Mike Prisuta
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, December 16, 2005
Loyal to a fault to the end on Thursday, former Penguins coach Eddie Olczyk lamented not his firing, but the need for Mario Lemieux and the organization to make a change.
"My biggest disappointment is I let Mario and the team down," Olczyk said. "That's what hurts."
Not that it matters now, but it was the other way around.
The responsibility for 8-17-6, for as profound a disappointment as this franchise has ever experienced, all things considered, isn't Edzo's. It falls instead to the feet of owner/slash/captain Mario Lemieux, to General Manager Craig Patrick and especially to the players who too often refused to perform for a guy who trusted and respected them and treated them as professionals despite their steadfast refusal to embrace the role.
Sometimes, nice guys really do finish last, or in this case aren't permitted to finish.
Now, we'll see how the Penguins respond to a screamer.
To the anti-Edzo.
Olczyk, apparently, just wasn't mean enough for the job.
"I tried pushing all kinds of different buttons," he allowed. "You're always second-guessing yourself. Should I play this guy? Should I do this on the power play? Should I give guys days off?
"Should I throw somebody under the bus?"
Olczyk never sold out his players.
"That's the way I would hope I was treated as a player," said Edzo, who played 16 seasons in the NHL for six different organizations, including the Penguins. "It just didn't work."
The Pens' response was to throw Edzo under the bus.
Therrien, meanwhile, is likely ordering more buses.
He's also installing the neutral zone trap and talking first and foremost about "attitude," which, sadly, is the Penguins' most alarming problem.
The Pens thought they were assembling a collection of potential champions when they opened their checkbook in celebration of the NHL's new CBA.
What they got instead turned out to be what long-ago Pens coach Bob Berry once referred to as "circus performers."
Sergei Gonchar isn't the only one of those; just the most obvious.
The team lacks structure, not because Olczyk disdained it but because he couldn't make his players accept it and because they never took it upon themselves to embrace it. No one was called out during a team video review -- Olczyk wasn't a big believer in better coaching through the VCR -- or otherwise disciplined at the expense of their reputation.
What resulted was a team that wasn't remotely competitive enough from night to night and shift to shift.
"It baffles me how guys didn't compete at a high level," winger Mark Recchi said.
There can be no more damning indictment of a group of players.
Therrien's bombastic approach may shock some response out of these zombies, but only briefly.
Players that have to be threatened to extract effort aren't going to win anything significant, no matter the structure or system.
That's no longer Edzo's problem, which perhaps explains his disappointment for Lemieux.
Mike Prisuta is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
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