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?

Wins Are Great
Superstars Are Great, Too
Don't Get Too Excited
And Other Thoughts

-Don't get me wrong, I love watching the Penguins win. I especially love watching the Penguins win on Hockey Night in Canada. But here's the thing. The Toronto Maple Leafs are not expected to be a good hockey team. The Toronto Maple Leafs are expected to "contend" for the top overall pick in the 2009 draft. As such, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the young, promising team that went to the Stanley Cup Finals last season, are supposed to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs. And to be perfectly blunt, the Pittsburgh Penguins--even sans their top two offensive defensemen in Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney and even with the offseason losses of wingers Hossa and Malone--are supposed to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs handily--you know, by a substantial margin. So, while it was a wonderful night for statistical milestones in Pittsburgh, and while it's reassuring to know the Penguins can still score on the power play, may no one delude themselves into thinking that the Penguins did anything wonderful or great tonight. The Pittsburgh Penguins merely did what a team with two of the top players in the world should do: beat a much less talented hockey team. The Penguins are going to need to continue to beat inferior opponents, and while they're at it, they're going to apply any lessons learned thus far in order to beat clubs far more talented than the Toronto Maple Leafs.



-Speaking of applying lessons learned, watching the Penguins power play sans Gonchar and Whitney has been, um, interesting, thus far this season. In fact, just watching the Penguins defense without Gonchar and Whitney has been, er, equally interesting.

But first to the power play...watching tonight, I was struck by a few things. I think it's good for Crosby and Malkin both to know how to play the point on the power play. I think it'll eventually be a useful skill for both of them, and perhaps something they'll get very, very good at, that can be used at certain times (recall that Mario Lemieux' career did include playing the point on the power play with much success). Even though the Penguins' power play was solid tonight (against an inferior opponent, when it should have been solid), I was struck by the pucks that Malkin didn't keep in the zone that Gonchar (or yes, even Whitney) generally keep in the zone, and keep in the zone with ease. Even for the best players, there is a learning curve. Malkin and Crosby are already at the top of the NHL as forwards, and their skillsets can be applied to manning the point on the power play. But neither Crosby or Malkin, at least not initially, is going to provide the same level of all-world power play point-man play we see in defensemen like Lidstrom. Numbers 87 and 71, as their statistics show, have got the talent--but now it's a matter of applying that talent in new situations. Which is just a long-winded way of saying: Crosby and Malkin are great, world-class players, but don't be shocked if, early this season, it takes some time for their all-world skill to manifest itself at an all-world level when they're manning the point on the power play.

Having noted that even a kid who's accumulated over 200 points in 161 NHL games is going to have a learning curve while manning the point on the power play for the first time, why not note that young offensive defensemen Alex Goligoski and Kris Letang are going to experience an even larger learning curve? Just like Paul Coffey (remember the Doctor swooned over Letang when visiting the Pittsburgh broadcasting booth last season), I love Letang's potential and style. And in tonight's game against Toronto, I saw the glimpses we'll see from time to time this season. I saw Letang rushing the puck confidently, I saw him hold the puck in, and I saw him knock down a Maple Leaf with a solid check. All of which, of course, I hope will one day become par for the course. But as Letang's current plus-minus rating might indicate, he is not yet at the stage where he's going to give you 24 to 25 minutes of solid, mistake-free play on a game-in, game-out basis. There are going to be lapses, there are going to be errors, and there's going to be the learning curve that comes when an inexperienced defenseman is "thrown to the wolves," so to speak, to get the experience he needs in order to improve. Goligoski and Letang both played less than 20 minutes tonight, and Goligoski, the rookie, has been a bit more protected (ice-time wise) than Letang thus far this season, but the bottom line is that Pittsburgh fans are watching two young, inexperienced defensemen....which, of course, is another long-winded way of saying: Don't expect Letang and Goligoski to replace Gonchar and Whitney. Don't expect them to do what Gonchar does, or even what Whitney does, at least not initially. Not because they may not one day be able to, but because reality dictates that just as Gonchar and Whitney needed NHL games to learn, so, too, will Letang and Goligoski.



-Oh, and my other thought about tonight's game, and about the Penguins in general? When you have two players as good as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, well, you're just spoiled rotten, and you should expect to win games when you can dress two of the best players in all of hockey. I'm generally not a fan of Evgeni Malkin as Crosby's wing save for certain, special circumstances (Malkin, as last year proved, is a world-class center in his own right), and teams with only one line that is capable of generating scoring chances at even-strength may make the playoffs, but they generally are not built to advance in the playoffs. That said, the season is young, the Penguins in October (for better or worse, as the case may be) are not the same team they will be in January or in March--and the same goes for other NHL teams as well.
But just staring at the statistical milestones tonight, notating the points that two players have already put up, so quickly, is astonishing when you realize those two players play for your team and who, provided they stay healthy, are still at the nascent point of their careers. These players are going to score more goals, get more assists, learn how to play the point on the power play, and maybe Malkin's even going to get good at winning face-offs someday, too...but the point is, these players are already great. And as such, well, fretting about the state of the Pittsburgh Penguins seems a little overblown when both Crosby and Malkin are in the fold. Say what you will for the years of Mario Lemieux/Jaromir Jagr and what could have been/should have been, but those teams nearly always competed for division titles. The presence of world-class players in a lineup--especially two world-class players--means that talent can triumph against many opponents, and I'm looking forward to watching Crosby and Malkin do their shiny superstar thing this season.


-Oh, and while I already mentioned this in passing, it bears repeating, especially given that the playoff loss against the Red Wings probably still feels fresh. October hockey is not playoff hockey. Yes, a team needs to win the games and accumulate the points necessary to get into the postseason to compete for the Stanley Cup. But no hockey team in the autumn will be the same hockey team in the spring. For better or worse, injuries will occur, trades will happen, lines will be tweaked, etc., etc...the list is long.

Right now, it's interesting for me to ponder the blog post I wrote back in the spring of 2007, believing that sans a loss of Crosby, Malkin, or Fleury, the Penguins would be in the most trouble if Sergei Gonchar or Ryan Whitney were lost to injury. I find it interesting because both Gonchar and Whitney are out with injuries now, and no one can argue the Penguins don't miss those two players. The Penguins are a weaker team without Gonchar and Whitney--their power play is weaker, their power play options are weaker, ditto for the penalty kill, and while they still have depth on the NHL blueline, no one can argue that the defensemen who have assumed Gonchar and Whitney's minutes are as adept with outlet passes as are Gonchar and Whitney.

And yet what's interesting is what the Penguins know full well: They have to win games without Gonchar and Whitney. They have to rely on different players to win those games. And in order to win those games, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are going to take their turns at the point on the power plays on 5 on 3's, and we're going to wince more than a few times as Malkin gets comfortable at the point on the power play. We're going to wince way more often than that when we watch Goligoski and Letang get turned around or caught out of position or just not quite be able to do something that we've seen Gonchar do as a matter of course. And yet--the team in October won't be the same as the team in April.

Given last season, of course, I'm hopeful, but the season can go a ton of different ways, and the bottom line is the Penguins have to do what they did against Toronto tonight on a frequent basis against teams of a much higher caliber than the Maple Leafs. It should be a fun ride to see what they can do and how they do and who steps up to do it.


-Oh, and one last thought? Speaking of fun rides, the evolution of Marc-Andre Fleury from "kid with potential" to "goalie who makes the big save" and is congratulated on his postseason work by Martin Brodeur, that's just great. Here's to hoping Fleury continues his upward curve, and that a few of his teammates join him in creating upward curves of their own--to becoming peak players at their positions/within their roles, and in so doing, win lots of games...because, after all, winning is the name of the game. (And, yes, it's fun to beat any Canadian team on Hockey Night in Canada.)