Pittsburgh Dish

Pens vs. Flyers

Good vs. Evil

by Ryan Caione

Cue the dramatic music. Tighten your chinstrap and buckle yourself in. Get in the fast lane, Grandma, the bingo game’s ready to roll.

This is it, people. The playoff series the Penguins wanted no part of by tanking their last game of the season (yeah, right) so they wouldn't meet the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round. The series pitting cross-state rivals that entered the NHL together in 1967 and have disliked each other ever since. A series laden with history and back story.

The Pens once went 15 years without beating the Flyers in the old Philadelphia Spectrum. (They broke the 42-game winless streak on Groundhog Day, 1989, with former Flyer Wendell Young in net.) The teams have faced off in the playoffs three previous times, with the Flyers winning each, and all have been significant.

Later in 1989, in Mario Lemieux’s first trip to the postseason, the Pens took a 3-2 series lead, thanks to Le Magnifique’s five-goal, three-assist rampage in Game 5 that chased hotheaded Flyers goalie Ron Hextall from the net (and after Pens winger Robbie Brown, who never skated so fast in his life). However, with Hextall on the bench, the Flyers took the series by winning the final two games behind the performance of backup (and future Penguin) Ken Wregget.

In Lemieux’s final playoff appearance before retiring in 1997, the Flyers dispatched the Pens in the first round, but not before Mario scored on a rousing breakaway to help keep the series alive in what was to be (at the time) his final home game.

The Pens staked a 2-0 series lead against the Flyers in the 2000 playoffs, but lost the series by dropping four in a row, including the epic five-overtime Game 4, the third-longest game in NHL history.

More recently, ire was raised during Sidney Crosby’s rookie season, when the Kid had his lip split and teeth loosened by a Derian Hatcher high stick in December 2005. Crosby got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for complaining about the infraction to officials, leading the Flyers to label him a whiner and a diver, accusations that opponents continue to spew to this day. Nonetheless Crosby, with four stitches in his face, later scored the game-winning goal in overtime.

The Pens won all eight meetings between the teams last season; Philly took five of eight in the most recent regular season series, including the first four, which featured the 8-2 game in Philadelphia in December in which Georges Laraque sneakily took the skates out from under Flyers goalie Martin Biron and Gary Roberts pummeled former Flyers goon Ben Eager. The Pens turned the tables on the Flyers by winning the next three, including a 7-1 shellacking in Mellon Arena in March, and a 4-3 win in Philadelphia, after which Evgeni Malkin professed his hatred for all things Philadelphia and accused Flyers fans of dumping popcorn on the Pens’ bench.

Of course, the most recent meeting between the two teams was the lackluster season finale won by the Flyers, who afterwards whined that Pens tanked the game so they wouldn’t have to face them in the first round of the playoffs, which would have happened had the Pens won that game.

As for the actual hockey, the Pens possess a superior group of forwards, as well as more overall team speed and skill. The goaltending in the series is about equal, with heretofore unproven Marc-Andre Fleury and Biron both playing well. The Flyers hold the edge in grit, player suspensions, and illegal checks from behind. Philadelphia winger and Plum Boro native R.J. Umberger was a Penguins killer during the regular season and is one of the hottest players right now in the playoffs. The Pens, who have been playing impeccable team defense in the postseason thus far, have to keep him and the likes of Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, and Scott Hartnell in check.

This is the most challenging matchup the Pens have faced this playoff year. Philadelphia will no doubt target Fleury for physical abuse, so Hal Gill, Brooks Orpik, and the rest of the Pens defense must keep his crease clear. But if the Flyers take stupid penalties, as is their wont, the Pens power play can make them pay. The Flyers may grind down the Pens, but not enough to take four out of seven.

Pens in six.

The Pens trade

Future shock?

by Ryan Caione

The Penguins had been cruising along with a 9-4-4 record since they lost their all-everything center and reigning NHL MVP, Sidney Crosby. In his absence, Evgeni Malkin inspired MVP talk of his own by proving he is every bit Crosby’s equal and ascending to the top of the league’s scoring race.

Their starting goalie, Marc-Andre Fleury, has missed two months, but erstwhile third-stringer Ty Conklin has not only surpassed expectations, but has passed Fleury on the depth chart while putting up gaudy statistics of his own. The Pens are contending for the top spot in the Atlantic Division, as well as the Eastern Conference, and having fun doing it. It seemed the young team would keep growing together until it became big enough to steamroll everything in its path, like the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s.

Until Tuesday, that is. Pens general manager Ray Shero said before the NHL’s trade deadline that he didn’t anticipate making any changes that would disrupt the fabric of his tight-knit club. He even admitted afterwards that he hadn’t had planned any deals as late as two hours before Tuesday’s 3 p.m. moratorium on roster moves.

The Pens did acquire bruising-yet-plodding 6’7” defenseman Hal Gill (remember how he used to torment Jagr?) from Toronto in return for draft picks. The deal fulfilled a need and wasn’t expensive. But Shero wasn’t done. With the clock ticking toward three, he pulled the trigger on one of the biggest deals in franchise history, one whose effects will be felt for years to come.

From Atlanta, the Penguins acquired Marian Hossa, a perennial 30-goal scorer and the sharp-shooting winger the team has been lacking, and Pascal Dupuis, a speedy defensive forward. Both will be unrestricted free agents at the end of this season. In fact, what made a player of Hossa’s caliber expendable is that he and Atlanta had been unable to come to terms on a contract extension and the Thrashers wanted to get something in return for him before he split. It is believed that Hossa is eager to test the lucrative free agent waters this summer.

The Penguins will undoubtedly negotiate with him, but he is making $6 million this season and will likely seek a raise. Malkin also is due for a contract extension, as are Fleury and Jordan Staal. It is understood that no one will outearn Crosby, who is slated to make $8.7 million per season. In the unlikely event the Pens resign Hossa at his free-market value, the team could end up paying up to $30 million per year to five players. If he walks, as expected, the Pens will be back where they started, in need of another high-scoring winger.

In exchange (and forgive the melodrama here), Shero ripped out a chunk of the team’s guts by shipping heart-and-soul winger Colby Armstrong, sniper Erik Christensen, teenage forward Angelo Esposito, last year’s first round pick and once the most highly touted prospect of his draft class, and a first round selection in this summer’s draft, to Atlanta. All lost for a player – a very talented one – that may end up playing only a couple of dozen games with the club.

It is sad to see Colby Armstrong, a favorite amongst fans and his teammates, go. He reportedly took the news that he was dealt especially hard. Dupuis will fill the same role he did, although I doubt with as much joy. Christensen has a wicked shot, but plays too much along the perimeter to utilize it. There is a chance he could explode for 40 goals someday, but he also may have plateaued. It’s unusual to think that a 19-year-old has languished, but that may be the case with Esposito, whose stock has plummeted. Late first-round picks are valuable, but are rarely sure things.

Yet for all the ambivalence this deal engenders, it is tantalizing to think what Hossa might accomplish playing alongside Crosby and/or Malkin. The Pens still have an embarrassment of young talent. But they also gave away a ton of potential and assuredly helped to make Atlanta a better team. By shipping it out all at once for what appears to be a short-term fix, Shero has left the cupboard bare for future trades. The deals that he pulled on Tuesday make the Penguins stronger right now and cement their status on the short list of contenders for the Stanley Cup this spring. Without Hossa, the Pens were poised to compete for championships into the foreseeable future. With him, the sky's the limit -- this year. They could’ve had so much more.

(In the interest of full-disclosure: Initially, I also felt the Pens mortgaged their future when they traded blossoming youngsters John Cullen and Zarley Zalapski for Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson in 1991, and we all know how that turned out. But neither of the players they acquired then were short-term rentals, nor did I know yet that Francis is half-human, half-divine.)

Marian Hossa, Pascal Dupuis, and Hal Gill are scheduled to debut in Penguins uniforms on Thursday night in Boston.

Ice Burgh

The more things stay the same

by Ryan Caione

In the two years since I began e-blathering about the Penguins for this little enterprise (thanks Mr. and Mrs. Dish!), the team had been all about change. The NHL returned from a year-long work stoppage, Sidney Crosby wasn’t the best player in the league yet, and Mario Lemieux was still lacing up his skates, a fact I had forgotten until footage of the first game of 2005 was shown during the telecast of the Carolina game on Friday.

But after last season’s unprecedented turnaround that resulted in the second-best record in franchise history and the team’s first playoff appearance since 2001, the Pens appear to be rather content with the status quo for now. That became evident right before the start of season, when supposedly promising youngsters Jonathan Filewich, Ryan Stone, and Kris Letang were dispatched to minor-league Wilkes-Barre. The only new players on the roster are Petr Sykora, who has proven to be an upgrade over Michel Ouellet at right wing, and Darryl Sydor, on the blue line instead of Josef Melichar. Otherwise, the Pens still need another scoring winger; the dulcet voice of public address announcer John Barbero reassuringly resounds throughout the Civic Arena; Maxime Talbot is still a bad mamma jamma; Joe Beninati (of Comcast, Versus, and the Capitals) continues to be the most annoying hockey play-by-play guy in North America; and Pens coach Michel Therrien steadfastly refuses to keep his line combinations together for more than one shift.

Of course, what have changed are the expectations for the team (that, and the perennially boring New Jersey Devils apparently now think they’re the 1982 Edmonton Oilers, but that’s another story). As recently as April 2006, the Pens had the second-worst record in the league. This season, anything less than a run in the playoffs will have to be considered stagnation, or a step back. That’s why, when the team stumbled to a 2-3 start, fans were calling for the heads of Therrien and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Although the Pens have rebounded to win three in a row behind improved team play and better goaltending, its goal totals have declined each of the last four contests. Crosby’s play remains uncharacteristically quiet.

The Pens had a relatively sparse schedule to start the season. But after its current homestand, which continues Thursday night against Toronto and Saturday night versus Montreal, the team goes on a four-game road trip, during which it begins a streak of nine straight games against fellow Atlantic Division foes. By then we should start to find out if the expectations for the Penguins are justified, or if the status quo isn’t good enough.

Pens Playoff Preview

Story by Ryan Caione

Illustration by Karl Huber

Six long years.

That’s how long it’s been since playoff hockey has been to the ‘Burgh. It was pre-9/11. Kordell was still the Steelers’ quarterback. PNC Park had just opened. Heinz Field hadn’t yet hosted its first game. Defenseman Josef Melichar is the only remaining player from the Penguins’ 2001 roster, which featured blasts from the past Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Kevin Stevens, Marty Straka, and Darius Kasparaitis. That was also the year that goalie Moose Hedberg became a Pittsburgh folk hero. Mr. and Mrs. Dish were still a-courtin'.

It’s been a while.

In the meantime, the Penguins finished at or near the bottom of the league standings for five seasons. If NHL hadn’t cancelled an entire campaign in 2004-2005, it probably would have been six.

But like the Pens’ last playoff run, that’s ancient history now. The team that ended last year with 58 points in the standings racked up 105 this year, their second-best total ever, behind only the 1993 edition that owned the best record in the league. The 47-point improvement ranks as the fourth-best in NHL history.

Rookie Evgeni Malkin started the season with a bang, scoring a goal in each of his first seven games – including a highlight reel score against New Jersey that will be replayed for years hence – to break a record that had stood for some 90 years. His rampage helped the Pens to a 7-3 start that laid the foundation for the successes to come. But the young team didn’t really hit its stride until after the New Year, when it went on a 14-0-2 tear in January and February. It followed that up with a 14-4-2 record in a grueling March and April that featured three wins over the team it faces in the first round of the playoffs, the Ottawa Senators.

All the while, teenage phenom Sidney Crosby put up points like a pinball machine on his way to becoming the youngest scoring leader in NHL history. And he often did it in dramatic fashion: scoring a goal while sliding on his stomach toward the net, beating almost every Montreal Canadien on the ice to score 1-on-5 (including the goalie), and potting game-winners in three consecutive shootouts.

First-round pick Jordan Staal exceeded all expectations in leading the entire league in shorthanded goals and shooting percentage, in addition to outpacing his Ontario junior league total by one goal in scoring 29 as an 18-year-old in the NHL.

Sergei Gonchar shook off the worst season of his life, when he drew the ire of Penguins faithful last year, to match his career high in points. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury was solid, even spectacular at times, while more than doubling his career win total (he was tied for third in the league with 40). Ryan Whitney established himself as one of the league’s best young defenseman, fledgling forwards Maxime Ouellet and Erik Christensen honed their scoring touch, and grinders Maxime Talbot, Colby Armstrong, and veteran Gary Roberts, acquired at the trade deadline, provided the clutch scoring that teams need to go deep into the playoffs.

It all culminated in the announcement on March 13 that a deal was struck to build a new arena that will keep the Penguins where they belong, in Pittsburgh for at least the next 30 years. That put the exclamation point on the most surprising Pens team ever, and one that rivals the high-octane teams of the late 80’s and early 90’s in scoring prowess.

But this is a young team; most of its members are entering the playoff crucible for the first time. Its defense and penalty-killing are average at best. Despite the Pens’ three straight wins over Ottawa and the fact that the teams finished with nearly identical records, the Pens will have a tough time matching up against the Senators’ top line of Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza, and Daniel Alfredsson, not to mention that team’s cadre of mobile defensemen.

Of course, the Pens have the firepower to match up with anyone, and Fleury has shaken off any lingering doubts about his ability to perform under pressure. If Ottawa finds its way to the penalty box too often, the Pens, which scored the most power play goals in the league, will surely make them pay.

It’s a shame that one of these two teams, both of which are easily among the top eight in the league, will have their season end in a week or two. The NHL is salivating over this matchup and will show every game of the series on national television. It’s going to be a doozy, perhaps the playoff series of the year. I’m not going to make any predictions, but I sure am going to continue to enjoy the ride.

Oh, to hell with that: the Pens in 7.

Pens go shopping

What's in the bag?

by Ryan Caione

Penguins general manager Ray Shero went shopping at the NHL’s equivalent of the Giant Eagle and came away with some side dishes and a dessert without spoiling the chemistry of the team’s soup. Despite the fact that the Penguins are growing up together and show obvious signs that they enjoy playing together, Shero would have been a fool to stand pat at the NHL trade deadline, which came and went on Tuesday. He didn’t make the biggest splash in the days and hours leading up to the deadline, but he was the busiest.

The Pens approached the deadline with a shopping list that included a defensive defenseman, a scoring winger, and a banger up front. Shero addressed the latter two needs by acquiring Gary Roberts from Florida. He is a meat-and-potatoes type of player, but his age (he’s 40) and contract status (he’ll be an unrestricted free agent at season’s end) suggest that he’s more of a luxury item. Sure, the team’s group of forwards is thin, inexperienced, and in need of more grit, scoring, and Stanley Cup experience, which Roberts can ably provide. He should slide right onto the top line aside Mark Recchi and the NHL’s leading scorer, Sidney Crosby. But don’t get used to seeing him in a Pens uniform for too long. Roberts was acquired to help the Pens make a run this spring, and will probably be gone afterwards. In that light, trading promising young defenseman Noah Welch to procure his services for a couple of months seems like a steep price. (On the other hand, I know Welch was in Wilkes-Barre to get more ice time than he could with the big club, but the fact that he couldn’t crack the lineup ahead of the likes of Rob Scuderi might be telling. Of course, if Roberts helps lead a deep run into the playoffs, we’ll all be asking “Noah Who?” anyhow.)

The Pens’ other big pickup was burly winger Georges Laraque. Laraque’s bubble gum card says that he plays left wing, but he’s actually an enforcer, a guy who will drop the gloves with anyone who takes liberties with the team’s young superstars, as has been happening with more frequency as teams fight for playoff positioning. It has been suggested that his mere presence will deter opponents from doing such. I don’t know about that, but I do know that for all of his lore as a fighter, Laraque is a serviceable winger who can score at times. He also seems to have a gregarious personality, reputedly wrote a romantic advice column in Edmonton, and sometimes wishes sparring partners a sporting “good luck” before bashing them about the face and head. He should be an immediate fan favorite at the Igloo. I’m not convinced of the Pens’ need for an enforcer, but I have no problem with giving up minor-league brawler Danny Carcillo and a third-round pick to get him. (The Pens later replaced the pick in that round by dealing away Dominic Moore, who, if anything, could chip the puck out of his own zone really well.)

Shero added some ingredients by trading for spare defenseman Joel Kwiatkowski, whose greatest attribute may be the ability to take ice time from the aforementioned Scuderi, and by acquiring an overlooked necessity in third goalie Nolan Schaefer. (To illustrate why this move needed to be made, I defy you to name the Baby Pens’ goalie before the deal. Hint: it ain’t Andy Chiodo.)

There’s an old truism in sports that states that you’re never as good as you think you are when you’re riding high, and never as bad as people say you are when things are going poorly. Or something like that. Either way, the Penguins are not nearly as good as their recent 14-0-2 tear might suggest, nor are as they bad as they looked in their 5-1 loss to Tampa Bay on Sunday. What they are is a team poised to make the playoffs. But their ability to get there and make some noise will be determined more by the young stars already on the roster (Marc-Andre Fleury, I'm looking in your direction), than by any of the tinkering that Shero did earlier this week.

(The new members of the team make their Penguins debut against division rivals the New York Rangers on Thursday night.)

Breaking News: Pens Don't Stink

OK, I admit it. I was wrong about the Penguins. Very wrong.

by Ryan Caione

I thought I would be tired of the losing by now. Sure, I thought the Penguins would improve this year, maybe even remain on the fringes of playoff contention. I'm as gaga over the Penguins as anyone, but I’m pragmatic too. I’m just glad I don’t know as much as I thought I did.

Before the season, I began to write a Penguins season preview for the Dish, but never finished because it was so glum. The team would have to lean far too much on too many inexperienced players. As great as Sidney Crosby is, he can’t do it all by himself. 18-year-old Jordan Staal would play nine nondescript games and be sent back down to his junior team (or he’d play well and be sent to juniors anyway, for economic reasons).

Defenseman Sergei Gonchar would have another of his patented slow starts. A bizarre defection from Russia and the ensuing culture shock would hinder the development of wunderkind Evgeni Malkin. The players signed by new general manager Ray Shero during the offseason were merely warm bodies. The struggles of Marc-Andre Fleury that stretched from last season into this year’s training camp would endure. Heck, I even thought waiving backup goalie Dany Sabourin (!) was a dubious idea. And if the Pens would win, it would be in boring 2-1 or 3-2 games thanks to coach Michel Therrien’s defensive preachings.

(I also thought the Steelers would win more often than once a month, but that’s another story.)

But you know how it turned out. The Penguins got off to an exuberant start, shutting out the hated Philadelphia Flyers on opening night, and winning seven of their first ten games, spurred by their youngsters. Crosby is in the top 10 in scoring again. Malkin scored a goal in each of his first six games, something that hadn’t been done since 1917, the NHL’s first year of existence. Not only is Staal still on the team, but he’s pulling double shifts and leads the league in short-handed goals. Fleury has regained his confidence. Newcomers Dominic Moore and Nik Ekman are scrappy, yet responsible players. The Penguins’ team speed is equal to any in the game. The players even seem to have taken some of Therrien’s instruction to heart, especially in regards to positioning. And can that penalty-killing, net-crashing, goalie-deking freak Maxime Talbot get an Amen?

Of course, the Penguins aren’t out of the woods yet. Before beating the Flyers again last night, they lost five in a row. But consider the competition: the last two Stanley Cup champions, Tampa Bay and Carolina; the two teams I picked to be in the Stanley Cup finals this season, Ottawa and San Jose (looks like I’m wrong again); and a team that only has one loss all year, the Anaheim Ducks. Most of those games were close into the third period. Last season they would have been over before the first intermission. This year the Pens have enough skill to continue to apply pressure when they're behind, if not to overcome deficits.

Still, the Penguins rely too much on Crosby and Malkin. Their defense, as usual, is shaky. They give up far too many shots and Fleury continues to kick out too many rebounds. Their schedule, which was sparse to begin the season, doesn’t get any easier.

But if having an up-and-coming, exciting, never-out-of-it Penguins team to love on again means I’m wrong, momma, then I don’t want to be right.

(The Penguins play another top team in Buffalo on Friday, and then return to the Civic Arena to play the rival New York Rangers on Saturday. Call 412-323-1919 for tickets.)

NFL Draft 2006: Not as long as The Thorn Birds but just as excruciating

This weekend, ESPN is poised to foist upon us no fewer than 20 hours of footage of suits freaking out over which college-aged kids to hire. It’s like your standard job fair in Ballroom C of the local Marriott, except this one’s broadcast live.

by Ryan Caione

Trust me, I plan to enjoy the great outdoors on Saturday, but I’ve got my DVR programmed to record the proceedings, just in case.

Now that the seasons of the Penguins and Pirates are finished, we can again devote our full attention to football. Besides the NHL trade deadline, the NFL draft is the greatest non-event in sports (and I mean that in a good way).

Our beloved Steelers have the last pick in the first round, 32nd overall, thanks to their delirium-inducing Super Bowl victory. That doesn’t mean the team will stay put, though. Coach Cowher and Kevin Colbert have presided over some very canny drafts since they began collaborating in 2001, and have been especially successful in the first round. The team gave up only a third-round pick in 2003 to move up 11 spots and draft safety Troy Polamalu 16th overall.

This year, they have three fourth rounders (two are compensatory picks) to go with the last choice in each round and could dangle one or more of those to trade up. Unlike past years, when the team’s first-round needs were obvious (safety in 2003, QB in 2004, and tight end in 2005), the Steelers are set at all 22 starting positions for next season. They have the luxury of drafting for depth and no position looks to be off-limits this weekend. Of course, there are priorities, with receiver, secondary, and linebacker highest among them.

Many mock drafts have the Steelers choosing either Ohio State center Nick Mangold, USC safety Darnell Bing, or receiver Sinorice Moss of Miami (Fla.). Hogwash, hogwash, and hogwash, I say. The team didn’t renew backup center Chukky Okobi’s contract and lavish a signing bonus upon him because he grew up a Steelers fan. Drafting Mangold would mean the team would be compelled not only to pay first-round money to Mangold, but to eat Okobi’s contract as well. I don’t see that happening. The Steelers need depth at free safety, and last season Bing played there before leaving school early. But he’s better suited for the strong side, where he spent the two prior seasons (and where Polamalu roams). Also, reports suggest Bing may not be able to handle the responsibility of calling the defensive schemes the way the Steelers like their free safeties to do.

Moss seems like a no-brainer because of his physical similarities (small and speedy) to the dearly departed Antwaan Randle El. But, unlike El, Moss never played QB in college, never returned punts. Both of the Steelers’ projected starters at WR, Hines Ward and Cedric Wilson, are both “undersized” and the team doesn’t need yet another small receiver. Randle El’s success and popularity aside, his greatest accomplishments came on gadget plays and special teams. He only averaged two receptions a game. You need more than that from a supposed #2 receiver. That said, moving up to draft Ohio State’s Santonio Holmes, who is under six feet tall, but is also the highest-rated receiver in the draft, would not be out of line.

Here are some candidates to be wearing Black and Gold next season, assuming the Steelers don’t trade up -- or even down -- in the draft. But I don’t see them using all 10 of their draft picks on players. A deal sometime this weekend is very likely.

First round: This draft class is particularly top-heavy at linebacker and the secondary, and the Steelers will take advantage of that. If USC running back LenDale White is available at the 32^nd slot, I think the Steelers will draft him. If there’s a run on running backs late in the first round, they might even trade up to get him. Realistically though, I see them taking a linebacker like DeMeco Ryans of Alabama. He played on the #2 defense in the nation last year and by all accounts is a choir boy off the field. Real Steeler material. As menacing as Joey Porter was during the Steelers’ season-ending winning streak, he was disturbingly quiet during the first half of the year and isn’t getting any younger. Ryans, or another linebacker such as UTEP’s Thomas Howard, could be groomed to eventually take his spot. Bobby Carpenter of Ohio St. conjures images of Kevin Greene at outside linebacker, with his golden locks flowing from beneath his helmet. Manny Lawson, a defensive end at Cowher’s alma mater, North Carolina St., could be picked here and converted to linebacker.

Ko Simpson of South Carolina might be a reach at the end of the first round, but he is the best natural free safety in the draft. He came out of college as a sophomore and newly signed free agent Ryan Clark could hold down the fort at the position until Simpson is ready. University of Texas defensive lineman Rodrique Wright is another name that keeps popping up. He played inside in college, but would most likely move outside alongside fellow Longhorn alum Casey Hampton. He’d also be a backup for at least his first year. Of course, the last time the Steelers drafted this low in the first round, they went loopy on us and picked nonentity Jamain Stephens. They could blow our minds again.

Second round: I think a trade up here is more likely than in the first round. If they stand pat, Penn State’s Alan Zemaitis, if he’s still available, would be a good fit. He’s a corner, but can play safety as well. Syracuse safety Anthony Smith can reputedly hit like Ike Turner, if not Ike Taylor. Provided the Steelers look elsewhere in the first round, I can also see them taking DE Parys Haralson of Tennessee and switching him to linebacker. Like Ryans, he has Steeler written all over him. Wide receivers Derek Hagan of Arizona State and tall-drink-of-water Maurice Stovall of Notre Dame could go at the end of the second round as well.

Third round: Assuming they’ve already addressed the defense, the best values at wide receiver are here. Mike Hass of Oregon State and Jason Avant of Michigan are solid, but not spectacular, and catch most everything in their vicinity. Sounds like what the Steelers need. Travis Wilson of Oklahoma is big and was a solid blocker for the Sooners’ running game. Martin Nance is also a big guy and was Big Ben’s go-to receiver two seasons ago at Miami of Ohio. Michael Robinson of Penn State was a quarterback in college, but also played some wide receiver and is more highly rated than many full-timers at the position. The team could also grab inside linebacker Kai Parham of Virginia, another Steelers-type player who played in a 3-4 defense in college.

The Steelers will have seven picks on the second day of the draft and if they don't make a trade on Saturday, they almost assuredly will make one the following day. They will be looking to draft a QB to challenge Rod Rutherford as the third-stringer and to be groomed to eventually backup Big Ben once Charlie Batch gets off the gravy train. In the same vein, they could kill two birds with one pick and go for a guy who was a quarterback in college, such as Iowa’s Brad Smith or Reggie McNeal of Texas A&M, and convert him to receiver, hoping to recapture some of the Randle El magic. They also will likely draft for depth on the offensive and defensive lines, if those aren’t addressed on Day One. Besides White, this draft is devoid of Bus-like bruisers at running back, but here’s a name to remember on Sunday: Gerald Riggs of Tennessee. He’s not as large as Bettis, but his daddy was an NFL running back, and Junior got all of his genes except, apparently, the work-ethic one. The Steeler Way might help him see the light.

Undoubtedly, this is all conjecture, imaginings, a time-killing until the big day. After all, the Steelers don’t need anyone telling them who to draft, do they? They’ve got the rings to prove it.

Pens' crap recapped

Not all was lost in losing season.

by Ryan Caione

Last week, the Penguins completed their worst season since, well, last season. They finished with 58 points, the identical figure they ended up with in 2003-2004 (the most recent NHL campaign), and found themselves again at the very bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that. The team started the hockey year with playoff aspirations and a veteran lineup. By the time the season had crashed down around them, the Penguins had suited up nearly a dozen players who made their NHL debuts. Mario Lemieux retired again. Major free-agent acquisitions Ziggy Palffy, Mark Recchi, Jocelyn Thibault, and Lyle Odelein were either no longer with the team or had their seasons ended by injuries. They set a team record for most losses in a season (60 in 82 games). And general manager Craig Patrick, who had been with the franchise for more than 16 years, was shown the door.

Patrick is in the Hockey Hall of Fame and is by far the best GM the team has ever had. After his arrival in December 1989, Patrick cleaned up the mess left behind by the ill-fated Tony Esposito/Pierre Creamer/Gene Ubriaco regime of terror and assembled the Pens’ Stanley Cup champion teams of 1991 and 1992. During his watch, he brought other Hall-of-Famers (or men who soon will be) to the team: coaches Badger Bob Johnson, Scotty Bowman, and Herb Brooks, plus players like Ronnie Francis, Joey Mullen, Bryan Trottier, and Jaromir Jagr.

But it was time for him to go. For years, Patrick was handcuffed by the team’s finances (or lack thereof) and was forced to dismantle the team player by player after their last playoff appearance in 2001. He fomented a laid-back atmosphere that accommodated what had been a veteran team, but ultimately contrasted with coach Michel Therrien’s more regimented style that is geared toward developing the team’s young talent. In other words, Patrick -- a brilliant hockey mind, but never dynamic -- grew stale. Heck, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the team didn'ty even have Internet access in their offices until this past December. But Patrick should have a new job as Boston’s general manager, heedlessly steering the Bruins’ ship until he sails into the sunset.

But the 2005-2006 season wasn’t all bad. Sure, the team was basically unwatchable for months at a time, but they played their best hockey down the stretch. At age 18, Sidney Crosby became the youngest player ever to score 100 points in a season and finished sixth in the NHL scoring race. He went on a Lemieux-like rampage in the team’s final 10 games, scoring seven goals and 15 assists. He is already a superstar. Recent high draft picks such as Marc-Andre Fleury, Colby Armstrong, Ryan Whitney, and Noah Welch acquitted themselves well and appear to be budding stars in their own right. The nucleus of young talent should make the Penguins an attractive destination for any number of GM candiates.

So the future looks bright, albeit hazy. Optimistically, it looks like the Penguins will remain in Pittsburgh for the foreseeable future. (The Great Dejan Kovacevic said the team isn’t going anywhere and that’s good enough for me.) Casinos are falling over one another to help fund a new arena for the team. Despite their atrocious record, the Pens saw attendance increase by around a third since last season, and the Civic Arena was at 93% capacity over the course of the year. The enthusiastic response to a dreadful team illustrates that Pittsburgh has one of the best hockey fan bases in America. When the team is sold and if ground hasn’t been broken for a new arena by 2007, anyone with enough money to buy the team hopefully isn’t stupid enough to move it to a place like Houston or Kansas City, where folks obviously don’t care about hockey like we do.

By virtue of having the second-worst record in the league, the Penguins earned one of the top two draft picks in the NHL draft for the fourth year in a row. Therrien was given a vote of confidence by team president Ken Sawyer and should be back behind the bench next year. The team’s record didn't improve much with the acerbic Therrien at the helm, but its play was appreciably better. Sergei Gonchar, the team’s biggest most expensive off-season acquisition last summer, was a lightning rod for its early struggles and looked to be among the biggest busts in recent NHL history. A notorious slow-starter (no excuse for him playing as if he’d never worn skates before), his game round into shape around midseason and he was one of the league’s top-scoring defensemen in calendar year 2006.

Also next year it looks like wunderkind Evgeni Malkin, widely considered the best player outside the NHL, could finally join the team that drafted him second overall in 2004.

Still, the team is virtually devoid of veteran leadership, which perhaps is overrated, but undeniably important to a team as young as the Pens. After getting burned this year, they will likely only dip their toe in the free agent market and try to sign a couple of inexpensive veterans for depth. Barring injury, Crosby is a lock for another 100+ point season. Provided the team's young talent continues to improve, contending for a playoff spot is not out of the question. But we’ve all heard that before, haven’t we?

The season was not all lost. Here are the top five moments of 2005-2006:

5. 1/4/06 at Montreal. After three weeks on the job, it appeared that the message of Montreal native Therrien finally sunk in. Six different rookies scored goals as the Pens defeated the sport’s most storied franchise, 6-4.

4. 10/25/05 vs. Atlanta. The Penguins spot the Thrashers a 4-0 lead (a common scenario throughout the season) before exploding for a team-record six power play goals to earn their first win of the year in ten tries. It set the stage for what was an entertaining season series between the two clubs.

3. 11/10/05 vs. Montreal. Sidney Crosby scored in a shootout to defeat the Canadiens in overtime and send the Civic Arena into a frenzy. Also notable for being goalie Jocelyn Thibault’s only win of the season.

2. 3/11/05 vs. New Jersey and 3/12/05 vs. Philadelphia. The Penguins used unusual home games on consecutive nights to soundly defeat two playoff-bound clubs that both ended up with more than 100 points.

1. 11/16/05 at Philadelphia. Crosby was booed and physically abused, but got the last laugh by scoring two goals, including the game-winner in the last minute of overtime, to shut up the hated Flyers in dramatic fashion.

Trade Winds

Pens wheel and deal, win or lose.

by Ryan Caione

The NHL trade deadline day, which came and went on Thursday, usually is one of my favorite days in all of sports. Most every fan has dreamt of far-fetched trades to augment their team, and before the league’s yearly moratorium, NHL general managers traditionally turn into fantasy geeks and wheel and deal players like scrip. However, judging from the paucity of big names and big deals in this, the first year of the salary cap, it appears that blockbuster deadline trades could be a casualty of the NHL’s new economic reality, one of the few negatives of the more equitable system.

Back in the day before the newfangled Internets (and when the Penguins were actually good), I would make sure I was near a radio so I could get updates on whom the Penguins might acquire to fortify their team for the stretch run. Indeed, the Pens’ general manager, Craig Patrick, cemented his reputation by pulling off the quintessential deadline-day trade when he pried demigod Ronnie Francis (in photo) and bruiser Ulf Samuelsson from the Hartford Whalers in 1991. Former Pens GM and current assistant GM Eddie Johnston was Patrick’s counterpart in Hartford at the time, and part of me still thinks he was lending his once and future employer a favor. The Pens, of course, won their first Stanley Cup two-and-a-half months later.

Other than that empire-builder, though, Patrick’s best deals haven’t come at the deadline, but earlier in the season or during the off-season, like the ones that netted the team Larry Murphy, Petr Nedved, Darius Kasparaitis, and Alex Kovalev. In fact, some of his worst trades were deadline deals. The trades that sent Bob Errey to Buffalo for Mike Ramsey and Markus Naslund to Vancouver for Alex Stojanov still stick in my craw. Granted, Moose Hedberg, who helped lead the Pens during their memorable run to the 2001 Eastern Conference finals, came to the team in a deadline deal. And Patrick hasn’t exactly been bargaining from a position of strength this century, either.

But the Pens are sellers, not buyers, this year, and their GM remained true to recent form on Thursday, dealing the team’s second-best player, Mark Recchi, to the Carolina Hurricanes for offensive defenseman Niklas Nordgren, whom I’d never heard of until the Pens/Hurricanes game on Saturday; winger Krys Kolanos, notable only for the appalling spelling of his birth name; and a second-round draft pick, which may end up being the most valuable asset the Pens got in return -- unless, of course, their history of abysmal selections in the second round continues. (Lee Giffin, I’m looking in your direction.) Patrick also unloaded defenseman Cory Cross and Ric Jackman on Thursday for a roll of gauze and a sack of pucks, respectively.

Cross came to the Pens, along with Jani Rita, Meter Maid, earlier this year in the trade that shipped Dick Tarnstrom to Edmonton. As evidenced by that deal and the Recchi one, Patrick is apparently of the mindset that as long as the team gets two players as half as talented as the one he’s dealing, it’s a wash.

Of couse, none of this really matters this year. The team is firmly anchored at the bottom of the league standings and nothing they could’ve done by way of a trade would change that. But they do keep finding inventive ways to lose; most recently, they’ve been spotting teams three- and five-goal leads before storming back and making the game interesting, only to fall a goal short in the end. Some of their most exciting hockey of the year has come in the third periods of three of their last four games. The flipside of that is the team was godawful during the first and second periods of those same games.

This weekend, the Pens play rare back-to-back home games at the Arena, against New Jersey on Saturday and Philadelphia on Sunday. If nothing else, the team can throw a small monkey wrench into their hated rivals’ playoff plans. You should go see them while you still can. The Pens need your love.

Do you really want this town to be like Hartford?

Caione's plea to preserve Penguins presence.

by Ryan Caione

The NHL has settled down for a winter’s nap as its best players travel to Turin to compete in the Olympics. The break comes at a good time for the Penguins. Heading into the two-week respite, they won back-to-back games for only the third time all season, beating one of the best teams in the league, Carolina, and one of the worst, Washington. (No matter how bad they are, the Penguins will always own the Capitals.) Also heartening is the fact that the Penguins’ most pivotal players, Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury, Mark Recchi, and, yes, Sergei Gonchar, who had perhaps his best game of the season against his former Capitals teammates, played exceptionally well in those two contests. And the Penguins are bad enough that only two of their players, Gonchar (Russia) and Tomas Surovy (Slovakia), are representing their countries at the Games. Their teammates should be able to take much-needed rests while representatives of other NHL squads, most of which have several Olympic competitors each, go through the grind of up to eight games in 12 days.

Of course, all is not peaches and cream for our Favorite Waterfowl. The team is on the selling block and will be moved if a new arena is not built in Pittsburgh, just as attendance at games is on the rise and the Penguins stockpile young talent. Gaming company Isle of Capri has already ponied up the dough to build a new venue using no taxpayer funds. The deal is contingent on the firm receiving the state slot machine license allocated to Pittsburgh. It seems like such a no-brainer. The Civic Arena is over 40 years old. Despite what the Tribune-Review would have you believe, a new arena would not be solely used for hockey. Pittsburgh will eventually need a new all-purpose arena, for numerous events: basketball games – remember, when the NCAA tournaments come to town, they are held there -- circuses, concerts, conventions, truck pulls, and may others. And if, god forbid, the Penguins leave, a minor-league team would surely move in to take their place, for Pittsburgh has one of the best, most-knowledgeable hockey fan bases in the US.

If Isle of Capri doesn’t win the slots license, no fewer than seven cities are competing for the right to be the Penguins’ new home city. Three of them, Winnipeg, Hartford, and Kansas City, have had and lost NHL teams in the past, and are obviously still smarting from their loss of their major league franchises. Two others, Portland, Oregon and Hamilton, Ontario want to join the ranks of the big leagues. All five of these markets are smaller than Pittsburgh. Another candidate, Las Vegas, can be disregarded, I believe, in light of the Rich Tocchet/Janet Jones gambling scandal. I don’t know why the final candidate, Houston, wants a team. Most Texans wouldn’t know a hockey puck from a pierogi.

Much of Pittsburgh’s civic pride and national perception derives from their sports teams. For a city that is still recovering from the demise of the steel industry a generation ago, losing another major part of its identity would be an irreparable blow (just ask Winnipeg, Hartford, and Kansas City). I can understand Mayor Bob, County Man Dan, and Governor Ed wanting to have a “Plan B” for a new arena if the Isle of Capri deal falls through. But hopefully the state Gaming Board will do the most obvious -- and right -- thing to keep the Pens in town.

To each of them: Please keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh. The city can’t afford to lose them.

The best hangs up the blades

Lemieux quits, life sucks.

by Ryan Caione

The Penguins sure don’t want us to be happy, do they? All the news coming from the Igloo is bad. Ziggy Palffy abruptly retires after a forgettable stint with the Pens. The team is officially put on the auction block. Their losing streak reached double digits. I had prepared a piece on Monday night bemoaning the team’s rotten luck on the ice after they’ve played tough against the hated Rangers and Flyers, only to lose late in the games amid unusual circumstances. But I showed up at work on Tuesday morning and read the sad news. Mario Lemieux is retiring, again. This time for good.

My love for the Steelers is deep and abiding, but the Penguins were my first. Sure, some of my earliest memories involve family parties on Super Bowl Sundays, but they also involve attending Penguins games with my dad in the early Eighties in a half-empty Civic Arena. Everyone loved the Steelers, of course. Very few, at the time, loved the Penguins. You may recall otherwise, but there was not much fanfare around town when Lemieux began his career in 1984. (The team only attracted slightly over 10,000 fans per game his first year and a sold-out Civic Arena was almost unheard of.) The Penguins were a team I could call my own, and now they had a transcendent star that no one knew about except for me and few other die-hard hockey fans, at least in my 12-year-old mind. Of course, that all changed. It took a few years, but people began climbing on the Penguins bandwagon, culminating with the team’s back-to-back Stanley Cup wins.

They all came to see the greatest player of his era, if not of all time. (I never saw Bobby Orr or Gordie Howe in their prime, obviously.) Lemieux has done things on the ice – score five goals in a game five different ways, score on a face-off, score with his back to the net and his stick between his legs – that no one has ever accomplished. Don’t let anyone tell you Wayne Gretzky was better (though he’s a distant second). Sure, he is the NHL’s all-time leading scorer and owns a barrel full of records that will never be broken. But he played on a team with future Hall-of-Famers from the start of his career while Lemieux plied with the likes of Jim McGeough, Mitch Lamoureux, and a lamp post.

Gretzky’s best hockey attributes -- grace, vision, hands – were all matched, if not surpassed by the much larger Lemieux, who, because of his size and reach advantage, is undoubtedly the player that opposing goalies feared most one-on-one. While Lemieux was never a brawler, he always stuck up for himself; Gretzky had hired goons for that. And Lemieux always seemed to play his best when it was most appropriate, like when he scored a hat trick in the first period of the only NHL All-Star Game held in Pittsburgh, or when he scored four goals in what was (at the time) to be his last game in his hometown of Montreal, or when he scored five goals two days after the birth of his son -- against Gretzky’s St. Louis Blues, no less.

But for all his magic on the ice, Lemieux’s greatest triumphs came off of it. His goal and assist totals may have approached Gretzky’s if his career hadn’t been interrupted several times by frightening health problems. Not by typical hockey-related bumps and bruises, which he endured, but by nightmares you wouldn’t wish on anyone: a congenital narrowing of the spine, a staph infection, an irregular heartbeat, a cancerous lymph node. The fact that he overcame these not only while in the public eye, but while continuing to perform at a level high above his peers, is an inspiration to all and will be his greatest legacy. In 1993, on the day he underwent his last radiation treatment for Hodgkin’s disease, he hopped a plane to Philadelphia and promptly scored a goal and an assist. He missed 23 games that year due to the grueling therapy and still came back and won the NHL scoring title, for Pete’s sake.

Of course, the Pittsburgh would not have a National Hockey League team if not for Lemieux. He saved it at the gate by putting fannies in the seats in the 1980s, and he saved it from bankruptcy by parlaying the money owed to him by the franchise into a controlling stake in the team in 1998. He was never one of us, per se (after all, how many princely French-Canadian millionaires are there roving around Pittsburgh?), is shy by nature and prizes his privacy so much that he never allowed much of his personality off the ice. But he always seemed like he was just one of the guys around his teammates. And by choosing to live in Pittsburgh after his playing career and investing his own money in the franchise, he showed that he cares for us and his adopted home. Cynics may suggest that by putting the team up for sale and retiring now, Lemieux is getting out when the getting’s good, and is looking after his own interests first and foremost. That may be true; only he knows for sure. But he also knows what sport means to Pittsburgh and I think he has done most everything in his power to ensure that we have Penguins hockey to get us through these grey January and February days. And he provided more good times and sweet memories to us than we had any right to expect.

My top ten Mario moments (these aren’t the most important or most famous, mind you, just my favorites):

10. The Penguins were playing in Quebec in February 1987, I think. The game wasn’t televised, so I was listening on the radio. Mike Lange called a goal that you had to be there to believe and went so far to suggest watching the 11 o’clock news that night for the highlights. Here’s what happened: Mario got the puck around center red. Nordiques defenseman Marc Fortier, a step behind Lemieux, dug his stick into Mario’s gut, and then hit him with it a couple times. When that didn’t work, Fortier threw one arm around Lemieux’s waist and threw other up the air like a rodeo cowboy. Not only did that not slow Lemieux down as he bore down on the goalie on a 90-foot breakaway, but he scored with Fortier still riding piggyback.

9. April 2, 1988. In their second-to-last game of the season, the Penguins needed a win in Washington to remain in playoff contention, even though their bumbling coach at the time, Pierre Creamer, was unaware of that fact. In overtime, Lemieux took matters into his own hands, burst down the right side toward the goal, got clipped from behind by Capitals defenseman Larry Murphy, and scored the game-winning goal while sliding toward the net on his backside. Pens win 7-6.

8. February 4, 1997. Lemieux’s 600^th goal. It wasn’t fancy, just an empty-netter, but he had several near-misses during the game. Mr. Dish and I were there at the Arena, screaming our fool heads off the entire time.

7. January 29, 1991. I was at the Arena, again, this time for Lemieux’s first game back after recovering from back surgery and a staph infection.

6. May 8, 2001. Game 6 of the 2001 Eastern Conference Semifinals. With the Penguins on the brink of elimination against the Buffalo Sabres, with the goalie pulled, the puck miraculously drops at Lemieux’s feet at the edge of the crease with less than a minute-and-a-half to play. He scores to send the game into overtime and the Pens go on to win the series.

5. May 17, 1991. During the Pens’ first run to the Stanley Cup, Mario made three grown men look like peewees. He split between Minnesota defenders Neil Wilkinson and Shawn Chambers, who both spun 360 degrees in the spot where they were standing. Then he bore down on diminutive goalie Jon Casey, who was faked to his knees as Mario scored on the backhand on a breakaway.

4. December 31, 1988. Lemieux scored five goals every way possible – even-strength, power-play, short-handed, penalty shot, and empty net. Against the stinking Devils, no less. Happy New Year.

3. April 25, 1989. Game 5 of the 1989 Division Finals against Philadelphia. Mario put on clinic, scoring 8 points (5 goals and 3 assists) and infuriating hothead Flyers goalie Ron Hextall in a 10-7 win.

2. March 2, 1993. The day of his final radiation treatment. A goal and an assist. Even the notoriously rude Philly fans gave him an extended ovation.

1. December 27, 2000. The Comeback. I was at the Arena for this one, too. I’m not ashamed to say that, along with my wedding day (and an AFC Championship Sunday a couple of days ago), that was one of the happiest days of my life.

Thanks, Mario. Enjoy your retirement.

(AP photos)

Penguins report: Go Steelers

The Penguins stink. 

by Ryan Caione

This is nothing new. They have lost their last seven games in regulation, their longest such streak in a season that is fetid with losing streaks. But after the Steelers’ most exciting win in a generation, how could anyone possibly care? Sure, the Flightless Waterfowl are still drawing impressive crowds at the Igloo. But most of those tickets were purchased in the days after the team secured the rights to draft Sidney Crosby last summer. Pitt's basketball squad is off to an impressive start, is one of only three NCAA Division I teams without a loss, and beat perennial powerhouse Louisville on the road, but it barely registers in the city’s conscience. What chance does one of the laughingstocks of the NHL have?

When was the last time the Penguins were this irrelevant? Their rise to the top of the NHL in the early nineties coincided with the Pirates’ tailspin and since then, the Penguins have been the second-most popular team in town (albeit a distant second). The running joke is that the Pirates’ season ends when the Steelers start training camp and the Penguins’ season starts when the Steelers’ season ends. Of course, this year, the Pens’ season was over barely two months after it started.

Histrionics aside (and I love the fact that he called out his team after a poor showing against Edmonton last week), new coach Michel Therrien has not jumpstarted the team. The Pens have won only three games in the month since he was handed the keys to this jalopy. And now they’re brawlers. I’m not sure if that’s admirable or comical. After spotting the opposition 4-1 leads in three of the last four games (and four of the last six), the Penguins have implemented the strategy that if they can’t beat you on the scoreboard, they will beat you with their fists. And they’ve failed at that, too, the long arms of Colby Armstrong notwithstanding. In the first half of the season, the Penguins were involved in only 10 fights. Last Wednesday, the team engaged the Columbus Blue Jackets, of all teams, six times. They’ve had a fighting major in every game since, highlighted by the grudge match between the obnoxious (even when he wore a Penguins sweater) Matt Barnaby and Lyle Odelein in Chicago on Friday. (Poor Lyle Odelein. He has plugged away in the NHL for 15 seasons with little recognition, except from his teammates. He comes come to work everyday and takes abuse from opponents, fans, and his coach. He performs his job well, but screws up occasionally. Just like the rest of us.)

Now goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s contract is about to turn into a pumpkin. He has a clause that stipulates he be paid $3 million if he plays at least 20 minutes in 25 games; he’s appeared in 23. Therrien has tried to rest him, but Jocelyn Thibault, Dany Sabourin, and Sebastien Caron have all been yanked from the crease for impersonating a sewer grate in each of their most recent starts over the past week and a half. Unlike many fans, I won’t be upset if Fleury is sent back to the minors before the clause kicks in. He would benefit from another playoff run in Wilkes-Barre Scranton rather than being used for target practice by NHL forwards. The Penguins projected a $7 million loss this season, with two rounds of playoffs factored in. That playoff run surely ain’t going to happen, so the team is likely staring at even bigger financial losses. If they were in the hunt for the postseason, I’d feel differently. But this season is over, for all intents and purpose. So bring on Pitt’s Big East schedule. Bring on the Turin Olympics (which will mercifully interrupt the Penguins season for two weeks in February). And most important of all, bring on the Broncos.

(The hated New York Rangers, sporting no fewer than five former Penguins, come to the Civic Arena on Thursday, by the way.)

The stars of the week:

Dick LeBeau, Big Ben, the Bus, Joey Porter, James Farrior, Troy Polamalu, Heath Miller, Fast Willie, Alan Faneca, Casey Hampton, Hines Ward, Coach Cowher, et al. Go Steelers!

Un Deux Trois

As a lifelong Penguins fan, I innately despise three teams: the Philadelphia Flyers, the New York Rangers, and the New Jersey Devils.

by Ryan Caione

Of course, they all have been rivals of the Pens since the old Patrick Division days. But the Devils and the Rangers epitomize the troubles that led to the lockout that eradicated the 2004-05 NHL season. The Rangers almost single-handedly knocked the league’s salary structure out of whack by overpaying lummoxes like Bobby Holik and Eric Lindros $9 million a year. (Of course, the team hasn't made the playoffs since 1997, and their futility evokes fancy words like hubris and schadenfreude.)

New Jersey set the NHL back decades with their clutching-and-grabbing trap defense that spread like smallpox when lesser teams tried to replicate the success of a nondescript Devils club that won the Stanley Cup in the strike-shortened 1995 season. The resulting deterioration in play throughout the league eventually led to changes to and enforcement of the rules that the Devils and their ilk flaunted for years.

The Flyers are, well, the Flyers -- insecure schoolyard bullies that take their cue from general manager Bobby Clarke, who, as a member of that team during the 1970s, embodied the inaccurate stereotype of hockey players as brutish toothless goons. Other than wearing a suit to work and some cosmetic dental bridgework, not much about him has changed.

Now you can add the Atlanta Thrashers to that list. Before this weekend, they were just another annoying expansion team like Columbus or Nashville, with ugly uniforms and a stupid nickname. I’ve never been to Atlanta, but I’ve been to other nouveau Sunbelt cities like Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston, soulless, sprawling amalgams of strip malls, subdivisions, and six-lane residential streets. I get the impression that Atlanta has much in common with those places, with the only difference being that it burned to the ground once.

Before this season, Atlanta had defeated the Penguins only three times in their five years of existence. This year, they doubled that total in four contests, and each game was notable. In the first meeting, on Oct. 27, Atlanta established a 4-0 lead before the Penguins scorched them for seven straight goals, including six power-play tallies, to win their first game of the season, 7-5. Two weeks later, the Thrashers humiliated the Pens, 5-0. Then, on Friday, Atlanta had another 5-0 lead before the Penguins stormed back with four third-period goals to make it very interesting. The game also featured a simmering feud between their superstar, Ilya Kovalchuk, and ours, Sidney Crosby, who bumped and smacked each other every time they were on the ice together. After his second goal of the game, Kovalchuk showed up Crosby by pointing toward him as he sat in the penalty box. It was like a scene from Youngblood (the worst hockey movie ever made).

The stage was set for the rematch Saturday night. A defining moment came in the second period when Crosby was penalized for diving after taking a stick to the chops, then was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for complaining about the call. Atlanta scored on the ensuing power play. The Thrashers' Jim Slater got credit for the goal after he should have been whistled for goaltender interference when he used the Pens' Marc-Andre Fleury as a divan moments before he scored. The game was decided late in the final period on yet another dubious call. With the game tied at three, Penguins defenseman Ryan Whitney was penalized for slashing while racing for the puck to touch up a routine icing. Atlanta scored another power-play goal with less than four minutes left and won. A rivalry was born.

It’s hard to work up as much froth for the Pens’ next opponent, the Edmonton Oilers, who come to the Igloo on Tuesday night. Since Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier left, I've admired the team: They’re based in Canada, were in a similar small-market predicament as the Pens, and they’ve always played a fast-skating, up-tempo game, even during the clutch-and-grab era, which is why my Dad and I would try and see them when they came to town each year. This season, they’re also red-hot, in second place in their division, and winners of 7 of their last 10, a run the Penguins can only dream of. Let’s hope the Flightless Waterfowl can keep up.

The three stars of the week:

3. Sidney Crosby – The kid’s on a 10 game scoring streak and it’s good to see him get a burr in his saddle. But he was assessed six penalties in the two Atlanta games this past weekend and his outbursts were as uncharacteristic as Troy Polamalu’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the Bengals playoff game. The Penguins need Crosby on the ice, not in the penalty box. He’s got to take a cue from his boss and landlord, Mario Lemieux, who has been known to score lethal goals when he gets riled.

2. Michel Ouellet – Where did this kid come from? And why did it take so long for him to get to the big leagues? All he does is score goals; he has 10 in the 10 games since his call-up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. The way he stands at the side of the net and plunks in puck after puck recalls Robby Brown’s first time around with the Pens, except Ouellet can skate and play some defense, too. His hustle to prevent a meaningless empty-net goal at the end of Saturday’s game was commendable.

1. Ilya Kovalchuk – Amid all of his bush-league posturing, he was undeniably the best player on the ice over the weekend, netting five goals in two games against the Pens. The scoring rampage moved him ahead of Jaromir Jagr in the league’s goal-scoring race.

Photo: The handsome Ron Francis

Baby Pens shed diapers; still stink

Olczyk out. A chain-smoking French Canadian in. But don't breathe a sigh of relief yet.

by Ryan Caione

A couple of weeks ago, I opined that the Pittsburgh Penguins would likely lose a best-of-seven series against their superlative minor league club, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Baby Penguins. Now, for all intents and purposes, the team in Pittsburgh IS the Baby Penguins.

Coach Eddie Olczyk was finally given the boot last week and replaced by Michel Therrien, who led the Baby Pens to only one loss in regulation through two dozen games. What’s more, no fewer than 10 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton alums are now on the roster. It remains to be seen if the new coach, reputedly a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking French Canadian -- admirable qualities all -- can turn this mutha out. Neither history nor the talent he has to work with is on his side.

The Penguins traditionally haven’t taken kindly to coaches who treat them less than gently. General manager Craig Patrick and owner/captain Mario Lemieux like to keep the atmosphere light and breezy, running the team like an elite health spa. In the late 1980s, Gene Ubriaco, while no hockey guru (this quote is his career highlight), once likened coaching the Lemieux-captained Pens to teaching table manners to a shark. A few years later, the players ran living coaching legend Scotty Bowman out of town on a rail. Kevin Constantine, also a taskmaster, had limited success in the late 1990s.

However, unlike those men, Therrien has little to work with. There is no skill player in his prime on this team, except Dick Tarnstrom and Ziggy Palffy. At age 30 and 31, respectively, Jocelyn Thibault and Sergei Gonchar should be in their prime, but evidently, they are past it. There are no veteran checkers either. Every team needs a couple of foot soldier-types, even if they are Kent Manderville and Kelly Buchberger.

If this was before the lockout, Therrien might be able to whip the team into a crack squad of trappers. But speed is at a premium in the new NHL and for various reasons, the two fastest guys in the organization, Konstantin Koltsov and Rico Fata, remain exiled in Wilkes-Barre. Granted, neither were scoring, but what in the name of Dan Frawley is Matt Murley doing playing every single game? Shane Endicott and Matt Hussey have done little to distinguish themselves either.

Nearly half of this team’s personnel are 26 or younger and several of those youngsters show great promise. But those are characteristics of a minor league club, not one that just fired its coach in the hopes of clawing its way back into the NHL playoff race. If it waddles like a penguin and trumpets like a penguin, it must be a penguin. Unless it’s a Baby Penguin.

The Christmas presents of the week:

To Michel Therrien: Lozenges and honeyed tea. All that smoking and screaming – there will undoubtedly be copious amounts of both given the way the Pens play – can’t be good on the ol’ epiglottis.

To Craig Patrick -- A desperate (and gullible) trading partner.

To Sergei Gonchar - Bomb squad training, because he handles the puck as if it has a lit fuse. And ear plugs to block out the booing every time he touches it.

To Penguins fans – A stiff drink (and your dog one, too.) It’s already been a loooong season, and it’s not even halfway over. But a new year is upon us, so let’s look on the bright side. Michel Ouellet has the confidence of the new coach and thrived the past two games. Erik Christensen is my new favorite Penguin. We have one of the league’s best young forwards, Sidney Crosby, and one of its best young goalies, Marc-Andre Fleury. And for twenty years, we’ve been graced by the greatest hockey player who has ever lived.

Happy Holidays.

Fans to Pens: Put the talk on ice

Penguins don’t have lips. But members of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey club have been flapping theirs, talking a much better game than they play.

by Ryan Caione

Penguins don’t have lips. But members of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey club have been flapping theirs, talking a much better game than they play.

In the Post-Gazette over the past week, quotes attributed to various men associated with the team included: "We have to start winning games -- and winning a lot of games -- to get back in the race. We're running out of time,” and "We've lost so much. We're in a big hole, and we have to get out of it." Coach Eddie Olczyk went so far as to proclaim last Thursday night’s game against the Minnesota Wild a “must-win”. That rallied the troops to a disgusting 5-0 loss. Five nights later, they were shut out by the Detroit Red Wings on Monday night. (I refuse to acknowledge Mark Recchi’s irrelevant goal with 29 seconds left in the game.) The Penguins give lip service to having a sense of urgency. Then they loiter around, whistling, with their arms folded behind their backs.

Last week in this space I wrote that things couldn’t get much worse for the Penguins. Well, guess what? They have. Mario Lemieux was hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat, which factored in his decision to withdraw his name from consideration for the Canadian Olympic team. A few days later, he asserted that the chances of the Penguins remaining in Pittsburgh beyond next season are “slim,” and in June 2006 the team can begin to solicit offers from buyers who could move the franchise to Kansas City, Houston, Las Vegas, or Portland, Oregon. In the more immediate future, the Penguins face the specter of being eliminated from the playoff race before Christmas.

On Tuesday night, the Penguins continue their unusual skein of games against Western Conference teams. A day after playing the best in the West, the team travels to St. Louis to play the worst. The Blues are one of the only NHL clubs in a more wretched state than the Penguins, and that’s quite a feat. The folks at the Outdoor Life Network must be delighted to be televising a contest between two teams that collectively have 13 wins in 55 games. I’ll be watching with morbid fascination, but you should read a book or spend time with loved ones.

The three stars of the week:

3. Maxime Talbot – He is one of the few Penguins who consistently exerts himself every game. His name doesn’t always show up on the score sheet, but Talbot does the little things that some of his teammates neglect, such as digging in the corners, taking the body, playing diligent defense, and killing penalties. His hard work paid off Saturday night in a rare victory over Colorado when he scored the eventual game-winning goal by crashing the net and following up on his own rebound. He also had a nice short-handed scoring chance against Detroit. The Penguins need more guys to play like he does.

2. Marc-Andre Fleury – The kid must’ve been quacking like a duck after Detroit used him for target practice. The Penguins parted like the Red Sea against the Red Wings and let them fire nearly 40 shots on the young netminder. When a goalie plays as well as Fleury did in keeping the game competitive – he stopped a ridiculous 18 of 19 shots in the first period -- the rest of the team usually responds by elevating their performance, if only because it’s the polite thing to do. Not the Penguins.

1. Henrik Zetterberg – His name sounds like it should belong to the pouting keyboardist of a German electronic band and he looks the part, too. But he scored the only two goals that Detroit needed in an easy win.

Pens lay eggs up and down the East Coast

..from the "What Exit?" State all the way down to Death's Waiting Room.

by Ryan Caione

As Pittsburgh was getting blasted with a Thanksgiving blizzard, the Penguins flew south, hoping that the warmer climes and two stumbling opponents would prove therapeutic to them, as they've been having troubles of their own. Instead they fared about as well as a real penguin would in Florida.

On Friday, the Penguins faced one of the few teams that have been worse off than they – the Florida Panthers, which hadn’t scored more than 4 goals all year. In fact, Florida hadn’t won a game in a month -- a span of twelve games -- and during that time they gave up a goal in the last ten seconds of a game four times. However, not only did their most recent win come against the Penguins back in October, but Florida had inexplicably defeated the Penguins the previous nine times the teams faced one another, too.

The first sign of trouble was that coach Eddie Olczyk, who is reluctant to tamper with his lineup after a win, again started Sebastien Caron in goal. Sure, Caron got credit for the win against Washington on Tuesday night, but he gave up four goals, including two in the third period, and barely kept them in the game as the Pens held onto to beat the Capitals, 5-4. That, er, momentum carried over into Friday night’s game in Miami, as Caron promptly gave up three goals in the game’s first ten minutes before getting the hook from Edzo. He was replaced by Jocelyn Thibault, who gave up three goals of his own as the Panthers cruised, 6-3. Caron and Thibault are upholding the team’s rich tradition by cementing their place in the pantheon of Mediocre Penguins Goalies from Quebec, joining Michel Dion, Denis Herron, Roberto Romano, Jean-Sebastien Aubin, and their patron saint, Gilles Meloche.

The Penguins continued their swing the Florida, facing the Tampa Bay Lightning two nights later. The Lightning are the defending Stanley Cup champions, but have been muddling through this season, bobbing around .500 and coming off an 8-2 loss at the hands of the New Jersey Devils, hardly an offensive juggernaut. The Penguins responded by handing Tampa Bay nine power play opportunities, three which led to goals, and were shut out until they scored a meaningless goal of their own with 73 seconds left in the game. It was one of the Penguins' most uninspired performances in a season that has been rife with them and is quickly slipping away.

Next up are the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night. They’re giving away free gloves at the Civic Arena. Mike Lange said they’re the real deal, boy (the gloves, that is, not the team).

The three stars of the week:

3. John Grahame – The Tampa Bay goalie almost threw a shutout and improved his career record to a gaudy 8-1-1 against Pittsburgh.

2. Olli Jokinen – The large, smiling Finn recorded his first career hat trick on Friday night against Pittsburgh. He’s also the captain of the Panthers. I wonder how many (or how few) people in South Florida know that.

1. The Baby Penguins – Not only has the Penguins’ minor-league club from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton infused the parent team with four young players – recent call-ups Matt Hussey and Michel Ouellet, as well as budding stalwarts Ryan Whitney and Erik Christensen -- but they haven’t yet lost a game yet in regulation, going an unbelievable 18-0-2. Like the Pittsburgh Pirates’ AAA team, the Indianapolis Indians, the Baby Pens probably would beat their major-league counterparts in a seven-game series.

Photo: The Egg-O-Mat, a fresh egg vending machine, was made by the Heinz Manufacturing Co. of Bristol, Conn., in the 1950s. Camillio Epstein, a Warren, N.J., farmer, put the Egg-O-Mat on his 50-acre farm in the early 1950s. After he sold the farm in the '80s, the Egg-O-Mat was neglected.

Read about more New Jersey oddities at www.weirdnj.com. Read about more Pittsburgh oddities here and here.

Pengies: Classic C students

Unless there is a dramatic roster shake-up (which could be forthcoming), the flightless waterfowl are what they are: a team that has won less than one-third of its games.

by Ryan Caione

One-fourth of the way into the grueling NHL season, the 2005-2006 Pittsburgh Penguins have thus far proved themselves incapable of carrying over momentum from shift to shift, much less game to game. They have, however, taken mediocrity to a new level. Unable to assemble a dominating performance to kick start their season, the Penguins instead are playing white-knuckle, seat-of-the-pants hockey. They sure aren’t going to win every game doing playing that way and it sure ain’t pretty, but at least it’s been fun to watch.

The Penguins have been ratcheting up their intensity, but it’s still not nearly good enough.

Last Monday night, after two lackluster periods against the Islanders, the Penguins turned up the juice in the third and tied the game, 2-2. What ensued was the longest shootout in the NHL thus far. Each team sent nine skaters to the red line with a chance to win the game. And each goalie turned away shot after shot, until New York defenseman Jason Blake finally beat Pens goalie Jocelyn Thiabualt. It was almost worth it.

Two nights later there was more suspense when brittle “Porcelain” Thiabault was scratched from his expected start against the Philadelphia Flyers after he took a puck in the shoulder during the pregame skate. (Isn’t that what goalies are supposed to do?) Marc-Andre Fleury, who by all rights should be the team’s regular goalie, got the surprise start, and played brilliantly, including some excellent saves during another overtime. Sidney Crosby took a cue from Mario Lemieux and proved that scoring is the best revenge after taking a stick to the face not once, but twice, from the uglier, slower Hatcher brother (Philly defenseman Derian). Crosby's second goal of the night, an overtime game winner, came on a breakaway that ranks as one of the most exciting moments in Penguins hockey over the last five years.

The rematch three nights later also had its share of drama as the Penguins matched the Flyers goal for goal, including one on a wicked shot by Erik Christensen (this kid gives us reason for hope, too) that tied the score at 3, nine seconds after Philadelphia had taken a lead. There was drama, that is, until Philadelphia took control of the game in the third period by forechecking the Penguins into submission, something that’s been happening with alarming regularity.

The Washington Capitals come to the Civic Arena on Tuesday night. This rivalry may have lost some of the vivacity that it had in late 1980s when both teams jockeyed for playoff positioning in the old Patrick Division, or in the 1990s when the Penguins almost annually ousted the Caps from the playoffs (we’ll pretend 1994 never happened, OK?) Even as recently as the season before the lockout, both teams were battling each other for the top pick in the draft. Now, the match-up of teenaged Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin (who is neck-and-neck with Crosby in talent, if not notoriety) should keep this rivalry kindled for years to come.

Three things to be thankful for:

3. Mike Lange – There once was a time that I thought maybe he was losing some of his vim. Maybe it was just me, but after he began doing TV games exclusively in the 1990s, his goal calls weren’t as exuberant; his one-liners were becoming stale. In fairness to him, I wasn’t listening to him regularly the last few years. But this season I am, and he seems to have regained his form. We're lucky to have a Hall-of-Famer calling our games every night.

2. Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Ronnie Francis, Jaromir Jagr, Badger Bob Johnson, Scotty Bowman, Craig Patrick, Paul Coffey, Darius Kasparaitis, Ulf Samuelsson, Joey Mullen, Brian Trottier, Jean Pronovost, Syl Apps, and all the other all-time hockey greats who called our fair city their home while plying their trade.

1. The Franchise – The Pittsburgh Penguins entered the NHL in 1967 in the league’s first attempt at expansion. Not only where they a fledging team, but they faced the unenviable task of following in the footsteps of the Pittsburgh Hornets, which had won the Memorial Cup as the American Hockey League champions the year before. Their first mascot, a hapless penguin named Pete, died from pneumonia. The team survived bankruptcy twice. It has also endured more untimely deaths of people associat