Ten Questions on the Pens Season

As I write this the Penguins are squaring off with the Vancouver Canucks on opening night of the 2011-2012 NHL Season. Here are ten questions on the upcoming season that I will be following now and as the season progresses.

1. When will Crosby return? Obviously this is question #1 for every Penguins fan but all signs point to Sid not missing a significant part of the season. If Sid misses the first month or less, I expect the Penguins to compete for the top seed in the Eastern Conference and maybe even the top point total in the NHL. If Crosby misses a significant portion of the season, I still expect the Pens to compete for a top four or five seed in the Eastern Conference but the season will start to take on a much different tone with continuing questions about their captain. More important, however, is question number two.

2. Will Crosby remain healthy? I think everyone believes that it is inevitable that Crosby will return at some point and now it is only a matter of when. Nobody, however, knows what will happen when he does return. It’s just my own observation but it seems that those who suffer a concussion either recover quickly and never really have problems with them again or there are those that suffer long-term and lingering effects that result in multiple concussions and careers that are never the same. Guys like Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Eric Lindros and a handful of others were never the same after experiencing lingering symptoms and multiple concussions. I sure hope Crosby returns with no lingering effects, suffers no further damage to his head and goes on to the career that we all expect him to have.

3. How will Evgeni Malkin bounce back from his own injury? Crosby won’t be the only one returning this year from a season ending injury. The Penguins, and maybe the NHL’s, second best player in Malkin returns after missing much of the Pens 2010-2011 season with a torn ACL. Malkin was playing possibly his worst hockey since entering the league before the knee injury ended his season last year. That being said, all indications are that Geno is in the best shape of his career, is more determined than ever before and is poised for a monster season. His preseason sure backed those sentiments and now he must carry that momentum into the regular season and playoffs. With the fantastic depth up and down the line-up that Ray Shero has assembled and with Fleury in net, a healthy Crosby and Malkin make the Penguins the team to beat from where I am sitting.

4. Will Marc-Andre Fleury become an elite goaltender? This question is a bit misleading as most, including myself, already consider Fleury an elite netminder. I’m not sure I would trade him straight up for any other goalie in the league once the playoffs begin. That being said…Fleury’s lackluster statistical regular seasons, both by regular and advanced metric measurements, keeps Fleury from being mentioned with the truly elite goaltenders in the league. I think this is mostly attributed to an absolutely terrible streak that he seems to have every season. Last year you might remember that he got off to an abysmal start. It’s time for Fleury, now 26 years-old, to put together that complete season and begin to get mentioned in that class.

5. Will the Penguins actually have a power play this year? Ha, well if the first period of tonight’s game is any indication they certainly will as James Neal and Matt Cooke converted on the Pens’ first two opportunities of the season. Last year, however, the Penguins finished 25th in converting power play opportunities and it was not just a matter of missing Malkin and Crosby as the Penguins power play struggled even with the two stars in the line-up. The problem was highlighted even further by the fact that the Penguins had the fifth most opportunities in the league. Converting on only a fraction more of their power play chances would make the Penguins a complete team and nearly impossible to compete with through the course of a season.

6. Will James Neal become the scoring winger the Penguins have been searching for? As I mentioned, Neal scored on the Pens’ first power play chance of the season five minutes into the game. That means it took him all of five minutes to match his goal total in 27 games wearing a Penguins sweater a year ago. I won’t harp too much on this one as it has been written about plenty in the local papers but the Penguins need the player we all thought they were getting when Shero traded for Neal at last year’s deadline.

7. Can Matt Cooke continue to be effective? Hopefully game one of eighty-two is a preview of things to come as the last three questions have been answered positively in an emphatic way (Cooke added to his power play goal with a sweet short-handed goal in the 2nd period). This, too, has been a heavily talked about subject in local news circles but I actually think it is being asked backwards. Cooke is a good two-way player, always has been, but the question isn’t whether he can continue to be without his former agitating ways but if he can truly avoid going over that imaginary line once again. Cooke’s history of questionable tactics and dirty hits will be punished severely by the league if another incident occurs and he could easily be on the first plane out of town if that happens as I suspect the Penguins have probably grown a bit tired of that old act.

8. What will Ray Shero do at the trade deadline? Shero has assembled a deep and talented roster that should be on the short list of Stanley Cup favorites if its stars can stay healthy. Shero has also proven that he isn’t afraid to tinker, or make a big splash, at the trade deadline. It will be interesting to see how Shero assesses this team as the season progresses and if he needs to bring in some complimentary pieces or if he needs to make that bigger move to try and recapture Lord Stanley’s Cup.

9. Can the team remain healthy? The biggest obstacle facing the Penguins franchise as they try to win another Cup is the health of its own players. Crosby has missed 76 games over the previous four seasons, Malkin has missed 54 and Chris Kunitz has missed 48 over the past two seasons, Jordan Staal missed 40 a season ago and even tough-man Brooks Orpik missed 19 games last year and 9 games the season before. Sure, hockey is a brutally tough game but the Pens have had some significantly bad luck when it comes to their stars getting injured. The biggest thing I will be watching and rooting for as the season goes along will be the health of the Penguins top players.

10. When do the playoffs start? Seriously, is there anything more meaningless in professional sports for an elite team than the NHL regular season? Maybe the NBA’s regular season but at least in hoops home court advantage is significant. As we saw last year with Tampa Bay beating the Pens in game seven in the first round and Boston winning the cup in game seven on Vancouver’s home ice, seeding and home ice advantage means very little in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The only thing to root for, outside of individual accomplishments and team and player records, is for the team to stay healthy. That hasn’t been the case for the Penguins the last few years and that’s why, especially considering Crosby’s concussion issues, health is the most important factor I will be watching for this year.

Shero Does It Again

It is becoming an annual event now that at or near the NHL trade deadline Penguins’ General Manager Ray Shero will make an aggressive trade that looks great on paper and gives Penguins fans an extra bit of anticipation towards a Stanley Cup run. In 2008, Shero acquired Marian Hossa, Pascal Dupuis and Hal Gill in two separate trades that helped propel the Penguins to the Stanley Cup Finals. In 2009, Shero acquired Chris Kunitz (along with Eric Tangradi), Bill Guerin and Craig Adams in a series of moves that helped put his team over the top and win their first Stanley Cup Trophy since 1992. Last year, Shero traded for defenseman Jordan Leopold and forward Alexi Ponikarovsky in the first of his deadline deals that did not work out. As the saying goes, two out of three ain’t bad…and this year Shero is at it again.

With the NHL trade deadline still a week away, the Penguins have traded defenseman Alex Goligoski to the Dallas Stars in return for winger James Neal and defenseman Matt Niskanen. Talk about a win-win trade for the Penguins. Not only do they beef up the current roster for a run at the Cup this year, assuming Sidney Crosby’s return of course, but the Penguins control the rights to both Niskanen and Neal beyond this year. In Neal’s case, the Penguins control the promising power forward’s rights until 2015 and he quickly becomes a part of the Penguins young core expected to compete for Stanley Cups for the foreseeable future. Despite only being 23-years-old, Neal scored 51 goals in his first two seasons in the NHL and has 21 goals already this year. Put Neal on Crosby’s or Malkin’s line and who knows what to expect. Neal, as he matures, could easily develop into a 30 or even 40 goal scorer.

Sure Goligoski possessed abilities that most defenseman do not have, especially in the offensive zone, but at this moment he was locked in as the Penguins’ fifth defenseman and was average in his own end at best. With the Penguins having the core of their defense in place with Kris Letang, Paul Martin, Brooks Orpik and Zbynek Michalek, they were dealing from a position of strength. Besides, you have to give something up to get something in return.

Niskanen, meanwhile, is a former first round pick, is six months younger than his trade counterpart and has already played in 100 more NHL games over his career than Goligoski. A change of scenery could do some good for the young defenseman who has struggled the past two years after a very promising start to his career. The Pens should be able to plug the newly acquired defenseman in on their third defensive pairing with Deryk Engelland or Ben Lovejoy and not miss a beat defensively. Niskanen does not have the offensive repertoire that Goligoski has, but all that will be expected from him is competent play in his own end.

At the end of the day, Ray Shero has done it again. The Penguins GM has managed to strengthen the core of this Penguins’ roster without disrupting the team’s long term goals. This time, however, Shero was able to upgrade the current roster while also improving the long-term outlook.


A Couple of Leftover Penguins Thoughts:

- I thought Shero would target a rent-a-player such as former Penguin Alex Kovalev to replace some of what the Penguins lost in the offensive end with Malkin’s injury. The best part of Monday’s trade for Neal and Niskanen is that Shero still has the flexibility to acquire such a player. If Shero can land Kovalev or a similar player for only a mid-round draft choice I would expect him to pull the trigger.

- Those that criticized Mario Lemieux for his comments on how the league handled the events on Long Island because he employs Matt Cooke are flat-out wrong. Every team in the league would employ Cooke at a reasonable price and many employ a similar player anyhow. Just because a team is trying to win within the rules of the game doesn’t mean they have to particularly agree with the rules. Besides, what Cooke does as a borderline dirty player is much different than the pre-meditated violence that took place in New York two weekends ago.

- Those that criticized Lemieux for his comments because he has failed to help facilitate change in the game are right on. Lemieux, as a former player and arguably the best or second best player of all-time, carries considerable weight around the league and could be a driving force among the owners to clean up the violence in the sport. Lemieux, however, has not capitalized on this considerable influence that he could possess. It is certainly within his rights to own and manage his team however he sees fit but I can’t argue with those who criticize Lemieux for only using words and not actions.