Penguins Update: The Worst That Could Happen?

Back in the summer of 1968, my favorite song was The Worst That Could Happen. Sung to perfection by Johnny Maestro and The Brooklyn Bridge, it’s a soulful, remorseful lament about a man whose girl decides to marry another.

I was thinking about our Penguins this morning when the song popped into my head.

Was our 8-2-3 stretch run, while heartening and inspiring, in reality the worst that could happen for the black and gold?

While I hate to say it was all for naught…the team finally came together after a season of stumbling in the dark…the bottom line is, we missed the playoffs for the second year in a row.

Strike one.

Our season-ending heater also had the unintended consequence of lifting us out of the bottom 10 teams, which means we sacrifice our first-round pick to San Jose in the upcoming Entry Draft. With it a chance to select a much-needed impact player like Hobey Baker winner Macklin Celebrini, Cole Eiserman or Tij Iginla.

Strike two.

Perhaps worst of all? Head coach Mike Sullivan is already talking about next season in terms of “we” and “us.” While those two Stanley Cup rings foster a ton of goodwill, it would be hard to imagine another coach who presided over four-straight opening-round exits and two non-playoff seasons having this kind of job security.

Personally, I’m torn over Sully. On one hand, he’s intelligent, well-spoken and forthright and he obviously knows the game. On the other hand, Capitals rookie coach Spencer Carbery did a lot more with a lot less.

Strike three.

Or one, two, three strikes you’re out, if you prefer.

Cue Johnny Maestro. The worst that could happen, indeed.

Making the Grade

At some point I’ll likely delve deeper into my player evaluations. For now, I thought I’d post quickie, off-the-cuff letter grades for our guys.

Purely subjective, of course, although I did try to take into account a player’s role and usage, with a nod toward expected performance. Players who received the “Sully” treatment like Jesse Puljujärvi and Jonathan Gruden are a little hard to gauge.

Players who appeared in less than 10 games received an Incomplete.

On a whole, I thought individual performances exceeded the sum of the parts. Or as Erik Karlsson put it, “I think we had a much better team than where we ended up. That’s on all of us.”

Agreed.

Grade	Player(s)
A+	Crosby
A	Guentzel, Pettersson, Rust
A-	Bunting
B+	Malkin, O’Connor
B	Letang
B-	Eller, Karlsson, Nedeljkovic, St. Ivany
C+	Carter, Joseph, Puustinen, Rakell
C	Acciari, Bemström, Jarry, Nieto, Puljujärvi, Shea
C-	Graves, Gruden, Hinostroza, Smith, Zohorna
D+	Harkins, Ruhwedel, White
D	Ludvig
Inc.	Hellberg, Johnstone, Koppanen, Nylander, Phillips, Poulin