As many supporters of the team have
grown accustomed to over the past four years, the Penguins are once again near
the top of the list of teams that are believed to be legitimate contenders for the
Stanley Cup. After all, they have
possibly the top two players in the world, in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin,
on their roster. Those two,
complemented by dynamic scorers Chris Kunitz and James Neal, make for a
dangerous offense. If the “defense wins championships” theory is a concern, the
Pens have former Norris Trophy (for the NHL’s best defenseman) finalist Kris
Letang, along with shutdown defensemen Paul Martin and Rob Scuderi. Goaltender Marc Andre Fleury currently
leads the NHL in wins, with twenty-nine, and ranks in the top ten in average
goals-against (2.26).
All of this combines to form one massive expectation: the Penguins will
be playing games into early June.
That has been the expectation every year since 2008. While they reached
the finals and lost to Detroit in ’08, and then won the Cup in 2009, the
expectation hasn’t been met lately.
The Pens have lost in the first or second round in three of the past
four years, and haven’t recorded a win past round two since that Cup run in
’09. The Penguins should be
building a dynasty with multiple Cups, like Chicago has been doing. Instead, the team has been haunted by
the likes of Jaroslav Halak, Claude Giroux, Marty St. Louis, and, most
recently, Tuukka Rask. While all
signs point to the Pens having a great chance to erase that this spring by
bringing home the big prize, there are a few reasons to be wary of another
disappointment.
The first is a lack of secondary scoring. While Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, James Neal, and Chris
Kunitz have been filling the net, the team has received very little production
from the rest of the offense.
Players like Brandon Sutter, Chuck Kobasew, and Craig Adams have been
all but nonexistent on the score sheet. While it is expected that the top six
forwards will carry the majority of the offensive load, a Stanley Cup-winning
team needs the occasional big goal contribution from the bottom six, too. Part of this will be resolved over
time. Chris Conner, Joe Vitale,
and Beau Bennett all should return from injury well before the time the
playoffs roll around. Another
possibility is making a trade, perhaps shipping one of the team’s many
defensive prospects away in return for a winger. If nothing is done to address this problem, this would be a
serious concern as we head towards April.
Another worry is defense.
The Penguins have a wealth of talent on defense. As stated above, they
have a solid top three of Kris Letang, Paul Martin, and Rob Scuderi. They are well complemented by the heavy
hitting Brooks Orpik, and the dynamic pairing of Matt Niskanen and rookie Olli
Maatta. Sometimes, however, the
way the defense operates is more important than the talent itself. Kris Letang, for instance, has the
talent to be one of the best two-way defensemen the league has ever seen. However, instead of being smart with
the puck, he is often creating turnovers or making poor choices. Another
problem is a lack of defensive responsibility, or “paying attention to the
little things”. The Cup-winning
Penguins of ’09 prided themselves on their attention to detail. Their miniscule
number of mistakes meant they allowed far fewer goals, which meant they won
more games in spite of not having the explosive offense that the 2014 team
has. If the defense becomes more
responsible—which we have seen, at some points this season, that they can do—then
this concern isn’t really a factor.
Another potential problem is injury. It is a fact of life that has plagued the Penguins seemingly
forever. Old people will remember
how Mario Lemieux’s career was hindered by his back problems. In recent memory, Sidney Crosby was
sidelined for nine months with a concussion, and Evgeni Malkin had to have
reconstructive knee surgery. This
season alone, the Penguins were without Evgeni Malkin, James Neal, Kris Letang,
Paul Martin, Rob Scuderi, Brooks Orpik, and Deryk Engelland all at the same time! While they found ways to operate and
get by for the time being, such a rash of injuries would certainly spell the
team’s demise in the playoffs. A
rational proposition would be that the Penguins need Sidney Crosby, Evgeni
Malkin, James Neal, Chris Kunitz, Kris Letang, Paul Martin, Rob Scuderi, Brooks
Orpik, and Marc Andre Fleury to stay healthy 100% of the playoffs in order to
reach their goal. Not much can be
done to prevent injuries from happening.
However, we’ve seen it ruin a team’s chances before. For instance, the
2011 Penguins entered the playoffs without the services of Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, and they were
eliminated in the first round.
The Penguins, as they stand, are one of the top five contenders in the
NHL. Obviously, being top five
doesn’t necessarily get you the Cup. The Pens are interested, and only
interested, in being number one. To do that, their bottom-six forwards need to
start chipping in some goals (or GM Ray Shero needs to trade for a better
one(s)), the defensemen need to play soundly and responsibly, and they need to
stay healthy.
In 2011, the abundance of injuries to forwards left them with little finishing capability, allowing Lightning goalie Dwayne Roloson to put up a forcefield in game 7:
In 2012, a lack of defensive responsibility allowed Flyers forward Claude Giroux to fill the net, an lead the Flyers to victory:
In their Cup run in 2009, the Pens played well defensively and received goals from secondary forwards, which led them to victory in games like this:
