The most significant on ice decision of the Mario Lemieux ownership era is less than 17 months away. That’s when your Pittsburgh Penguins must decide whether to lavish what figures to be an eight figure annual salary on the NHL’s preeminent superstar (when healthy), one Sidney Crosby.
Before Sid the Kid became the poster child for the NHL’s recent concussion epidemic, such a deal was academic. The question was not IF the Pens would keep Crosby, just how much it would cost. The only legitimate concern regarding Crosby’s future was whether he would stay in the Burgh or head back to the mother ship in Canada.
Oh how we Penguin fans long for the days when the picture was that simple.
Now of course there is a legitimate question of whether the Pens can afford to keep Crosby. With Crosby healthy, an eight figure contract is a bargain. With Crosby beset by concussion issues and regularly unable to play, it’s a potentially franchise killing contract. Especially given Evgeni Malkin’s return to prominence as arguably the best offensive player in the NHL.
I do not envy Lemieux or Ray Shero the decision they may face in June 2013.
Alas, that decision is well off in the distance. Beyond even the clouds of the NHL’s uncertain labor situation which could potentially confuse the issue further. In short, there is still time, albeit a rapidly decreasing amount to deal with Crosby’s long-term future In contrast, the more pressing issue is less than ten days away.
The 2012 trade deadline arrives a week from Monday. That is the hard deadline for the Penguins to accept if they are willing to concede a second lost season for Crosby. And to my way of thinking, this is exactly what they must do.
I do not know a single Penguin fan who wants anything less than a healthy Sidney Crosby in the line-up before the post season starts. I also do not know a single Penguin fan who did not want to win last week’s $350 Million Power Ball either.
As much as we don’t want to accept it, reality is setting in. And that reality is that Sidney Crosby is unlikely to play again this season.
There is a déjà vu aspect to this situation; we lived the same scenario last spring. We watched the Penguins battle heroically night after night without the two headed monster of Crosby and Malkin in the line-up. And even as we knew that Malkin’s season was over, we hoped beyond hope that somehow, someway, Crosby would return in time to save the team’s Stanley Cup dreams. We hoped as we would in any season but especially last year when the Pens looked darn near invincible, until their apocalyptic post New Year’s injury run.
It never happened. No matter how good Crosby looked skating in practice, no matter how many reports were issued on his “improvement” he could not shake the concussion symptoms. The wait became an exercise in utter futility and the Pens eventually succumbed to superior talent in the Tampa Bay Lightning. The series exposed the most basic lesson in sports; great talent beats hard work when great talent is willing to work hard.
Championship opportunities in sports are precious and rare. They do not come along very often.
And in a strictly sports sense, true championship opportunities lost are a travesty.
The 2011 Penguins lost such an opportunity. They cannot afford to let another slip way while desperately hoping Crosby will return. Quite simply, it’s time to move on and accept the unpleasant reality of Sid’s short-term future.
A year ago I was more resigned to the team’s fate, what with Crosby and Malkin both out of the line-up. I refuse to make such concessions this year; especially with Malkin dominating the league in Crosby like fashion. Most teams in the league would dream of having a Malkin type superstar leading their club. Only in Pittsburgh would we suggest that it takes two such players to win a cup. In point of fact, it does not.
It takes one such player, healthy of course, with the right supporting cast. The Penguins are close but not quite there. Simply put the team as comprised is not Stanley Cup caliber without Crosby…but it can be. And thus Ray Shero MUST act.
The Pens to my way of thinking needs a top six forward, a checking line center, and possibly a depth defenseman. Crosby alone would solve the first two concerns. His return to health would allow the Pens to add arguably the game’s best player to their top six and push Jordan Staal back to the third line. There is no better group of centers in the league…when healthy…than Crosby, Malkin and Staal.
Crosby is so dominant that he can elevate a Pascal Dupuis to top 6 forward status. Staal, for all his strengths cannot. Jordan Staal is the game’s preeminent third line center. As a second line center he needs help. A second line of Staal with Cooke and Dupuis (or Sullivan or Kennedy) is acceptable in February, not in May. Especially given the likes of Cal O’Reilly and/or Dustin Jeffrey are centering the third line.
On the contrary, a line of Staal, Cooke, and say Teemu Selanne is a championship caliber option.
The Penguins’ answer may or may not be the Finish Flash but it needs to be a legitimate top 6 forward (Jaromir Jagr would have been nice solution but alas that's revisionist history now). Shero should be willing part with anybody in the organization short Simon Despres to make that happen. That includes the likes of Jeffrey, Ben Lovejoy, Kennedy and the rapidly fading prospect that is Eric Tangradi.
The Penguins also need a legitimate third line center if Crosby does not return. Stanley Cups are not won with waiver wire cast-offs like O’Reilly or Richard Park, or even Joe Vitale in that role.
Such acquisitions will almost certainly put the Pens over the salary cap with Crosby on the ledger. This accepts as unlikely the miracle that would be adequately replacing Paul Martin’s bloated contract. Which means quite simply that Crosby must come off the ledger until the end of the regular season. That calculation does not even contemplate adding another defensemen which may be a consideration with or without Martin in black and gold.
In the event Sid the Kid performs a miraculous recovery by season’s end, the Pens can still exploit the NHL’s ridiculous cap loophole and bring him back for the post season. There is precedent for this in Penguins’ Stanley Cup history and I’m willing to go way out on a limb and suggest that Sid might add a bit more to the line-up than Miroslav Satan.
That scenario presumes of course that Crosby is healthy and ready to play by mid-April. That is not a presumption I am willing to make with Sid still experiencing concussion symptoms as of today.
It’s time for a harsh, in your face reality check for all Penguin fans. We are now well in to year two of the Crosby concussion battle and there is little evidence that this issue is going to resolve itself any time soon. Even as we cling to the “soft tissue injury” as our Crosby lifeline, the reality is that Sid’s career right now is very much in jeopardy. I continue to hope beyond hope that Crosby returns healthy but I’m simply no longer willing to bank on it, not at the cost of another lost Stanley Cup.
In the pre salary cap days, such concerns were not mutually exclusive. Today they are. The Pens must bite the bullet and upgrade to championship supporting cast around Malkin. That means moving beyond Crosby…at least for now.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Déjà vu all over Again
I love hockey. That’s not exactly breaking news to those who know me well.
In fact one might say I have a cult like devotion to the sport. Die hard hockey fans tend to be that way; a product of both our genuine passion for the game and the constant uphill battle it faces for mainstream acceptance.
I’ve come to grips with hockey’s place in the sports pantheon, which is to say I’ve stopped trying to convert non-believers to the NHL like some kind of skating Jehovah’s Witness. At the same time I am fiercely protective of the game. And yes I will concede that can result in overreactions on my part to short term concerns. However…
There is a fundamental problem that comes with being an NHL fan; one that is nearly impossible to overcome. Simply put, the people who run the sport we love seem hell bent on its destruction. With the possible exception of major league baseball owners, there is no group that consistently works harder to destroy its own product than those who run the National Hockey League.
Every once in awhile, say after a season ending lockout they have an epiphany about doing the right by their game. The epiphany lasts some length of time but eventually the NHL guardians regress back to the mean. The mean in this case is the boring, defensive minded, clutch and grab hockey which caused Mario Lemieux to famously coin the term, “garage league” for the NHL.
And in case you have not been paying attention the league is regressing again.
I noticed last year a shocking decrease in the number of power plays per game. At first I attributed this to players getting comfortable with the post lockout rules and fully adapting their games. Alas, the trend has gone in to overdrive since calendar flipped to 2012. The Penguin stats were posted during their game in Montreal the other night and they were an eye opener; less than 5 power plays per game, TOTAL, between both teams since January 1st. Which means for once Steigy and Errey are not simply blowing homer smoke when they complain about the Pens not getting calls.
Lest you think this is an aberration I’m seeing the same trend in Blackhawks games as well. And it’s starting to affect results such as Anaheim beating Carolina last night after a blatant trip that was not called. I’ve also noticed a subtle increase in the number of sticks around mid-sections that are suddenly being ignored, especially in New Jersey.
In short, the NHL is once again prioritizing grit, tenacity, clutching, and grabbing over skill. That’s wonderful news for the Max Talbot’s of the world but a disaster for the league as a whole.
Lest you think I’m overreacting here are some simple numbers for you:
• In 2003-04, the last year before the lockout the average total goals scored in an NHL game was 5.14.
• In 2005-06, the liberated first year after the lockout the average goals score in an NHL game was 6.16, a 20% increase.
• In 2011-12, through last Sunday the average goals scored have dropped to 5.48 per game; an 11% decrease from the first year post lockout.
That of course is only part of the story; the quantifiable part, which I as a certified numbers geek tend to cling to when presenting an argument. There is also what we see and feel when watching the game. And there is an unmistakable sense that once again offense is slowly being siphoned from the sport.
It’s early of course and the evidence is for now is primarily circumstantial. And yet I feel like I’m having a déjà vu, to the early days of the dead puck era. In those days I found myself apologizing every time I took a non hockey fan to a game. It was a period that chased away all but the most ardent supporters of the NHL.
I understand the league cannot cater solely to the peripheral fans who want 10-8 scores every night. That said, when the NHL threatens to scare me off it has a SEROIUS problem. My memory is not what it used to be but did they not cancel an entire season in part to address this problem?
There may be no better barometer of the NHL’s problem than the Devils who, in spite of breaking the bank for Ilya Kovalchuk are back to destroying any semblance of excitement in the game. Worse yet they now have disciples. After 1,562 NHL games this season, there were four teams whose games feature an average of less than 5 goals, led by Los Angeles at an embarrassing 4.36 goals per game. All four teams, LA, the NY Rangers, Minnesota, and St’Louis are in serious playoff contention right now.
You may also have noticed a bevy of goaltenders once again allowing less than 2 goals per game; lead by such luminaries as Brian Elliott in St’Louis. That’s the same Elliott who was so bad against the Penguins two years ago that Ottawa started the ghost of Pascal Leclaire in two playoff games. Before we start polishing Elliott’s hall of fame bust, let’s remember that the dead puck era was so awful it made Jocelyn Thibault in to a superstar. If that’s not a serious indictment of the game at that time, I don’t know what is.
Thankfully we’re not there…yet. That said, the trend is disconcerting, at least since the refs stopped calling penalties in January. It’s simply too obvious to be an accident or coincidence.
It’s possible the NHL is looking to slow down the game in lieu of the shocking increase in concussions over the last 12 months. If this is the case than the league can at least be somewhat lauded for its motives if not its actions. Addressing the distributing head injury trend is absolutely a necessity; but there has to be a better way than by removing speed and excitement from the sport.
That said, I think there is more to the story. The NHL power base is still dominated by thick minded, “old school” hockey guys whose first love seems to be 4th line grinders and goons. These folks have been decrying the so called “new rules” as an abomination almost from the moment they were introduced. They worship at the altar of Don Cheery, a man who continues to preach this as gospel of “old school” hockey at the expense of skill, excitement or sanity in the sport.
I’m reminded of Tom Barrasso’s famous refusal to have a battle of wits with Cherry because Cherry was unarmed. And yet I still believe the Cherry mentality dominates the NHL’s direction (read Colin Campbell’s mockery of disciplinary action throughout last season). Those who feel different, like for example a certain hall of fame, French Canadian superstar who runs the Penguins get shouted down and decried as whiners when they protest.
Make no mistake; the game is at it best when played with speed, skill, and physicality. I don’t care how great Tim Thomas and Henrik Lundqvist are; something is seriously wrong when goaltenders are approaching a 94% save percentage. Check out how many 1-0 games have been played in the NHL since January 1st, several of which were actually 0 – 0 but for the shootout.
For now there are only signs of distress. Understand though that there were similar such signs in 1998. The league ignored them and tacitly endorsed the horrific clutching and grabbing in some misguided attempt to smooth out economic disparity. Such disparities were supposedly solved after the lockout.
The simple solution is enforce the rules as written. That has always been the solution and it has always worked. The alternative is a gradual decent to another dead puck era. That issue is bad enough at face value, worse with impending labor pains on the horizon.
If you think you can live with that I urge you to go back and watch the 2003 Stanley Cup final between New Jersey and Anaheim. It was the singular low point for NHL hockey in my lifetime; two teams that would just assume the puck never leave the neutral zone playing for the sport's most cherished prize. Compare that to either Pens/Detroit final or the Hawks and Philly. The difference is staggering.
The NHL can stop this trend immediately if they want to. I’m not sure they do.
In fact one might say I have a cult like devotion to the sport. Die hard hockey fans tend to be that way; a product of both our genuine passion for the game and the constant uphill battle it faces for mainstream acceptance.
I’ve come to grips with hockey’s place in the sports pantheon, which is to say I’ve stopped trying to convert non-believers to the NHL like some kind of skating Jehovah’s Witness. At the same time I am fiercely protective of the game. And yes I will concede that can result in overreactions on my part to short term concerns. However…
There is a fundamental problem that comes with being an NHL fan; one that is nearly impossible to overcome. Simply put, the people who run the sport we love seem hell bent on its destruction. With the possible exception of major league baseball owners, there is no group that consistently works harder to destroy its own product than those who run the National Hockey League.
Every once in awhile, say after a season ending lockout they have an epiphany about doing the right by their game. The epiphany lasts some length of time but eventually the NHL guardians regress back to the mean. The mean in this case is the boring, defensive minded, clutch and grab hockey which caused Mario Lemieux to famously coin the term, “garage league” for the NHL.
And in case you have not been paying attention the league is regressing again.
I noticed last year a shocking decrease in the number of power plays per game. At first I attributed this to players getting comfortable with the post lockout rules and fully adapting their games. Alas, the trend has gone in to overdrive since calendar flipped to 2012. The Penguin stats were posted during their game in Montreal the other night and they were an eye opener; less than 5 power plays per game, TOTAL, between both teams since January 1st. Which means for once Steigy and Errey are not simply blowing homer smoke when they complain about the Pens not getting calls.
Lest you think this is an aberration I’m seeing the same trend in Blackhawks games as well. And it’s starting to affect results such as Anaheim beating Carolina last night after a blatant trip that was not called. I’ve also noticed a subtle increase in the number of sticks around mid-sections that are suddenly being ignored, especially in New Jersey.
In short, the NHL is once again prioritizing grit, tenacity, clutching, and grabbing over skill. That’s wonderful news for the Max Talbot’s of the world but a disaster for the league as a whole.
Lest you think I’m overreacting here are some simple numbers for you:
• In 2003-04, the last year before the lockout the average total goals scored in an NHL game was 5.14.
• In 2005-06, the liberated first year after the lockout the average goals score in an NHL game was 6.16, a 20% increase.
• In 2011-12, through last Sunday the average goals scored have dropped to 5.48 per game; an 11% decrease from the first year post lockout.
That of course is only part of the story; the quantifiable part, which I as a certified numbers geek tend to cling to when presenting an argument. There is also what we see and feel when watching the game. And there is an unmistakable sense that once again offense is slowly being siphoned from the sport.
It’s early of course and the evidence is for now is primarily circumstantial. And yet I feel like I’m having a déjà vu, to the early days of the dead puck era. In those days I found myself apologizing every time I took a non hockey fan to a game. It was a period that chased away all but the most ardent supporters of the NHL.
I understand the league cannot cater solely to the peripheral fans who want 10-8 scores every night. That said, when the NHL threatens to scare me off it has a SEROIUS problem. My memory is not what it used to be but did they not cancel an entire season in part to address this problem?
There may be no better barometer of the NHL’s problem than the Devils who, in spite of breaking the bank for Ilya Kovalchuk are back to destroying any semblance of excitement in the game. Worse yet they now have disciples. After 1,562 NHL games this season, there were four teams whose games feature an average of less than 5 goals, led by Los Angeles at an embarrassing 4.36 goals per game. All four teams, LA, the NY Rangers, Minnesota, and St’Louis are in serious playoff contention right now.
You may also have noticed a bevy of goaltenders once again allowing less than 2 goals per game; lead by such luminaries as Brian Elliott in St’Louis. That’s the same Elliott who was so bad against the Penguins two years ago that Ottawa started the ghost of Pascal Leclaire in two playoff games. Before we start polishing Elliott’s hall of fame bust, let’s remember that the dead puck era was so awful it made Jocelyn Thibault in to a superstar. If that’s not a serious indictment of the game at that time, I don’t know what is.
Thankfully we’re not there…yet. That said, the trend is disconcerting, at least since the refs stopped calling penalties in January. It’s simply too obvious to be an accident or coincidence.
It’s possible the NHL is looking to slow down the game in lieu of the shocking increase in concussions over the last 12 months. If this is the case than the league can at least be somewhat lauded for its motives if not its actions. Addressing the distributing head injury trend is absolutely a necessity; but there has to be a better way than by removing speed and excitement from the sport.
That said, I think there is more to the story. The NHL power base is still dominated by thick minded, “old school” hockey guys whose first love seems to be 4th line grinders and goons. These folks have been decrying the so called “new rules” as an abomination almost from the moment they were introduced. They worship at the altar of Don Cheery, a man who continues to preach this as gospel of “old school” hockey at the expense of skill, excitement or sanity in the sport.
I’m reminded of Tom Barrasso’s famous refusal to have a battle of wits with Cherry because Cherry was unarmed. And yet I still believe the Cherry mentality dominates the NHL’s direction (read Colin Campbell’s mockery of disciplinary action throughout last season). Those who feel different, like for example a certain hall of fame, French Canadian superstar who runs the Penguins get shouted down and decried as whiners when they protest.
Make no mistake; the game is at it best when played with speed, skill, and physicality. I don’t care how great Tim Thomas and Henrik Lundqvist are; something is seriously wrong when goaltenders are approaching a 94% save percentage. Check out how many 1-0 games have been played in the NHL since January 1st, several of which were actually 0 – 0 but for the shootout.
For now there are only signs of distress. Understand though that there were similar such signs in 1998. The league ignored them and tacitly endorsed the horrific clutching and grabbing in some misguided attempt to smooth out economic disparity. Such disparities were supposedly solved after the lockout.
The simple solution is enforce the rules as written. That has always been the solution and it has always worked. The alternative is a gradual decent to another dead puck era. That issue is bad enough at face value, worse with impending labor pains on the horizon.
If you think you can live with that I urge you to go back and watch the 2003 Stanley Cup final between New Jersey and Anaheim. It was the singular low point for NHL hockey in my lifetime; two teams that would just assume the puck never leave the neutral zone playing for the sport's most cherished prize. Compare that to either Pens/Detroit final or the Hawks and Philly. The difference is staggering.
The NHL can stop this trend immediately if they want to. I’m not sure they do.
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