MVN - A Pittsburgh Penguins blog
The Confluence of the Three Rivers
How these Penguins match up from last season
It’s a given, especially in the free agency era, that most professional teams will look markedly different from one season to the next.
In that respect, the Pittsburgh Penguins are certainly no different, in fact they’ve had a significant turnover in personnel.
It was definitely a daunting task for GM Ray Shero and his staff, with so many pending unrestricted free agents, many of which were major contributors to the Penguins’ run to within two wins of the Stanley Cup.
Now that we’re three weeks into free agency and Shero is admittedly basically finished with major free agent acquisitions, let’s take a look at how the Penguins look now and whether they’re better, worse or the same as compared to the conference winning team.
- Top six forward - Talk about a no-win situation. Once Marian Hossa made his decision to turn down the Penguins’ 7-year contract offer, Shero had to know that whomever he signed to replace Hossa could never duplicate his skills. I freely admit that I was not aware of just how good a two-way forward Hossa was. There simply wasn’t anyone close in the free agent market that Shero could pursue. However, while there might not have been anyone is the same league as Hossa defensively, there were forwards that could fill Hossa’s role as a sniper. Just as Shero did in last season’s free agency period in signing Petr Sykora, who initiated contact with the Penguins, the same situation occured when longtime Penguin adversary Miro Satan advised the Penguins of his desire to play in Pittsburgh. Shero’s signing of Satan fills that crucial role for the Penguins, that scoring winger for Sidney Crosby. GRADE: Worse
- Power forward - This is a position that many times simply is in the right place at the right time, and as a result gets those “garbage” goals that have turned out to be so valuable to NHL teams nowadays. Ryan Malone had a career year last season, both on the scoreboard and with his intangible attributes. While I believe that his value to the team was slightly overrated, there’s no doubt that his gutsy playoff performance, especially taking the puck to the nose and not missing any time, earned himself a big free agent contract. Shero’s signing of Ruslan Fedotenko, who is two inches smaller and 20 pounds lighter than Malone, is the closest that can be construed as that of a power forward. However, while Fedotenko may not be able to duplicate Malone physically, he may be able to surpass him on the scoreboard in the right situation. GRADE: Worse (but not much)
- Enforcer - Georges Laraque is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the NHL. There are some that are close, such as the Wild’s Derek Boogaard, but Georges still has the belt. He was also great in the Pittsburgh community. But for all of that, there were several times in his two seasons with the Penguins that he was derelict in his enforcer duties. The latest of which happened in the Rangers’ playoff series, when agitator Sean Avery confronted Marc-Andre Fleury at the end of Game Two. While Hal Gill certainly threw a few haymakers in Avery’s direction, Laraque chose to simply to attempt to wrestle Avery to the ground. For lack of a better term, Laraque simply is too much of a “nice guy enforcer”. Sure, if and when Laraque drops the gloves, the vast majority of the time, it’s a win for Laraque. It must also be said that since his arrival, neither Crosby nor Malkin has received a blatant cheap shot. In addition, let’s not forget that it takes two to tango, many times Laraque’s challenges were refused by the opponent. But in my view, the Penguins need an enforcer that is willing to go that extra effort to quickly quash opponents’ attempts at roughing up his teammates. Or, shall we say, to “go nuts”, every once in a while. Well, I believe Shero has signed that kind of enforcer in Eric Godard, most recently of the Flames. Do some quick Godard fight searches on Youtube, he’s got that extra edge that I believe the Penguins were lacking in that department. GRADE: Better (but not much)
- Agitator - Losing Jarkko Ruutu could have been a potentially big loss for Shero. He was a bigtime fan favorite in his two seasons with the Pens. More importantly, Ruutu was among the top three agitators in the NHL. He’s masterful in getting under the opponent’s skin. However, I believe that Shero ultimately made his team better overall with the signing of Matt Cooke, most recently of the Capitals. Cooke is very close to Ruutu in his agitator and checking skills, however I would say that Cooke is slightly better offensively than Ruutu. Cooke could very well make some much-needed contributions to the secondary scoring that the Penguins covet so often. GRADE: Better
- Ham n’ Egger - Adam Hall’s performance in the Stanley Cup finals certainly resulted in a nice little salary bump in Tampa Bay. Fortunately for the Penguins, they’ve got several ready and willing forwards ready to take his place, such as Kris Beech, Tyler Kennedy, Jeff Taffe, and a slew of others that may make the team from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. GRADE: Same
- Backup Goalie - Ty Conklin arguably saved the Penguins’ season in his relief of the injured Marc-Andre Fleury. While Dany Sabourin didn’t nearly have the stats that Conklin had last season, he did have 10 wins for the Penguins. Naturally, the Pens pray that Fleury will be injury-free this coming season and thus only start Sabourin maybe 15 games or so. When that time comes, it will be surprising if Sabourin can match Conklin’s heroics from last season. GRADE: Worse
- Leadership - This is probably the most difficult aspect of the Penguins that can be analyzed. Certainly the loss of Gary Roberts and to a lesser extent Ryan Malone have left a void in terms of leadership, but it’s also important to realize that young Penguins are maturing as each season completes. Sidney Crosby, even though he’ll turn only 21 in August, will be starting his 4th NHL season. I believe Crosby is smart enough to recognize if he sees that the team is lacking in leadership. Also, don’t overlook the leadership aspects in Sergei Gonchar. It may not be as obvious as Roberts, but Gonchar is widely respected by his teammates. GRADE: Worse (but not much)
So there you have it. I don’t think anyone would argue that the team as of right now is not as good as it was during it’s playoff run, but the one thing to quickly realize is that the team now constructed will NOT be the same team that hopefully goes back into the NHL playoffs next April, just as last season’s team was very different from the start to the finish. Shero no doubt will make at least a couple of moves at next season’s trade deadline to tweak the lineup, just as he did last season.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Opinion.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
THE AUTHOR
POLL
ARCHIVE
RECENT ARTICLES BY DIVISION RIVALS
RECENT PENGUINS NEWS
SPONSORS
20 Responses to “How these Penguins match up from last season”
July 20th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
While I would agree with the overall premise, I find it a bit odd that you leave out several significant portions of the team. In a sense, leaving them out, makes the overall situation look worse, because most of what you chose to focus on was where there was change.
For instance: Defense. You don’t even mention the blueline at all. Probably because it hasn’t changed one bit. But that seems like something that’s worth mentioning. The Pens retained Orpik, and still have the same defense corps that was very strong in the playoffs.
Also, you don’t mention special teams at all.
Losing Hossa from the PK would have more of an impact if it hadn’t been for the fact that Therrien didn’t use Hossa on the PK all that much. Instead, the Pens have picked up Cooke, who is a pretty good penalty killer, and can generally be trusted to not take a stupid penalty while on the PK (or one based solely on reputation) like Ruutu did. I’d say the PK sees an overall improvement.
The Power Play might be worse on paper, but when you look at how it was doing without Hossa versus how it did with Hossa, I’d say the current team can be labeled as “same”.
Finally, it’s also worth noting that the team in October doesn’t need to be better than the playoff team. They just need to be better than the Penguins team from last October. The team that needs to be better will be the one post-trading deadline. Until then, I’ll be quite satisfied with a team that is definitely better than the one from October 2007. As a fan, I’m pretty confident the Pens will be able to stay up at the top of the conference until the trading deadline. From there, who knows what Shero will be able to do? After all, nobody expected the Pens to get Hossa this past February…
July 20th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Good points Ben, I guess that I was looking at it more along the lines of a one-for-one replacement for the players that left….
I agree with your points on defense, PP and PK. It was for the reason above that I didn’t mention it the first time around….
And finally, I think we said the same thing in our last paragraphs…..
Thanks….
July 20th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
[…] ASSISTSPenguins-Bob Smizik says Marian Hossa shouldn't be booed when he returns to Pittsburgh.-The Confluence of the Three Rivers compares the 2007-08 Penguins vs. the 2008-09 version of the team.-Eddy Spaghetti found the best […]
July 21st, 2008 at 12:58 am
Screw the penguins! they’re gonna suck next year. They can’t even manage to keep their team together
the caps are going to OWN the east.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:12 am
I think shero made one very big mistake in letting ty conklin go. all the rest of the moves made will work fantastic. sid-dupios-satan / malkin- sykora-fedetoko/
staal-cook-kennedy/ talbot-jaffe-godard/ 3 top shelf defensive pairing with two very solid veterans in hold
very good young players in scranton who could start for other less deep teams, injury fill ins. but the fact is
if fleury goes down again, the pens have NO ONE to fill his shoes!!! sabourin is not now nor will he every be starter quality goalie 15 games he is barely passable. daily starter for 5-25 games not even close.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:13 am
I think perhaps a better comparison would be the beginning of last season, and in that regard, the Pens are better.
And you also conveniently forgot to mention that Ray Shero has made mention of Jordan Staal playing a wing on the top two lines, meaning he could have a Ryan Malone type year.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:21 am
Mariano,
Far be it from me not to engage in a debate with a Caps fan, but don’t you think the Caps should have done SOMETHING in free agency to all of a sudden “own the east” ?? You really don’t think you’re going to the Stanley Cup finals just because you got Jose Theodore and Keith Aucoin, do you ??
In terms of the Pens, yeah they did lose a lot of free agents. But they retained their core (you know, the ones that torture the Caps every game) for multiple years, and they did lock up Orpik for a long-term deal.
PFFL, completely agree, let’s just hope that Sabourin won’t be needed other than spot start….
July 21st, 2008 at 8:24 am
C,
Boy you guys are really dissecting every detail that I didn’t put in there, but that’s fine…
You’re correct in that regard, having Staal on the wing would be very interesting to see if/how he would flourish….
July 21st, 2008 at 8:36 am
DIDN’T ANY OF YOU WATCH THE JANNE PESONEN VIDEOS? the guy who wrote the article didnt even mention Pesonen who let the Karpat of the SM-Liiga to the championship 4 out of the last 5 years winning numerous scoring titles and beang a member of the “gold helmet club”. Maybe you people should dig a bit deeper in your research.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:37 am
excuse the type-o’s
July 21st, 2008 at 8:38 am
About Conklyn
Shero may be saving backup goalie for the very end (assuming he can move Sydor (if he still wants to) — JS Aubin and Thibault are both still available in the 6-800k range. And we’d save money on new masks, too.
That said, the team owes Dany a chance to prove he deserves to be where he is, and I suspect they will lean as heavily on him as they can. But this is a team build to be defensively reliable (including goalie) and if he can’t handle it they’ll want to have someone on deck.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:03 am
Eddie, yes I’m well aware of Pesonen, we’ve all seen the videos…. Don’t get me wrong, of course I hope that he pans out and fills one of the winger spots, we’ll just have to wait and see if that happens….
Rocky, I would think that if/when Shero trades Sydor, he might want more help at forward, but who knows, you may be right as well….
July 21st, 2008 at 9:05 am
“NANANANA NA NA NA NA NA”
July 21st, 2008 at 9:06 am
One more thing. Everyones so up on trading Sydor, but what about his leadership qualities? If he had played more in the playoffs and Letang wasnt caught like a deer in the headlights maybe he would have been a bit warmer when Detroit came. Sydor offers quality leadership as he is as valid a veteran as the Gonch if not more.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
I don’t necessarily disagree with that Eddie, I think his salary is the sticking point, though….
July 21st, 2008 at 9:52 am
Good call.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am
does everyone forget that the pens didn’t have hossa until the end of the year and they were still in the hunt for the first seed.As for malone i liked the guy, don’t get me wrong. But, don’t you think his numbers were a little inflated playing with malkin and skora
July 21st, 2008 at 10:38 am
Definitely valid points Scott…
As I said, my intent was comparing the team now to what it was at the end of the past season, and not at the beginning of last season….
I certainly don’t see any need for doom and gloom, just pointing out the differences….
July 21st, 2008 at 11:56 am
Pittsburgheddie, “leadership” is overrated… Skills outweigh leadership in basically ever case… and Sydor’s skills caused him to be a healthy scratch quite often last season. His value on the Penguins is diminished which is why he should be traded.
Concerning Pesonen… We’ll just have to see how he converts to the NHL. It’s easy to say he will be a 1st liner in the NHL due to what he did over seas… but there is a reason he was overseas.. so only time will tell.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Conklin will hurt, Hossa…eh, he jumped in like double dutch then jumped out…peace! We still have the 2 best players in the world (go ahead say Ovechkin i know someone will) And we also have the 5 most feared words in the NHL…The penguins will get better. Is half our team even allowed to drink yet??!?!
Leave a comment