Following Other Rick’s terrific series of articles grading the Penguins’ individual performances over the past season and playoffs, I decided to take a more reflective look at where we are as a team. Or “where we’re at” in classic Pittsburgh-ese.
I’ll start by quoting the Holy Bible. The author of Ecclesiastes wrote, For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven…a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted…a time to break down, and a time to build up.
So it is with championship teams. Each has a life cycle that, if plotted out on a sheet of paper, often resembles a bell curve. They start out in the depths, build up through a series of fortuitous drafts, trades and free-agent signings to reach champion status, then fade through a combination of age, attrition and other factors.
Indeed, father time catches up to even the mightiest collection of athletes. Remember the great Steelers dynasty of the 1970s? It seemed they’d win Super Bowls forever. They, too, proved mortal.
Time waits for no man. Or team.
Our Stanley Cup champions of the early 1990s followed the bell-curve pattern to a T. Difficult as is it to believe, the seeds for those teams were rooted in the horrific 1983-84 “Boys of Winter” squad that won all of 16 games. Three rookies on that team, Phil Bourque, Bob Errey and Troy Loney, went on to serve as valuable role players…if not the heart and soul…for the Cup winners to follow.
Too, the club’s putrid performance paved the way for the Pens to draft phenom Mario Lemieux first overall. Sans number 66 to serve as franchise savior, it’s doubtful we’d have a hockey team in Pittsburgh today, let alone be the proud possessor of five Stanley Cups.
After peaking with back-to-back Cups in 1991 and ’92, the locals began a surprisingly rapid decline. They captured the Presidents’ Trophy with a franchise record 56 wins and 119 points in ’93, only to bow to the Islanders in the second round in a shocking upset.
Loaded with five future Hall-of-Famers and heavyweight scorers Jaromir Jagr and Kevin Stevens, the black and gold was expected to recapture the Cup in 1993-94. Instead, they endured an uneven regular season, capped by a disastrous first-round defeat at the hands of Washington, on paper a vastly inferior squad.
I remember that series vividly. In particular how old, slow and spent we looked…as if we’d aged overnight.
Sound eerily familiar? It should. Our present Pens turned in a similarly tepid performance during the current postseason en route to an embarrassing four-game sweep at the hands of Islanders, who in turn were swept by Carolina.
What’s more, we’re on the exact same spot of the bell curve as the ’93-94 team. A couple of seasons past our peak and trending downward…with a bullet.
Like Craig Patrick before him, present GM Jim Rutherford faces a challenge of epic proportions. Does JR attempt to buttress his gifted but aging core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel and Kris Letang with a stronger supporting cast for one last run at the Cup? Or is it time to break up the old gang and restock with young talent? Given the Mulligan stew of pricey, long-term contracts laced with no-movement clauses, a task far easier said than done.
I can’t imagine for one moment there’s a long line of opposing GMs making like the Statue of Liberty…“Give us your tired, your over-paid and your over-the-hill and we’ll give you prime young talent and high draft picks in return.”
Rutherford’s got his work cut out for him.
Perhaps that’s why Patrick initially chose Option A. In the summer of ‘94, he bolstered his troops by adding Hall-of-Fame sniper Luc Robitaille and former 100-point man John Cullen. The Pens raced out of the starting blocks at a torrid 13-1-2 clip, then waned before stumbling in the second round of the playoffs.
The following summer Patrick at long last cleaned house, shipping out mainstays Stevens, Joe Mullen, Larry Murphy and the Samuelsson’s…Ulf and Kjell…along with Robitaille in exchange for younger, fresher legs.
Re-energized, the Pens made it to the conference finals that spring before resuming a gradual fade…one that resulted in the club bottoming out in the early 2000s. Which led to drafting a second generation of franchise players and beget a new championship cycle.
My opinion…totally unsubstantiated. Rutherford will opt for a partial tear down and part with one of his core players. Who goes…Malkin, Kessel or Letang…is anyone’s guess. As Other Rick mentioned in his most recent article, there’s a lot of smoke surrounding Malkin. Where there’s smoke, there’s generally fire.
Meanwhile, the seasons keep a changin.’ And the life cycle of a former champion grinds on to its inevitable conclusion. One day, the Pens’ window to win another Cup will close, if it hasn’t already. At least for the foreseeable future.
Enjoy the ride while you can. It won’t last forever.
Hey Rick,
It is cyclical. While there is a life cycle of champions like you mentioned, I’m talking about the trade Malkin talk.
2013, 2016 and here we are on the third year of this cyclical process and here come the same people again.
Rick, you wern’t saying to trade him, but wrote about the talk in 2013: https://wp.me/prN0z-3eU
The Cup the Penguins won two years ago, Malkin led the Penguins and the NHL in points that’s less than two years ago. Would the Pens won the last two Cups without him? I doubt it.
The last 3 years Malkin is 6th in the NHL in regular season points per game.
The idea of moving him should not even be on the mind of anyone who is an actual Penguins fan as it shouldn’t have been 3 or 6 years ago.
Bring in young guys and keep building the team around Crosby and Malkin for at least for 2-3 more years. Then let them play out their career here as above average role players. They have earned it.
Players want to play for teams that have a tradition of doing right by the players.
Hey Phil,
I’d hate to part with Malkin, too. But I tend to be very sentimental about such things. I’d be the guy who hangs on to everybody while the team falls apart.
When he’s on his game, Geno has a top gear that I haven’t seen any active player reach…not even Sid. At least pre-McDavid and MacKinnon. But he’s turning 33 this summer…hardly ancient…but I suspect an “old 33” based on all of the injuries he’s sustained over the years.
If you can get an attractive return for Malkin, maybe it’s time to part ways. But I definitely wouldn’t deal him for a middling return…it would have to be a decent combo of player(s) and pick(s).
All things being equal, I’d probably look to move Kessel or Letang before I’d try to trade Geno. Letang, in particular, drives me nuts with his decision-making, especially in the past two playoffs.
Rick
This is scary Phil, I agree with you. Although, I wouldn’t rule out any trade if a suitor offers me enough, but Malkin? Like Rick B I would 1st try to move Letang.
I like Kessel but if needs be I would also move him.
In my usual arm chair GM way I am trying to come up with trade ideas that may work for Letang, Kessel, and I am sorry but Maatta.
Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t dislike Maatta, but unless the team dumps Sullivan, I fear Maatta won’t get back to form, so for your Maatta’s sake I would trade him.
Super Stuff Rick!!
The inconvenient truth is there is a cycle to all professional sports. I don’t believe it has to be that way but it ends up a never ending story, a circle. Teams struggle through the pain of cellar dwelling until they hit on the right combination of players to bring them to the top. Then after a couple of years in the sun, they fade. They fade because they lose the strength to make the hard decisions to trade some players from their championship team when those players stock is high, so that they could keep a pipeline of good young talent.
Unfortunately, our Penguins didn’t learn from their mistakes and may be doomed to repeat them.
Totally agree Coach.
It does not have to be a Boom or Bust cycle if the
General managers and team Presidents followed your advice and traded
players when their value is at their maximum. You cannot keep
destroying your Minor-league system at the expense of your NHL club
Indefinitely.Also situations change when other teams need help and
they are forced to make trades to satisfy their fan base. If you’re lucky enough to catch a team in such a situation then sometimes you get trades that are too good to pass up. If we just stick our head in the sand and say that we’re never going to trade anyone you will lose those opportunities.
Should be a very Interesting month coming up Coach.
Cheers
Jim
Well said Rick.
When you see the quality of the opposition now playing in the final 8 teams and add to that the 3 division Champs that got beat, you can see that the rest of the league has passed us by. Look at them.Faster, Bigger,Younger, better Coached and over 4 lines they are all better teams.
We got swept by a team who lost their marquee player in Free Agency last summer and never replaced him yet they still beat us bad!
Can you imagine the Pens with out Sid ? We would be in the bottom 3rd of the league with out Crosby.That is the real danger.
We can not go back in time,but remember way back when Edmonton was going to draft Mc David, I said then we should trade Geno for the #1 pick and a roster player, like Jordan Emberle. Emotionally nobody on the blog at that time thought that was a good idea.I was a traitor for even suggesting that terrible idea. But I ask you old friend, what would our Pens be like today with a 22 year old McDavid and a 25 year Emberle in the Black and Gold instead of a 32 soon to be 33 year old Malkin? Or even a 24 year old Nathan MacKinnon?
I only raise this issue because it takes GUTS to do a deal like that and most GM’s and Team Presidents do NOT want to lose their jobs.
For the future of our team I only hope that our GM and President would be up to the task if the situation arose.
We need change and much more TALENT !!
Cheers
JIM
PS: Love your new book !