The difference between the Penguins and Blue Jackets is exemplified by their fans: At Columbus, everyone stood up during Wednesday’s overtime. At Consol Energy Center this past Saturday, many spectators left during OT.
If you can’t beat the low seed, you can at least beat the traffic.
The Penguins are in a deep malaise. Perhaps they can snap out of it and win the Stanley Cup. Or maybe it’s nothing a different coach and 10 new players can’t fix.
The Penguins have one foot on a pedestal and the other in 2009. Their entitlement is tangible. When a foe has the temerity to actually compete, the Penguins go limp. “How dare you?” The organization is soft from top to bottom.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. GM Ray Shero deserves more scrutiny than he’s received. This team is flawed in the assembly. Certain management and coaching idiosyncrasies have taken bad and made it worse.
The Penguins’ bottom-six forwards are putrid. Too much vanilla, too little height, not enough bash and crash. Brandon Sutter is playing OK, but he’s a stick figure. He can’t win battles. Craig Adams is washed up. Brian Gibbons and Jayson Megna are minor-leaguers. Joe Vitale isn’t much better.
Beau Bennett is too often on the wrong line and the wrong wing. He’s a first-round talent, but plays second fiddle to Lee Stempniak, a rental winger who was bottom-six at Calgary, one of the league’s worst teams.
If Bennett isn’t good enough, shame on Shero for drafting him 20th overall in 2010. Same goes for Simon Despres (30th overall in 2009). If they are good enough but aren't being used right, shame on coach Dan Bylsma. Somebody goofed.
If you're a Penguin and want nurtured, be a little engine that could. Don’t be talented.
The Penguins’ top-six forwards are considered good, and mostly (usually) are. But Stempniak was bottom-six at Calgary, and he’s skating with Crosby. Jussi Jokinen was bottom-six at Carolina, and he’s skating with Malkin. You can’t polish excrement. But Shero’s roster construction leaves no choice.
The signing of Rob Scuderi seemed a good idea. But he’s played sub-par. At 35, with three more years on his deal, Scuderi isn’t likely to get much better.
The Penguins should have committed to using Despres or Robert Bortuzzo and used cash spent on Scuderi to sign a winger. Scuderi isn’t what he was, and the Penguins have stockpiled defensemen in obsessive fashion. If you draft them, play them. Trust them. If you won’t, because you don’t, why were they drafted? Have you failed them in development?
In retrospect, the Penguins should have traded Malkin or Kris Letang, using the return to restock the team’s depth. But now Malkin has a no-trade clause that he has zero intention of ever waiving. Letang’s no-trade kicks in July 1. Who would deal for Letang between now and then given his health issues?
None of these issues caused Marc-Andre Fleury’s mistake behind his net Wednesday, or Crosby and Malkin netting a big, fat donut so far in these playoffs. But everything adds up. Mistakes were made.
The Penguins may eliminate Columbus. They probably will.
But what happens after that? Can this team regenerate its performance and its psyche to the point where it could beat, say, Boston? Seems doubtful.
If Bylsma gets sacked but Shero doesn’t, Bylsma’s likely successor would be Barry Trotz, recently fired by Nashville. Shero and Trotz worked together with the Predators.
Trotz would be a bad hire. The Penguins should aspire to better than being Nashville.
Hire ex-Philadelphia coach Peter Laviolette. He would provide a much-needed kick up the backside. The Penguins should be more like the Flyers. Better to be too intense than not intense enough.
Mark Madden hosts a radio show 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WXDX-FM (105.9).
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