While most of the sports world was watching the latest incarnation of college football’s pretend national championship, I was enduring the Penguins second third period collapse against Boston in two months. The epic break down brought back painful flashbacks, though not so much to the previous incarnation in November.
No, I was flashing back to the late 1980s, or just about the time Sidney Crosby entered the world. In those days the Pittsburgh Penguins were plain and simply Mario Lemieux. If he did not dominate, the Pens did not win. If he did not play, the Pens did not have a chance.
We always understood that if the Pens were going to be more than a hockey carnival act, they needed to develop a core of great players around Lemieux. That process started in 1987 with Paul Coffey and continued as a spectacular array of stars and roll players were added over five seasons. Even with that, the Penguins evolved in to a true championship team only when they were good enough to win without Le Magnifique. They did that for half of the 1990-91 season and four critical playoff wins in the 1992 Cup run.
It’s a testament to Lemieux’s remarkable brilliance that we actually believed he could single handedly carry those mid 80s teams to Stanley Cup glory. Mario’s presence made a fairly mediocre team look playoff caliber on almost any given regular season night. We should not lose site of that reality as Crosby rekindles a Lemieux like dominance two decades later.
We are currently witnessing what might be called the de-evolution of the Penguins. The Penguins of early 90s slowly became less and less dependent on their superstar. The Penguins of the 2010s are slowly becoming more and more dependent on theirs. Witness their inept offensive performance without Crosby over the last three games.
To be honest, I’m not shocked by this development. The Crosby-less Penguins are being exposed for what they are, a team with way too many grinder forwards and not nearly enough scorers. The problem is compounded because neither Evgeni Malkin or Jordan Staal is playing anywhere near their ability offensively. Staal’s performance is partially excusable considering he is still recovering from injury. Geno’s continuing struggles are admittedly much harder to understand and significant part of my de-evolution theory.
Regardless, the Pens are fighting an uphill battle offensively. Watching these games without Crosby it’s not hard to understand why. No fewer than nine of the 12 forwards playing are 3rd or 4th line caliber. And that charitably assumes that Staal is a legitimate top six offensive forward which he has yet to conclusively demonstrate. You could reasonably argue that Malkin is the only top six offensive talent in the line-up right now.
This is the risk of building the team’s offense primarily around two superstars. Lose either one of them and the team takes a step backward. Lose Crosby and it’s a giant step.
To be fair, there was no way the Penguins were going to continue to play at their November and December level. A slip was inevitable with or without number 87. The team was playing close to perfect hockey, driven primarily by Crosby’s brilliant play during his 25 game scoring streak. Crosby’s work was as impressive an extended performance as I’ve seen in the NHL since Lemieux was last making a mockery of the game a decade ago.
And it was in no way sustainable.
It is not feasible in today’s NHL to win a Stanley Cup on the back of one superstar, no matter how incredible he is. Defensemen are too good and defensive systems are too strong. A team that depends offensively on one player is destined for an early playoff exit.
Its one thing to score eight goals on a random Wednesday night in January against Tampa. It’s quite another to score three or four in an elimination game at Philadelphia.
We’ve already seen Detroit and sadly Montreal contain or even shut down Crosby in a seven game series. Only once were the Penguins able to overcome this, in the 2009 finals. That occurred in large part because Malkin was performing as brilliantly as Crosby at that time. Notwithstanding that we have rarely seen that version of Geno over the last year and a half; it remains unreasonable to expect two players to continually carry this offense.
I’ve suspected this all season but it was masked by the team’s success and Sid’s other worldly play. Seeing the Penguins without Crosby has crystallized it in my mind. This team simply does not have enough offense to win a Stanley Cup. Every team needs a Max Talbot and a Matt Cooke to win a Stanley Cup; but you can’t win one with nine of them.
Now more than ever, I’m convinced that we will not see another Cup parade in the Burgh unless Ray Shero acquires a desperately needed scoring winger. I’m not talking about another Chris Kunitz, Ruslan Fedotenko or heaven forbid Alexie Ponikarovski. I’m talking about a player who is legitimate 30 goal scorer, whether he plays with Crosby or not.
It’s amazing to see what Crosby has done playing with Kunitz and Dupuis. Imagine what he could do if Dupuis were replaced by a legitimate sniper. Or perhaps Kunitz could drop down and give Malkin the power forward he’s been lacking since Ryan Malone took his talents to Tampa. I’m not sure it’s a coincidence that Geno’s inconsistency started about the time he lost any semblance of a scoring winger to play with.
It would help matters if Staal could reach the next level offensively. Unfortunately through his 5th season, Staal has yet to consistently demonstrate elite offensive ability. He’s too young to write off in this category, especially given his injury, but with each passing year I’m less convinced he will be more than a 20 goal, 50 point guy.
That’s not a criticism of Staal, a truly elite two way talent. He brings tremendous value as perhaps the most dominant third line center in the game. That’s not the same as suggesting the Pens can move forward expecting him to be their third offensive pillar. I still hope Staal and Malkin can forge some offensive chemistry together but there has been little evidence of that so far.
Which further enforces the desperate need for Shero to find that scoring winger.
I give Shero credit for the remarkable job he did rebuilding the Penguins defense this offseason. I initially questioned the need to sign both Michalek and Martin as an excessive use of cap space. Seeing how good the Pens can be with those two plus Orpik and Letang at their best has put those questions to rest. That said, and with all due respect to Bobby Orr, teams in today’s NHL do not win championships on the backs of their offensive defensemen.
The Penguins have one truly movable chip in Alex Goligoski and he will likely be part of any deal. We can debate how good Goligoski is or is not. I continue to see him Ryan Whitney part II but I recognize this is not a consensus opinion. What we can not debate is that Kris Letang has made Goligoski expendable and that Gogo is the one Penguin who could legitimately attract a top caliber forward without breaking up the team’s core. Of course another forward will have to be thrown in for roster and cap considerations.
It’s easy to look at the Penguins strong play in November and December and conclude that I’m panicking over three bad games. I assure you that is not the case. The goal of this Penguin team is the Stanley Cup, nothing less. Crosby and Malkin (at his best) can carry this team to a 110 point regular season and the second round of the playoffs but not all the way to the cup. Not with this supporting cast of forwards. For the Penguins that would be considered a staggering failure.
I’m comforted that Ray Shero knows this and is patiently waiting for the right opportunity to present itself. I’ve developed a tremendous amount of faith in his ability to recognize and address his team’s needs. With some general managers I would be concerned about over valuing Goligoski or putting too much credence in the Pens strong early season play. I truly believe Shero sees beyond that to the bigger picture.
Of course it will be easy to forget all this when Crosby returns. The team will start scoring and winning again leading to the easy conclusion that they are fine as long as he’s in the line-up. And they are, for 82 games and two rounds of the playoffs. What will they do if Babcock, Zetterberg and the Wings show up in the finals to clutch and grab Sid in to submission? What will they do if Sid slumps? What will they do if he gets hurt as Lemieux did in 1992?
No, I was flashing back to the late 1980s, or just about the time Sidney Crosby entered the world. In those days the Pittsburgh Penguins were plain and simply Mario Lemieux. If he did not dominate, the Pens did not win. If he did not play, the Pens did not have a chance.
We always understood that if the Pens were going to be more than a hockey carnival act, they needed to develop a core of great players around Lemieux. That process started in 1987 with Paul Coffey and continued as a spectacular array of stars and roll players were added over five seasons. Even with that, the Penguins evolved in to a true championship team only when they were good enough to win without Le Magnifique. They did that for half of the 1990-91 season and four critical playoff wins in the 1992 Cup run.
It’s a testament to Lemieux’s remarkable brilliance that we actually believed he could single handedly carry those mid 80s teams to Stanley Cup glory. Mario’s presence made a fairly mediocre team look playoff caliber on almost any given regular season night. We should not lose site of that reality as Crosby rekindles a Lemieux like dominance two decades later.
We are currently witnessing what might be called the de-evolution of the Penguins. The Penguins of early 90s slowly became less and less dependent on their superstar. The Penguins of the 2010s are slowly becoming more and more dependent on theirs. Witness their inept offensive performance without Crosby over the last three games.
To be honest, I’m not shocked by this development. The Crosby-less Penguins are being exposed for what they are, a team with way too many grinder forwards and not nearly enough scorers. The problem is compounded because neither Evgeni Malkin or Jordan Staal is playing anywhere near their ability offensively. Staal’s performance is partially excusable considering he is still recovering from injury. Geno’s continuing struggles are admittedly much harder to understand and significant part of my de-evolution theory.
Regardless, the Pens are fighting an uphill battle offensively. Watching these games without Crosby it’s not hard to understand why. No fewer than nine of the 12 forwards playing are 3rd or 4th line caliber. And that charitably assumes that Staal is a legitimate top six offensive forward which he has yet to conclusively demonstrate. You could reasonably argue that Malkin is the only top six offensive talent in the line-up right now.
This is the risk of building the team’s offense primarily around two superstars. Lose either one of them and the team takes a step backward. Lose Crosby and it’s a giant step.
To be fair, there was no way the Penguins were going to continue to play at their November and December level. A slip was inevitable with or without number 87. The team was playing close to perfect hockey, driven primarily by Crosby’s brilliant play during his 25 game scoring streak. Crosby’s work was as impressive an extended performance as I’ve seen in the NHL since Lemieux was last making a mockery of the game a decade ago.
And it was in no way sustainable.
It is not feasible in today’s NHL to win a Stanley Cup on the back of one superstar, no matter how incredible he is. Defensemen are too good and defensive systems are too strong. A team that depends offensively on one player is destined for an early playoff exit.
Its one thing to score eight goals on a random Wednesday night in January against Tampa. It’s quite another to score three or four in an elimination game at Philadelphia.
We’ve already seen Detroit and sadly Montreal contain or even shut down Crosby in a seven game series. Only once were the Penguins able to overcome this, in the 2009 finals. That occurred in large part because Malkin was performing as brilliantly as Crosby at that time. Notwithstanding that we have rarely seen that version of Geno over the last year and a half; it remains unreasonable to expect two players to continually carry this offense.
I’ve suspected this all season but it was masked by the team’s success and Sid’s other worldly play. Seeing the Penguins without Crosby has crystallized it in my mind. This team simply does not have enough offense to win a Stanley Cup. Every team needs a Max Talbot and a Matt Cooke to win a Stanley Cup; but you can’t win one with nine of them.
Now more than ever, I’m convinced that we will not see another Cup parade in the Burgh unless Ray Shero acquires a desperately needed scoring winger. I’m not talking about another Chris Kunitz, Ruslan Fedotenko or heaven forbid Alexie Ponikarovski. I’m talking about a player who is legitimate 30 goal scorer, whether he plays with Crosby or not.
It’s amazing to see what Crosby has done playing with Kunitz and Dupuis. Imagine what he could do if Dupuis were replaced by a legitimate sniper. Or perhaps Kunitz could drop down and give Malkin the power forward he’s been lacking since Ryan Malone took his talents to Tampa. I’m not sure it’s a coincidence that Geno’s inconsistency started about the time he lost any semblance of a scoring winger to play with.
It would help matters if Staal could reach the next level offensively. Unfortunately through his 5th season, Staal has yet to consistently demonstrate elite offensive ability. He’s too young to write off in this category, especially given his injury, but with each passing year I’m less convinced he will be more than a 20 goal, 50 point guy.
That’s not a criticism of Staal, a truly elite two way talent. He brings tremendous value as perhaps the most dominant third line center in the game. That’s not the same as suggesting the Pens can move forward expecting him to be their third offensive pillar. I still hope Staal and Malkin can forge some offensive chemistry together but there has been little evidence of that so far.
Which further enforces the desperate need for Shero to find that scoring winger.
I give Shero credit for the remarkable job he did rebuilding the Penguins defense this offseason. I initially questioned the need to sign both Michalek and Martin as an excessive use of cap space. Seeing how good the Pens can be with those two plus Orpik and Letang at their best has put those questions to rest. That said, and with all due respect to Bobby Orr, teams in today’s NHL do not win championships on the backs of their offensive defensemen.
The Penguins have one truly movable chip in Alex Goligoski and he will likely be part of any deal. We can debate how good Goligoski is or is not. I continue to see him Ryan Whitney part II but I recognize this is not a consensus opinion. What we can not debate is that Kris Letang has made Goligoski expendable and that Gogo is the one Penguin who could legitimately attract a top caliber forward without breaking up the team’s core. Of course another forward will have to be thrown in for roster and cap considerations.
It’s easy to look at the Penguins strong play in November and December and conclude that I’m panicking over three bad games. I assure you that is not the case. The goal of this Penguin team is the Stanley Cup, nothing less. Crosby and Malkin (at his best) can carry this team to a 110 point regular season and the second round of the playoffs but not all the way to the cup. Not with this supporting cast of forwards. For the Penguins that would be considered a staggering failure.
I’m comforted that Ray Shero knows this and is patiently waiting for the right opportunity to present itself. I’ve developed a tremendous amount of faith in his ability to recognize and address his team’s needs. With some general managers I would be concerned about over valuing Goligoski or putting too much credence in the Pens strong early season play. I truly believe Shero sees beyond that to the bigger picture.
Of course it will be easy to forget all this when Crosby returns. The team will start scoring and winning again leading to the easy conclusion that they are fine as long as he’s in the line-up. And they are, for 82 games and two rounds of the playoffs. What will they do if Babcock, Zetterberg and the Wings show up in the finals to clutch and grab Sid in to submission? What will they do if Sid slumps? What will they do if he gets hurt as Lemieux did in 1992?
Without another elite offensive player, they will lose.
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