Friday, July 29, 2005
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
OTTAWA -- Thirty teams, seven rounds. No matter. It's all about the one, the number one, The Next One. The NHL Entry Draft begins tomorrow with Sidney Crosby. Not that it ends there. But the gravity of the day, the months of scouting preparation, the years of fans eyeing this teenager from the Maritimes, the future of a franchise suddenly teeming with on-ice saviors -- it all comes into focus starting at noon tomorrow in Canada's capital.
Funny, the lad who has held the hockey spotlight of an adoring nation ends his long amateur dance inside a Westin Hotel ballroom. The music stops, and he becomes the property of the once star-crossed Penguins.
"Winning the lotto," was how Penguins head scout Greg Malone phrased it, meaning the draft sweepstakes Friday as much as the game's grand prize over the past generation.
When commissioner Gary Bettman opened that final envelope Friday afternoon, effectively rendering obsolete months and years of scouting work, it left Malone some kind of hacked, right?
"Well, we had to fix the ceiling," Malone said, referring to how high he jumped in celebration. "I love it. The only thing that it does, we're just going to have to work a little harder to see who's going to be there [when the Penguins pick next at Nos.] 60 and 61. Obviously, it's a lot different. But I'd just as soon be in this position. I'm one of those guys who'd probably like to go to Ottawa, make the No. 1 pick and go home."
On the eve of the club's most important single selection since Mario Lemieux in 1984, it seems an appropriate time to spin the Penguins' Scouting Sidney memories, especially considering the player has been on the North America hockey radar since leading a Nova Scotia team to a rare appearance in the 16-and-under Canadian national championship game ... at age 14 and the youngest on the ice.
Malone first saw him play, in person, a few months later. He was on his way to a North Dakota event when he decided to stop in at his son Ryan's old school, Shattuck-St. Mary's, in Faribault, Minn., where Crosby spent a year before playing in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Malone's inaugural scouting report: "Yeah, he's the real deal." And still only 14. Crosby proceeded to score 72 goals and 162 points in 57 games for an elite high school hockey team.
With Crosby becoming the first pick of the QMJHL draft by the Rimouski Oceanic that next season, 2003-04, the scouting duties then fell to the Penguins' Quebec scout, Gilles Meloche, a goaltender who played with Lemieux and against Gretzky. He never saw those fellows play in junior hockey. But it didn't take him long to form an opinion on the latest Canadian hockey treasure.
"He was no secret: At 15, we knew he was the next great one to come out," Meloche said. "I've been scouting for 15 years; for me, he's the best junior player I've seen. By a long run.
"He keeps you on the edge of your seat. He gets off the ice, you can't wait to see him get back on, because there's always something happening. The big thing now, he's physically stronger. Two, three guys in the corner, and he always pops out with the puck. From the waist down, his legs must be unbelievable.
"I still can't believe we lucked out."
Malone found himself back in North Dakota last winter, at the World Junior Championships that rate to hockey Canada on the same level as Olympic or maybe even NCAA tournament basketball to America. The 5-foot-11, 193-pound center from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, scored six goals in as many games and helped to guide Team Canada to its first World Junior gold since 1997. That, to the Penguins' head scout, wasn't even the coolest thing to watch at the tournament.
Forget offense and creativity and flair. The kid played winning team hockey.
"He was able to do it this year in the World Juniors in Grand Forks when he played for Team Canada, he was able to play the team concept," Malone said. "He didn't just say, 'OK, this is The Crosby Show.' And he was a big part of that team. What I liked this year about him, he was a lot stronger, he was a lot quicker off the mark. He gets the puck, and the thing is, he always seems to make the right play.
"He makes some great plays that you're amazed at where he's setting up guys and the puck ends up on their stick uncannily. But I've also seen him be very patient, hang on to it, hang on to it, then get it away and score, and you go, 'Wow.' And he'll do whatever it takes to win battles. I mean, he puts guys on their behinds.
"I saw him play at the Memorial Cup, too. There were some other good players there, and you started to question their ability. They are good players. But he was at another level by himself."
Finally, they met in early June, at the prospects' camp in Toronto. Crosby showed up 15 minutes early for his interview, effectively ending the Penguins' session with another prospect. Even in an interview, Crosby dazzles -- Malone called it one of his most impressive prospect chats in 15 years of scouting. They spent nearly 45 minutes together, after which Malone recalls telling general manager Craig Patrick: "As good as he is on the ice, he's just as good or better off the ice."
"He's not only going to be good for Pittsburgh," Malone concluded the other day, "but he's going to be good for the entire hockey world."
NOTES -- As for the remainder of the Penguins' draft, Malone said the team approaches the flip-flopping order as if they have two third-rounders, two fifth-rounders and two-seventh rounders. "At 60 and 61, there will be a couple of players that we really like," he said, of the team's late second-round and early third-round choices, without specifying. ... Several Pittsburgh-related sons could get drafted: Christian Hanson, son of film-star "Hanson Brother" Dave, the former Johnstown minor-league hockey player and RMU Island Sports Center general manager; Patrick Mullen, son of Penguins coach and former player Joe; Chris and Matt Clackson, sons of former Penguins player Kim; and Taylor Chorney, son of former Penguins player Marc. ... The capital city will get a view of Crosby and the top prospects at a noontime affair today, one of a handful of opportunities for the public to fawn over the star. "There's going to be a lot of noise in Ottawa," Malone said.
(Chuck Finder can be reached at cfinder@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1724.)
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