see, there's this way Canada is with hockey. And it's something that's always rubbed me the wrong way. The idea that hockey is always, and only, Canada's game. If you want to get a little grasp of this concept, watch Coach's Corner with Don Cherry, and if you listen to "Grapes," (primarily an excellent entertainer who grabs attention due to how well he pushes buttons), you'll get this sense of entitlement Canadians have with their favorite sport.

And, in some sense, that "entitlement" comes from the fact that hockey is woven into the very fabric of Canadian life. Hockey Night In Canada, and Coach's Corner, is simply a staple of Saturday nights across that nation. Kids grow up playing hockey. Hockey is "their" game.

Yet let me be honest. I grew up watching hockey. And I grew up, blessedly enough, with absolutely no personal memory of the geopolitical context of the Cold War. I grew up watching, and thinking it completely normal, that English Canadians and French Canadians, Americans, Swedes, and, oh yes, Russians and Czechs, could all play on the same team and work to achieve the same goal. I grew up rooting for Mario Lemieux and Paul Coffey, Joe Mullen and Ulf Samuelsson, and Jaromir Jagr. As an adolescent, I'd come to root for Aleksey Morozov, Sergei Zubov, Petr Nedved, Darius Kasparaitis, and, in adult life, it remains perfectly natural to cheer for a Pittsburgh team comprised of players hailing from Quebec and Ontario, the Ukraine and the U.S., and of course, Russia.

So, why, then, do I have an "attitude" toward Canada? A desire, however latent, to knock the place from where the majority of NHL talent--and the distinct majority of the 2009 Cup champions--hails? What's with my fantasy? Why, in spite of the fact that I want to see Crosby succeed, is there a part of me that simply wants Canada to be knocked, so to speak, off its pedestal as "rulers of the hockey world"?

Simply put: I resent the implication that hockey is solely, only, and purely Canada's game. The great hockey teams I watched as a child taught me otherwise. Taught me that the best players come from all the over the world, that where you grew up was moot point, that what most mattered were simply the twin things of how hard you worked and how well you could play.

And, yet, having learned those great lessons from the sport of ice hockey, it's true I have an "inferiority" complex. Because, you see, the game that taught me those lessons, it's not ingrained into the fabric of my culture. It's not what naturally unites my country every Saturday night. Lessons about hard work and fair play and sacrifice come from disparate places in my nation, not from the lessons learned from a sport woven into the very fabric of a strong and free nation's life.

So, you see, I suppose there's a part of me that resents and fears the idea that hockey isn't "my" game, too, just as much as it is Canada's game. Because, though it's "just" a sport, where else in the world do you see totally different people, from totally different cultures, able to work together to achieve a goal? In what other sport, honestly and truly, will you ever see, as frequently as you do in a typical hockey game, a teammate quickly rendering the mistake of another teammate (bad pass, giveaway, etc.) moot point? Where else do you get to see what I daydreamed--insanely--that I could see in the first period? Where a team, united, where a goaltender, standing on his head, where players, playing above themselves, could have a real shot at winning a match-up no one gave them a chance to win? Where do I get to see such ideas regularly reflected in politics, in business, in the rest of life?

I know where I've always had the chance to see the dream reflected. In my favorite sport. In the sport that Canada claims as their own.

Call my thoughts about dreaming of a "shock" to Canada evil; call them petulant--and you'd be right. Alas, the Canadians have now done what they were supposed to do, what I expected them to do when I didn't bother to learn the name of Norway's goaltender, and Team Canada is now beating Team Norway by a substantial margin.

But I'm going to let those daydreamed thoughts stand. Because, as watching Olympic hockey, and really, all forms of hockey, no matter the level remind me, as current stars Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin shout, as the pushing-40 crowd of Peter Forsberg, Jaromir Jagr, and Sergei Federov remind, and, as too, do those giants of the past, the Yzermans, Gretzkys, and Tretiaks: hockey belongs to everyone.

And, even if Canada wins a gold medal, hockey will always belong to all of us. No inferiority complex. No superiority complex.

Just our sport. The world's. It belongs to us all.