The Penguins have won four straight, are 19-9-1 and have the game’s best two players.
It’s no mystery why the Pittsburgh Penguins are currently the odds-on favorite to win the Stanley Cup, paying 7-1. They’re an astounding 3-1 favorite to win the Eastern Conference. These Penguins are winners, right?
I wouldn’t touch that bet. Not a single dollar.
For these Pittsburgh Penguins, winning is not curing all ills; it is masking them.
The Penguins are not winning because they’re a better team. They’re winning because Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are often better than the entire other team.
While fans marvel at Crosby’s game winner Tuesday night in Long Island, astute observers should note the Penguins, before number 87 and 71’s heroics, trailed a team which is 11 points out of a playoff spot by two goals.
The hard truth for these Penguins is the regular season success, this season and past, has clouded the judgment of coaches and management. The organization has avoided making tough personnel choices for Crosby and Malkin’s supporting cast. The organization has instead given the same players, who failed to match up in postseason battles, a raise.
The Penguins organization has doubled down on the lack of physical presence, choosing to utilize mostly mobile, puck moving defensemen like Paul Martin and Matt Niskanen. General manager Ray Shero also used first round draft selections on several more similar defensemen, including Olli Maatta and Simon Despres.
If you still believe the Penguins are Stanley Cup favorites, simply watch Boston’s ability to control play in the third period.
Teams are shoved to the outside by a physically tough defense and aggressive back-checking forwards. Opponents rarely get time or space in scoring areas. Boston has four lines, which force opponents to pay a physical price for even touching the puck. They’re physically dominant without sacrificing offense or resorting to general goonery.
Watch Chicago’s defense swarm the puck and move it quickly to the league’s other dynamic duo, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. Chicago also routinely possesses a healthy dose of grit and “jam” on its third and fourth lines, even as they continue to swap and change those players. Chicago’s role players challenged Boston’s physical superiority in the last Stanley Cup finals, creating space for players like Kane and Toews to flood the low scoring zones, a price the Penguins were unwilling or unable to pay a round before.
Why didn’t the Penguins pay that price?
The L.A. Kings won the Stanley Cup two years ago with a suffocating defense, great goaltending and a few unheralded players, like Jordan Nolan, who asserted a punishing physical presence. They had just enough scoring to get to Lord Stanley’s chalice as the first ever 8th seed.
Role players create space for their scorers by paying the physical price for them. Role players create energy and momentum.
When was the last time anyone noticed Pens third line center Brendon Sutter was on the ice? When was the last time the Penguins defense took a physical toll on the opposition?
Do the Penguins have any of what the last three Stanley Cup winners had? Quite simply– no. The Pens are, in hockey terms, soft.
Stanley Cups are won and lost by role players. However, the Penguins seem pleased with Craig Adams, Joe Vitale and the assortment of role players, who use speed not sandpaper, quick feet not aggressive shoulders. Little organizational heat is applied to Sutter’s third line, which consistently fails to provide energy, physical presence or scoring.
The team also seems pleased with its homogenous defense, comprised of smaller mobile players, such as Niskanen, who use stick work and body position instead of taking the body. Even the formerly punishing Brooks Orpik has modified his game to fit the Penguins’ new philosophy.
Do you recall Game 6 of the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals when Orpik tried to put all five Red Wings on the ice through the Civic Arena glass on one shift?
Recall the immobile Hal Gill clearing large patches of ice in front of his net in ’08 and ‘09. It wasn’t pretty, but that’s what role players and Stanley Cup champions do.
That’s what the Penguins have not done since 2009. And until fundamental changes occur in the Penguins thinking, Crosby and Malkin will dominate the regular season…and I won’t touch any bet that includes the Penguins winning the Stanley Cup.
Photo Credit: Penguins.NHL.com
