By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/penguins/
It's easy to pick out the high point in the Penguins' 2008-09 season.
Rule of thumb: Anytime you win your final game and someone hands you an oversized trophy a couple of minutes later, odds are pretty good that is it.
Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
In a roller-coaster season of ups and downs, Hart Trophy candidate Evgeni Malkin was a constant. He was the leading scorer in both the regular season and playoffs.
Identifying the nadir -- the time when things were at their absolute worst -- is a bit tougher. Mostly because there were several possibilities.
"We had a couple of low points," right winger Tyler Kennedy said.
Like a 4-3 loss to Washington at Mellon Arena Oct. 16, when the Capitals scored the final four goals. Being shut out, 2-0, by lowly Tampa Bay at home Dec. 23. A 5-1 home defeat by Boston Dec. 30 that inspired a players-only meeting. Blowing a 3-0 lead at Nashville Jan. 8 in what became a 5-3 loss.
The logical choice, though, probably would be a 6-2 defeat at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto Feb. 14.
Not just because they gave up six -- count 'em, six -- unanswered goals to a team that shouldn't have been at threat to anyone but itself, but because the Penguins self-destructed so spectacularly.
"We just fell apart," center Sidney Crosby said at the time.
Enough that the return of defenseman Sergei Gonchar, who had missed the previous 56 games while recovering from shoulder surgery, didn't help, even though getting him back was the first development that made that parade through Downtown Monday possible.
Enough that, less than 24 hours after the Toronto game, general manager Ray Shero concluded that Michel Therrien, who had guided the Penguins to the 2008 Stanley Cup final and had been rewarded with a three-year contract, no longer was the man to lead his team.
Shero, with few options, decided the Penguins would be better off under the control of someone with two-thirds of a minor-league season of head-coaching experience. Guy named Dan Bylsma, who would turn out to be the second step toward the playoffs.
Bylsma's debut the next afternoon -- a 3-2 shootout loss to another bottom-feeder on Long Island -- wasn't particularly encouraging, but the Penguins took their first halting steps in the right direction with a 5-4 victory over Montreal three days later.
Chris Young/AP
Toronto's Alexei Poinkarovsky (23) scores to add to the humiliation of Sidney Crosby, left, and the Penguins as one of the worst teams in the NHL routed the Penguins, 6-2, on a February night in Toronto -- a turning point in the season.
The third development was the arrival -- via trades -- of Chris Kunitz, Bill Guerin and Craig Adams, who joined the Penguins as the March 4 trade deadline closed in. By then, the Penguins were in full gallop, immersed in what would become the first 5-0 road trip in franchise history.
"When we saw everything happen, we felt the urgency," defenseman Kris Letang said. " 'Hey guys, we have a good team. We shouldn't be in 10th place. We should wake up.' "
Not that anyone would have begrudged the Penguins a nap or two along the way, because they not only had reached the Cup final last spring, but had played the first two games of the 2008-09 regular season against Ottawa in Sweden.
That's a formula for a sputtering start, but the Penguins actually began pretty well. When they beat Buffalo, 5-2, at Mellon Arena Nov. 15, they owned a six-game winning streak and an 11-4-2 record.
That was the final time they would win back-to-back games until Jan. 16-18, however, and it happened only one more time before mid-February, at which point the Penguins were marooned in 10th place in the Eastern Conference.
"We had a good start," Letang said. "After that, we were winning two games and losing three, winning one and losing two. There was no consistency. We were 10th or 11th and losing important games against average teams."
That humiliating loss in Toronto left the Penguins five points out of the final Eastern playoff spot, and with a 15-21-2 record over a 38-game stretch. A team that had entered the season as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender was looking a lot like one that couldn't -- or wouldn't -- succeed without a new coach.
"I didn't like the way the team was playing, and ... Michel Therrien, unfortunately, had to take the fall for that," Shero said. "As a manager looking at the team, something wasn't right."
John Dunn/Associated Press
Dan Bylsma began his Penguins coaching career with a 3-2 Presidents Day loss to the Islanders. Who could have imagined what was to come.
That Bylsma could have such a profound impact became apparent just a few days into his tenure. The Penguins, who played a cautious game under Therrien, adopted a more aggressive, up-tempo style tailored to the strengths of players like Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, among others.
Bylsma also took a decidedly different approach to relationships with his personnel. Players say Therrien would berate at least some guys when he was displeased with them; Bylsma wasn't afraid to point out mistakes, but was more tactful and positive about it.
There are different ways to push a team's buttons, and his obviously suited this team well.
Precisely how much of the credit for the Penguins' transformation from confused to contenders that Bylsma deserves is impossible to say -- Gonchar's return and the addition of Kunitz, Guerin and Adams also were major factors -- but he certainly was not just along for the ride.
"After the changes, the energy was different," Gonchar said. "Maybe three to five games after the changes, you could seem the team playing better, with more energy.
"That was the point where we started improving our game every night. That was the time we started realizing we could make the playoffs."
The Penguins clinched the spot that once seemed so far from their grasp with a 6-4 victory in Tampa April 7, part of an 18-3-4 surge after Bylsma moved behind the bench.
Five nights later, in the final game of the regular season, the New York Rangers upset Philadelphia at the Wachovia Center, locking the Penguins into fourth place in the Eastern Conference and giving them home-ice advantage in a first-round playoff series against the Flyers.
Just how critical that was is conjecture -- after all, the Penguins would get seven of their 16 playoff victories on the road, including the clincher in every round -- but it certainly didn't hurt.
They made an unmistakable statement by rallying from a 3-0 deficit in Game 6 at Philadelphia to earn a 5-3 victory and did it again in Round 2. After losing Game 6 in overtime at Mellon Arena, they went into Washington and blew out the Capitals, 6-2, in Game 7.
Bylsma likes to talk about different players having a chance to "wear the cape" as the hero in a particular game if the Penguins play the way they're supposed to, and that proved to be the case.
Malkin, who followed up a regular-season scoring title by leading the playoffs with 36 points and winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as postseason MVP, and Crosby were regular contributors to the offense, especially through the first three rounds, but didn't often have the spotlight to themselves.
Whether it was Guerin or Letang or Malkin scoring in overtime, Marc-Andre Fleury making key saves on the likes of Jeff Carter, Alex Ovechkin, Eric Staal and Nicklas Lidstrom, Max Talbot taking one for the team by fighting Daniel Carcillo in the final Flyers game or scoring both Penguins goals in Game 7 of the Cup final or Rob Scuderi's strong defensive work against the most-gifted players opponents could deploy, there always was someone ready to do whatever was needed to assure success.
"Everything it took to win, we did," Crosby said. "Blocking shots, great goaltending, different guys stepping up. We did exactly everything it takes to win."
The Penguins swept Carolina in the Eastern final to earn a rematch with Detroit, which beat them in six games in the 2008 Cup final.
The Red Wings won the first two games and, after the Penguins regained their equilibrium with two victories at Mellon Arena, watched the Penguins melt down in a 5-0 loss in Game 5 at Joe Louis Arena.
The Penguins regrouped and extended the series with a 2-1 victory at home in Game 6, then earned the championship with a 2-1 victory in Detroit three nights later, becoming the first NHL, NBA or Major League Baseball team since the 1979 Pirates to win Game 7 of a championship round on the road.
And so a team that was going nowhere less than four months earlier reached the summit of its sport, giving the franchise a view from the top of the NHL for the first time in 17 years.
"Who would have thought in February, when we were in 10th place, we'd be here?" Crosby said. "It's an incredible feeling."
Dave Molinari can be reached at dmolinari@post-gazette.com.
First published on June 21, 2009 at 12:00 am
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