By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/?m=1
With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, I'm prepared to declare the Penguins a big winner after the first day of NHL free agency. Maybe the biggest winner in the league. But still, I'm wary. I won't feel really good about the team's maneuverings until I hear from that other 1 percent.
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
It's hard to imagine Crosby and Malkin being as thrilled as, say, goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury about Penguins general manager Ray Shero's strategy to strengthen the team's defense significantly at a sizable cost to the offense.
Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
Former Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar signed with the Senators yesterday.
The team didn't just sign superb two-way defenseman Paul Martin and potential-shutdown defenseman Zbynek Michalek to five-year deals totaling $45 million, spending most of its available money under the salary cap in the process. It lost its best offensive defenseman and power-play quarterback Sergei Gonchar to Ottawa.
What a change in philosophy for an organization that always has tried to outscore the other team with Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Crosby and Malkin.
I love it.
Defense wins championships in any sport.
I'm just hoping Crosby and Malkin see it that way.
They have to, right? They are all about winning. They have to know that there was no way they were going to get another Stanley Cup without a serious upgrade of the defense. After losing free-agent defensemen Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill from their Cup team in 2009, the Penguins gave up 237 goals last season to rank 13th in the NHL. Then, they had no answers for Montreal's Mike Cammalleri in their premature second-round playoff loss.
Well, now the Penguins have an answer.
Michalek.
Not just for Cammalleri, but for Washington's Alex Ovechkin and every other top scorer they will face.
"He was our first phone call," Shero said of Michalek.
Not the first choice, though. That was defenseman Dan Hamhuis, who wound up with Vancouver later Thursday. But as first alternates go, Michalek is a good one. He's a terrific shot-blocker. He kills penalties. He eats a lot of minutes. He's extraordinarily durable, having played in 72, 82, 75, 82 and 82 games for Phoenix the past five seasons. And he's just 27. He's not as good as he's going to be. Certainly, he has the size -- 6-foot-2, 210 pounds -- to play an even more physical game.
It says something about the day Shero had that Martin, 29, is considered to be an even better all-around player. Team USA was crushed when he had to withdraw from the Olympics team in February at the Vancouver Games because of a broken arm. He has the offensive skills to move the puck, play on the power play and ease some of the sting from Gonchar's departure. He's also much better than Gonchar in his own end.
It's hard to say any team helped itself more Thursday than the Penguins did.
Shero now has the core of a Cup contender -- Crosby, Malkin, Jordan Staal, Brooks Orpik, Kris Letang, Martin, Michalek and Fleury -- signed through at least the 2012-13 season.
Wow.
Losing Gonchar hurts, but Shero is no fool. He knew he couldn't offer Gonchar, 36, more than a two-year contract. Give him credit for standing firm when Ottawa offered Gonchar three years for $16.5 million. Gonchar had to take it. The Penguins had to let him go. "Nothing was ever acrimonious, it was just business," Shero said.
Crosby and Malkin will miss Gonchar because he was so good for them on the power play. As for that scoring winger so many hoped Shero would find for one or the other? You probably can forget about that now. There's no cap space.
That means another season of Crosby playing with Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis. It means another year of Malkin playing with Max Talbot and your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine. One of the kids, perhaps? Eric Tangradi? Nick Johnson? Dustin Jeffrey? Mark Letestu? Chris Conner?
Hey, you can't fill all of your needs in the salary-cap era. It's impossible.
Maybe Shero would have taken a different approach if there had been more wingers to choose from in free agency. The pickings were so slim that a third-line player such as old friend Colby Armstrong signed a three-year, $9 million deal with Toronto.
"We didn't see any real difference-makers up front," Shero said.
Or maybe the approach wouldn't have been different even if there had been better scorers available.
"We've had no problem scoring goals," Shero said.
The Penguins ranked fifth in the NHL with 257 goals last season.
Shero seems confident the Penguins will do just fine if that number goes down a bit next season. They just might have to win 3-2 instead of 5-4 on many nights.
"I think we did really well," Shero said of the work Thursday.
That makes two of us.
If the Penguins win, Crosby and Malkin will make it three and four.
Heck, if the Penguins win, it will be unanimous.
Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com. Ron Cook can be heard on the "Vinnie and Cook" show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
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