For years I’ve been banging the drum for the Penguins to get more physical and competitive. Frankly, a forlorn hope during the Mike Sullivan era. Sully had a style he wanted to play and a player type he favored. He appeared to have a bias against guys who played with an edge.
Problem is, you can’t parse things that finely. It’s like sifting wheat. Eventually you’re going to remove all the nutrients…all the life-giving stuff. Then you’re stuck with plain white flour.
The same goes for a hockey club. Clamp down on feistiness and aggression and eventually you’re left with a white-flour team.
To a large degree, that’s why we had a 177-pound defenseman who really wasn’t cut out for the role serving as the team’s protector in recent years. God bless Marcus Pettersson for having the heart and courage to do so. There were times when “The Dragon” literally skated into the lion’s den to take on heavies like Nic Deslauriers, Johan Gadjovich and Tom Wilson.
I’ve written this before, recently in fact, but it bears repeating. The Pens’ transition from chumps to champs began before they had the extreme good fortune to select generational talents Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby in back-to-back drafts, to say nothing of probable Hall-of-Famer Marc-André Fleury.
Prior to the 2000 draft, we’d invested our top picks in a string of skilled but passive Europeans, including Aleksey Morozov, Robert Dome, Milan Kraft and Konstantin Koltsov. None, save for Morozov, were anything approaching long-term contributors.
To digress, the problem with drafting second-tier skill guys, which has long been ingrained in the Pens’ DNA (see Lee Giffin and Grant Sasser) is that they’re generally not talented enough to play in the top-six or adaptable or gritty enough to effectively fill a bottom-six role. Hence, a wasted pick.
Then Craig Patrick audibly shifted gears in the 2000 draft and selected burly Brooks Orpik, a hard-hitting defenseman, with his top pick. I remember how shocked everyone was at this abrupt shift in philosophy, albeit for the better.
That’s what this draft feels like to me. Yes, skill was served in the form of our top pick, Benjamin Kindel. But there was a pronounced focus on physicality and compete, especially with power forwards Bill Zonnon and William Horcoff, rugged defensemen Charlie Tretheway and Brady Peddle, and high-motor energy guy Travis Hayes.
Why is this so important? Why do I keep banging this drum?
Just like stale, lifeless play we’ve had the misfortune of witnessing so often the past few seasons, aggressiveness is contagious. The more physical, high-compete guys you have, the more it rubs off on the rest of the team.
The Panthers are a classic example. Yes, they’re deep, talented and marvelously constructed by GM/genius Bill Zito. But the back-to-back champs are also relentlessly aggressive. They just wear other teams down. Even very good ones like the Oilers, ‘Canes, Maple Leafs and Lightning.
Back to those early 2000 drafts. Other physical/feisty/aggressive types such as Colby Armstrong, Paul Bissonnette, Daniel Carcillo, Drew Fata, Patrick Foley, Tyler Kennedy, David Koci, Ryan Stone, Max Talbot and Joe Vitale soon joined the fold.
Some made it. A lot of them didn’t. But the ones who emerged helped alter the Pens’ on-ice approach from “soff” to spirited.
It was Talbot, the blue-collar son of a construction worker, who scored the Cup-winning Game 7 goals in 2009. Not to mention his momentum-altering fight with Carcillo, then a Flyer, in Game 6 of the opening round. And it was Orpik who authored a thunderous, four-hit shift in Game 3 of the ’09 Final to send a blunt-force message to the defending champion Red Wings.
As for our current draft class? Just like the early 2000s bunch, not all of these kids will succeed or have a future impact. I’m hopeful some will.
I, for one, am most pleased with the change in philosophy.
Thanks to Kyle Dubas, perhaps I can finally put down that drum.
