By Dave Molinari
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Peter Diana/Post-Gazette photo illustration
Penguins Sidney Crosby, center, Marc-Andre Fleury, left, and Evgeni Malkin, right.
Don't get the wrong idea.
History doesn't completely rule out the possibility of the Penguins winning the Stanley Cup next spring.
It just comes awfully close.
Oh, the Penguins can be encouraged to learn that there is, in fact, precedent for a team winning the championship a year after losing in the Cup final. Especially if they don't notice that it's only happened once since the NHL expanded from six to 12 teams in 1967.
The Edmonton Oilers did it in 1984, beating the New York Islanders in five games in the championship round after being swept by the same opponent a year earlier.
So when the Penguins, who lost the 2008 final to Detroit in six games, open the 2008-09 season with a pair of games against Ottawa in Stockholm, Sweden next weekend, they will begin trying to fight their way into one of pro hockey's most exclusive clubs.
They've been compared to the Oilers of the early- and mid-1980s frequently during the past few winters -- it's hard to miss the parallels between a team built around the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Grant Fuhr and one with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury in its nucleus -- and now will try to claim a space in the record book where only the Oilers' signature has been scrawled.
That seems an awful lot to ask of any club, but Ed Johnston, who was the Penguins' general manager when the Oilers were dominating the NHL, believes these Penguins could pull it off.
"We have a lot of similarities here," said Johnston, now a senior adviser with the Penguins. "You look at the youth and talent we have, with Crosby and Malkin and [Jordan] Staal, and our young [defense].
"We've got the guy in nets, almost like Fuhr. If you're making a comparison, I think that's a pretty good comparison."
The short-term effect
When Edmonton went from second place to league champion in 12 months, Ronald Reagan was running for his second term as president.
"Hello," by Lionel Richie was the No. 1 song on the Billboard charts.
"The Natural," starring Robert Redford, was filling theaters across the country.
A promising center named Mario Lemieux was three weeks away from being the No. 1 choice in the NHL draft.
Sidney Crosby was more than three years from being born.
The Penguins can't deny those realities, but aren't fixating on them, either.
"I don't [care] about it," center Max Talbot said, "because I know we can win."
Crosby is no less optimistic, as is his nature, but offered a more measured response when asked about the fate that have befallen most Cup runners-up, and how to avoid it.
"I haven't played the next year after going to the Stanley Cup final yet, so I wouldn't be able to tell you," he said, smiling.
Talbot theorized that some second-place finishers' problems the following season stem, at least in part, from the aftershocks of a go-for-broke approach that made reaching the final possible.
"Some teams would make [short-term personnel moves], sacrifice a couple of young guys to get some better players, then the next year, lose those guys," Talbot said.
The Penguins, it should be noted, made such a deal in February, sending Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, Angelo Esposito and a first-round draft choice to Atlanta for Marian Hossa.
The long march
While it's difficult to deal with losing in the final, whatever the reason, runners-up tend to fare considerably worse in the season that follows.
Since 1996, when Colorado swept Florida in the championship series, only one Cup loser -- the 1999-2000 Dallas Stars -- managed to win a single playoff series the following year. Four of the 11 didn't even qualify for the playoffs.
"I think they think it's going to be a little easier the following year," Johnston said. "That comes from leadership in your dressing room."
Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar played on one of those teams, the 1998 Washington Capitals. They went from losing to Detroit in the final to a 31-45-6 record the following season.
"From my experience ... it's really hard to keep your focus," Gonchar said. "It seems like you're pretty much playing or working out for two years.
"Sometimes, you can lose your focus. It seems like there is so much hockey, so much travel."
And that's without a trip across the Atlantic, like the one the Penguins began last evening, when they left for Sweden.
Going to Stockholm figures to create a unique set of problems for the Penguins, but even a standard-issue schedule can grind down a club coming off a long season and short summer.
Players who go to the Cup final have less time to rest and train, and that can lead to fatigue -- physical and/or mental -- the following season. Even if a player feels fresh and recharged in early autumn, he can start to wear down in February or March.
"It's hard," said right winger Petr Sykora, a veteran of three Cup finals. "You don't get your rest in the summer, you don't get the amount of time you need to prepare your body for the next season. ... There are going to be times in the season when you go through stretches where you're not used to being in that kind of situation."
The challenge of winning a Cup 12 months after losing in the final has been further complicated in recent years by liberalized free agency. That also explains why no champion has repeated since Detroit in 1997 and 1998.
"Obviously, there's a lot of player movement now," defenseman Brooks Orpik said. "When you have [successful] teams, guys are targeted by other teams and it's tough to keep guys together."
The Penguins were able to re-sign Orpik during the off-season, but are trying to compensate for the loss of key contributors like Hossa and Ryan Malone. At the same time, many of the clubs with which they compete have upgraded their personnel.
"A lot of teams now have the opportunity to improve over the course of the summer," Johnston said. "They can fill one or two spots, and jump up and bite teams. You can get a pretty good hockey team pretty quick."
Head games
Players' reactions to learning of the struggles Cup runners-up had the next season ranged from mild amusement to genuine surprise to professional curiosity.
Far more uniform was their insistence that the Penguins are a viable threat to end the second-place slump.
"I don't [care] about it," Talbot said, "because I know we can win."
Few, if any, seem seriously concerned about having their energy reserves depleted over the course of the season.
"We have a young group of guys who recover quickly," Gonchar said.
Having so many youthful players in key roles and being, in general, well-conditioned should work in their favor. But even if their bodies hold up, keeping a sharp psychological edge during the dog days of winter might be tough.
At some point, all of the hockey they've played over 16 months or so could dissolve into a blur and steal some of the focus needed to be successful, night-in and night-out.
"I don't think that physically, it will be a test," Crosby said. "But mentally, it will be a test, for sure."
Not necessarily one they are doomed to fail. Especially if they take their cue from teammates like Crosby, whose passion for his work might be his most underrated asset.
"I know Sid won't be sick of hockey at any point in the year," Orpik said, laughing. "I don't know about other guys."
He has a point, but he also seems confident the relaxed atmosphere in the Penguins' locker room, a carryover from last season, could have tangible benefits as the season moves along.
"Something that helps our team is how loose we are," Orpik said. "It's a fun group to be around. When you hit those stretches in the middle of the season where you're kind of plugging away, we have a group that kind of picks you up and pushes you through with the energy we have in here."
They'll need that, if they're to be a factor in the 2009 playoffs. They'll need to find satisfactory replacements for guys like Hossa, Malone, Jarkko Ruutu and Georges Laraque, too. To stay healthy. To be lucky.
"We know it's not going to be easy," general manager Ray Shero said. "We've talked about that, and the players understand that, too. We've got to make the playoffs, become a competitive team and find our identity.
"We go through that every year. Hopefully, we'll be the team that breaks that streak."
Dave Molinari can be reached at DWMolinari@Yahoo.com.
First published on September 28, 2008 at 12:00 am
No comments:
Post a Comment