Saturday, October 28, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Penguins ascended to first place for 48 hours this week, runnin' with (and past) the New Jersey Devils Tuesday night onto the top floor of the Atlantic Division, then hanging out until Martin Brodeur's 82nd career shutout, Thursday against Florida, hoisted Jersey back into first.
It was portentous while it lasted, though, wasn't it? At least, such is the loudest big-picture hockey question out there this morning.
As the Penguins skate toward their game tonight in Philadelphia at the start of the Flyers-Kings-Sharks-Ducks road trip, the next 10 days ought to furnish the near-term answer as to whether the Boys of Wimper from last year have morphed into a playoff contender or merely a spectacular circus of young talent still years away from winning hockey.
"We're trusting each other," Sidney Crosby was saying the other night. "We're trusting the system, staying patient, not hanging our heads."
What's not to trust now that you can headman a pass to an Evgeni Malkin, who cleaves defenses like few skaters alive? To get the kind of goal like the fourth one Tuesday night at any point last year, Crosby would have had to headman it to himself, which is still not among his many serious gifts.
"I'm a Penguins season-ticket holder, but, if I wasn't," said Mt. Lebanon billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, "I'd be running out to get them."
Cuban was in the blue seats for Malkin's stunning, sprawling goal, his fourth in his first four games (he's the only Penguin ever to do that). Cuban's jaw dropped in unison with that of some 13,000 others, including, presumably, bedeviled defenders Colin White and Brad Lukowich. It was White whom Malkin flashed past as he collected Crosby's deft dart just across the blue line, and it was Lukowich who got turned inside out as Malkin decided to go to his backhand. That move pulled Brodeur violently to his right, but Malkin's startling balance and rare reach allowed him to slide the puck home on the far side of the goalmouth.
Partly because he only has played four games as a Penguin and partly because he speaks to the city through a translator, we are nowhere close to understanding the full hockey impact of Malkin nor the fullness of the 20-year-old Russian himself. Yesterday on the club's Web site came the story of how Malkin, prior to bolting from his Russian team in August, had arranged to pay the surgical and rehab costs incurred by the family of 6-year-old Dasha Tusaeva, born without a left arm to a star-crossed Magnitogorsk family. Her father was paralyzed in a street fight. Their newspaper ad requesting financial aid for prosthetic arm for Dasha was answered by one Evgeni Malkin.
He is quite possibly more than another fluid power skater with soft hands; he is perhaps the charged atmosphere of possibility on many levels.
"We're trying to keep building this atmosphere, a winning atmosphere," said Penguins rookie Jordan Staal, who turned 18 only last month. "Coming into the season, I think people were a little bit skeptical, but things have been going well for us. We're driving hard to the net."
Why would we be skeptical of a team that didn't get its fifth win last year until some people had completed their Christmas shopping? Through eight games last fall, many of these same Penguins were 0-4-4 and had been outscored, 39-23. No wonder 5-3 looks like, well, for 48 hours there, it looked like first place.
On a cautionary note, the first act of the Not Ready For Competence Atlantic Division Players hasn't been much worth chronicling. Even this morning, your second-place Penguins were the only club in the division that has actually outscored its opponents (25-22). The Devils, outscored, 32-27, are just a week removed from an 8-1 embarrassment by Ottawa. The New York Rangers are taking more penalties than an end zone full o' Steelers. The New York Islanders are demonstrably psychotic in the front-office sense. The Flyers, tonight's opponent, started 1-6-1 before ejecting Philadelphia icon Bobby Clarke from the general manager's chair and Ken Hitchcock from behind the bench.
It is easier, it so happens, to maintain karma like the Penguins' than to reverse what seems to be happening to almost everyone else in the division.
"Winning is making a big difference," said goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who's difference-making contribution has been a 2.65 goals-against average as compared to his 3.25 last season. "You can see it in the way guys carry themselves. They can't wait to come to the rink. It's definitely easier to maintain a winning atmosphere. Everyone is relaxed on the ice this year. They don't have to think too much."
If they can carry themselves to California and back without flopping on the ice, we'd all be invited to think some unthinkable things about these kids.
(Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283. )
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