NHL analysis

Major Additions: Mike Weaver, Ty Conklin, Jeff Taffe, Darryl Sydor, Danny Sabourin, Petr Sykora

Major Subtractions: Jocelyn Thibault, Michel Ouellet

Analysis

Well, I’m no Ian Mendes, so I’m not going to argue that the Penguins will miss the playoffs this season, though I can see some cause for concern.

First off, the likes of Petr Sykora, Mark Recchi and Gary Roberts aren’t getting any younger. How much longer can they continue to play at a high level? For another, as Mendes points out, it’s not unheard of for young teams to go through a sophomore slump of sorts after a surprisingly successful season. Finally, the Atlantic Division is looking like one of the toughest in the league this summer, with the Flyers and Rangers making some huge free agent acquisitions. The Devils and Islanders both took steps backwards but both boast excellent goaltending and coaching.

The flip side, obviously, is that the Pens boast the best player in the league surrounded by a number of excellent young forwards and defencemen. With both Crosby and Whitney signed long-term, the Penguins can focus on getting Evgeni Malkin Marc-Andre Fleury and Jordan Staal resigned. Fleury is in the last year of his entry-level deal, while Staal and Malkin each have two years left - and all three would make very tempting targets for offer sheets should they reach free agency.

Are the Penguins ready to make the next step? They looked lost in the playoffs a year ago, unable to find that next gear so necessary to be make the jump from a playoff team to a true Cup contender. No doubt they will learn from the experience but the very team that embarrassed them so thoroughly took far more than a single year to become a hardened playoff team.

As with the playoffs last year, the Penguins are not a team I would choose to face but nor are they a team I would be particularly worried by. Until they get more playoff experience under their belt - throughout their entire lineup, not merely from a few veterans - they look like a contender for the President’s Trophy but not the Stanley Cup.

Key players for Pittsburgh: Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury, Gary Roberts

Key players for Ottawa: Dany Heatley, Ray Emery, Wade Redden
Analysis: As a Leafs fan, one of my few remaining hopes for this season remains watching Roberts beat up the Ottawa Senators.  It’s a particularly juicy story given that Muckler has already been criticized for not acquiring Roberts at the deadline.  And make no mistake - Roberts will be a major piece of this story.

The series, I believe, will come down to goaltending.  Fleury is improving almost daily, but I do not believe he is ready for this.  Emery, on the other hand, has playoff experience and is playing to prove he deserves the starter’s role.  If he wants to play next season (not to mention receive a big pay raise this summer) he has to continue to outplay Martin Gerber (not too tough apparently).

By winning home ice advantage I think the Senators have picked up the slim advantage needed to win this series.  While the Penguins are more than capable of upsetting the Sens, and while I feel the Penguins (unlike the Sens) explicitly and effectively identified and acquired missing pieces at the trade deadline, I don’t think there’s the same level of urgency in Pittsburgh as there is in Ottawa.  The Penguins have years to win with the core they’ve built, and most of that core has zero playoff experience.

Prediction: Ottawa in seven games

This is a tad premature, I know, with Crosby having another full year on his rookie contract.  But I’ve been thinking a fair amount lately about who is going to replace Mats Sundin when he heads back to his homeland for good, and that got me thinking about franchise players in general and what it takes to get them.

Sidney Crosby is the best player in the NHL and figures to be so for the majority of his career.  What would you be willing to give up for Crosby if you were an NHL GM?

Let’s say Crosby becomes a Restricted Free Agent after next season.  While Pittsburgh works feverishly to resign him to a contract that will allow them some room and/or flexibility for the next summer, when Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin will be looking for big raises of their own, you decide to sneak in an offer sheet to Sid the Kid.  Not surprisingly, you offer him something in the neighbourhood of $7-$8 million per year.  Maybe you offer him the maximum salary allowed by the then-current salary cap.

Based on the CBA, if Crosby signed that offer sheet the Penguins would have two choices: match that contract or let him go and accept compensation in the form of (for that high a salary) 5 first round draft picks.

Now, I don’t think you’d find a single GM who would choose the draft picks over Crosby.  But this line of thought led me down two paths that I found interesting.

First, just what would it take to pry a Crosby, an Alexander Ovechkin or a similar franchise-player type RFA from their former club?  And I mean this question seriously.  What would you offer to Pittsburgh GM Ray Shero for Crosby, Malkin or Staal if he was having trouble fitting his stars under the salary cap?

7 first round draft picks?  10?  20?

I can’t see this sort of trade ever happening, for two reasons.  First of all, no number of first round picks has any guarantee of producing a player of the caliber of a Malkin or Staal, let alone a Crosby.  Crosby is more valuable than almost any number of picks because it is virtually guaranteed a player of his caliber will not be available in the next twenty years.  Even if such a player does turn up sooner than expected, it will take not merely a first round pick but a first overall pick to obtain it.  Second, this deal would also severely hobble the GM that offered up so many picks for his new star.  Even if he got Crosby, who would you surround him with if you lacked first round picks for the next decade or two?

The second line of thought has to do with the Penguins situation in particular.  I think we can all agree that the Penguins will be unable to keep all five of Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Marc Andre Fleury and Ray Whitney for more than a few years.  However, their meteoric rise up the standings this season suggest they’ll be more interested in adding veteran rentals than first round picks over the next few years.

The Penguins are going to have to think long-term, and if they haven’t started already I’d be shocked.  What kind of return they get for whichever star they choose to move (Malkin seems the most likely).  A combination of draft picks, prospects and especially veteran help seems obvious, but what exactly they add will be interesting to see.

The Pens will also have to have plenty of forethought in their contract negotiations with their youngsters.  The Penguins cannot afford to let Crosby, in particular, become even a restricted free agent.  You have to expect someone to offer crosby maximum allowable salary pretty well the day his contract expires.  That would force the Pens hand further than they can afford pretty quickly, I would think.

So that, I think, is your answer to the Penguins - they will pay Crosby whatever he wants because someone will force their hand anyways.  And they had better start exploring trade avenues for one of Malkin or Staal, because they’re going to want to drive that bidding war up as much as they possibly can.

And don’t be surprised to see offer sheets for any other franchise players teams have trouble signing before they hit free agency.  If a team doesn’t want to finish 30th in the league, 5 first round picks may be the quickest and cheapest way of acquiring the next cornerstone player.

HockeyLeaks is reporting that Gary Roberts for Noah Welch is finally a done deal, with Roberts waiving his no-trade clause early this morning.

I was dreading my Leafs re-acquiring Roberts (he’ll go down as one of my all-time favourite Leafs but he’s not the same player he was 5 years ago) but I have to admit I really like this deal for the Penguins.  Roberts adds about the best playoff attitude you can have and will do whatever it takes to win.

He might just be the piece that convinces me they have enough experience and leadership to make some playoff noise.

The Penguins are currently leading the New York Islanders in the first intermission of their afternoon tilt.  If Pittsburgh can hold on for a win, they will improve to 14-0-2 in their last 16 games.

This is the time when those like me, who have long predicted that the oh-so-young Penguins would sputter, stumble and ultimately fall out of the playoff picture before the season was over.

This is still a very young team, but the play of its few veterans, notably Mark Recchi of course, has helped calm its junior core and made them into the hottest team in the NHL since the All-Star break.

Is there enough experience in the dressing room to get the Pens through a long, gritty playoff series?  What about four?  Do the Penguins, so quiet on the rumour front so far this year, make some noise and bring in another vet or two to ease the burden?  Wouldn’t a Martin Gelinas, a Gary Roberts or a Bill Guerin look good adding some depth to this squad?

I still feel this will be a learning year for Pittsburgh, with a disappointing early exit from the second season.  However, I’ve been humbled by this team’s play of late and would definitely not want to face them in the first round.

This entry could also be titled “Teams To Watch Out For.”

Early in the season, as usual, some teams are surprising everyone with their speed - or lack thereof - out of the gate.  Here are a few notes about a few of the surprising teams, and about teams that should become surprising in the near future.

Buffalo Sabres: Due for a slip-up anytime now.  Just don’t tell that to the Philadelphia Flyers, who got hammered 9-1 tonight.  The Sabres have had a very easy scheudle so far but that looks to change soon enough.  While it is still very early for stats to tell us much, the Sabres are the team that is overachieving the most so far, based on their schedule difficulty (past and future) and their success.

Detroit Red Wings: Add the goals the Wings have scored to the shots they’ve taken, take away the shots they’ve allowed and the goals they’ve allowed, and you get a whopping 81, or 16.2 per game.  Even when they’re losing, they’re outplaying their opponents.  They deserve to be doing better than they are (at least until Hasek hurts his groin).

Pittsburgh Penguins: The opposite end of the spectrum.  The same calculations as with Detroit yields an average of minus-15.25.  Ouch.  How long can Marc-Andre Fleury hold this team together?  And no, Evgeni Malkin is not the answer.  Still too many question marks on this team for them to seriously challenge for a playoff position.

Phoenix Coyotes: More bad news for Gretzky and Company.  Assuming every team maintained their current winning percentage, the Coyotes have the most difficult remaining schedule.  Tough break.

Dallas Stars: Here’s a scary one for Pacific Division rivals: The Stars are statistically underperforming so far.  Their first 5 games have been more difficult than the remaining 77 are expected to be.  Yikes.  My money’s still on the Sharks for the division title though.

I’ve decided to combine together a review of the pre-season and a last minute preview of the regular season and to offer a slightly different take on both. I’ll be offering an analysis of one team, player, situation or stat from each division in the NHL. Here’s part one:

Atlantic Division - Crosby, Malkin, Staal

So how many GM’s in the league would trade their first-born to have the depth and youth up the middle the Penguins now have with these three phenoms? Crosby of course became the youngest player ever to top 100 points last season, Malkin is widely considered the best player in the world who has yet to play a game in the NHL, and if Staal is even close to as good as his older brother Eric is, he will complete the trio of soon-to-be top line centermen playing in Pittsburgh.

Or will that trio ever be together? I sincerely doubt it.

Two problems occur: playing time and money. Money will become an issue somewhere between 2 and 4 years from today. Crosby’s contract expires in 2, Malkin’s will expire in 3, and Staal’s will expire in 4 (I’m assuming here he plays fewer than 9 games for the Penguins this year; if he plays 10 or more his contract will start this year and expire at the same time as Malkin’s).

The other problem, ice time, will be an issue the first time Pittsburgh tries to play all three at their natural position in the same game. There simply aren’t enough quality minutes to go around for three young guys as good as these three. Unless one of them gets baddly injured or wants to switch to the wing, something’s gotta give.

So what’s likely to happen? As of right now, Staal has made the starting roster, taking Malkin’s spot. That won’t last. Staal will play something less than 9 games and will get shipped back down so that his 3 year entry level contract doesn’t have to kick in until next season. That gives the Penguins time to make their decision on who they want to keep and who they want to trade. And make no mistake, they will be trading at least one of the three sooner rather than later.

Other factors are in the mix as well. There are rumblings that Malkin is unhappy playing second fiddle to Crosby. See here for more. The short version is that this is the first time pretty well since Malkin could skate that he hasn’t been the go-to-guy.

So by now you may be thinking ‘how could an embarassment of riches like having these three young stars be a bad thing?’ And the answer of course is that it isn’t. The real question however is not who the Penguins will surround these guys with but who they will acquire for whichever one they decide to trade. They desperately need more depth on the blueline, and if pre-season is any indication (it isn’t) they also need help in goal (Fleury is going to have a solid if unspectacular season, so no need to panic over his disapointing pre-season). Either of Malkin or Staal could fetch quite a price from most teams in the league. How much the Penguins manage to squeeze out for their young talent will likely be the deciding factor for their success over the next decade.

Additions: Mark Eaton, Jarkko Ruutu, Patrick Ehelechner, Nils Ekman, Dominic Moore, Mark Recchi

Subtractions: Andy Hil

Analysis:

Ahh, Pittsburgh. The team of big “P” potential for how many years now? How many top draft picks have they had who weres supposed to save the team and catapult them into the playoffs? And yet Pittsburgh has remained mired in the basement of the standings for year after long year.

The good news, of course, is that all of those draft picks, while not sufficient any one by himself, are starting to pile up. With or without Malkin, the Penguins this year will feature a year older, more mature (physically and mentally let’s hope), stronger, more experienced Sidney Crosby, a Fleury who’s always looked like he deserved better than the team he’s had, and a number of other young, quick players. Really, the Penguins can only go up from last year, right?

Right?

Maybe so, but next year will not be the year they make the playoffs. Unless of course they wize up and fire their coach ASAP. Michel Terrien is simply not the guy you want behind your bench. The tyrant routine just doesn’t work at the NHL level. He’ll shout out and insult his players in front of the media, and those same players, for some strange reason, stop wanting to work for the guy. As long as this guy is their coah, the Penguins will remain a bottom-feeder.

Beyond that, the Penguins do seem destined to gain some points this year. Their division got substantially weaker and their young stars are only going to be better. The return of Mark Recchi will help, and you’ve got to think that Sergei Gonchar will bounce back from his pathetic season last year. He may never be a $5 million dollar defenceman, but he should be a very capable power play quarterback and a solid #2 or #3 guy. With the bulk of their players young and therefore fairly cheap, the big salary bite doesn’t hurt as you might expect, anyways.

The additions won’t shock the hockey world but they were smart, safe moves. Guys like Ruutu and Ekman aren’t easy to play against and always nice to have on your side. As already mentioned, loaning Recchi to the Hurricanes last year only made him more experienced this time around.

I for one really hope the Penguins stay in Pittsburgh, ditch Terrien, and surround Crosby, Fleury and Malkin with the support they deserve. They’re a great franchise, but this year’s team is still a little too heavy on the “P”otential and will be a little too lite on results. But they will be fun to watch.