Blake Comeau is congratulated on his first-period goal by Evgeni Malkin and Simon Despres. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
None of this has been all that complex.
In fact, if surveying the Penguins’ problems spanning this starcrossed 2014-15 season, it can pretty much be condensed to these 15 words, spoken by Patric Hornqvist late Wednesday after that 4-1 rout of the Red Wings at Consol Energy Center: “We’ve got one hell of a hockey team.”
Wait for the other seven words. They followed a brief pause.
“When we’ve actually got our hockey team.”
Oh, yeah. The guy doesn’t just take a straight line to the net, you know.
Nothing could more directly sum up how and why this group, somehow 31-15-8 and a point off the Metropolitan Division lead despite a ridiculous 236 man-games lost to injury and cancer and blood clots and all manner of mumps, has found even firmer footing of late by shutting out Edmonton and Calgary and then — after a tired throwaway loss in Vancouver to end that trip — silenced an opponent that had won 12 of its previous 15 games.
These certainly weren’t the Oilers. Nor even the Flames, who’d won eight of 10 before the Penguins came to town.
“This was a really good Detroit team,” Mike Johnston said. “We’re aware of what they’ve been doing to other teams around the league, we needed to be ready for it, and I think we were.”
Which led into my followup question about, you know, how the Penguins have actually got their hockey team: “Well, you add Blake Comeau to the group, and you look at who we’ve gotten back in the past 10 days, with Hornqvist, Geno and now Comeau. That’s our whole line. And that was a very good line tonight.”
They were the stars, actually: Comeau, in his first game back from missing 20 games to a broken wrist, set up and scored the Penguins’ first two goals. Hornqvist, in his eighth game from missing 11 games to a broken foot and visibly struggling to regain his timing even through the Western Canada trip, scored and set up those same two goals. And Evgeni Malkin, who returned for that trip after a five-game absence of his own, was the centrifugal force making it all happen.
“It felt really good to have our line back together,” Hornqvist said, somehow without mentioning the obvious and dramatic upgrade of Comeau over the mercifully waived Marc Arcobello. “We have, Blake and I, kind of similar styles where we’ll get to the net and try to make room for Geno, get to loose pucks and try to finish plays. I haven’t been doing that so much lately …”
He drifted for a moment, possibly flashing back to countless chances squandered on the trip.
“But it takes time. It does. Even when you’re healthy, you have to get your legs back, your confidence. I feel like that’s coming. That’s why I’m happy for Blake to score right away. It takes a real weight off your mind.”
No doubt that was the impact. I asked Comeau about his celebration after scoring — a point-blank one-timer off a sharp, patient feed from Hornqvist below the goal line — and suggested it looked like half-happy, half-relieved.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Comeau came back with a soft smile. “Honestly, I’ve never been out this long in my hockey career. You’re out there skating by yourself. You don’t feel like part of the team. It’s no fun. To get right out out there and get on the scoresheet and feel like you contributed … yeah, that’s good.”
Here, take a look …
Nothing too complex in any of that, obviously. Including the goal.
But then, none of this is. What these Penguins have done is win at a decent rate while missing tons of players, and what they have a chance to do now is win at a better rate than the mostly blah pace since the week before Christmas. They were 22-6-5 at the time, and they’re 9-9-3 since.
The latter, of course, has had much of the Penguins’ passionate but always panicky fan base out on the ledge. Fans want this guy or that guy to get fired, traded, released, waived, rolled under a bus bound for Wheeling, you name it. That’s the beast that’s been created around here, for better or worse, by a decade-plus of success since Sidney Crosby’s arrival.
But it’s never been more misguided, I dare say, than this season.
I mean, wow, what did people expect was going to happen when the top five wingers on the roster went down for long stretches? Or when the same happened to the defensemen? Or when key figures Pascal Dupuis or Olli Maatta went down for the year?
Johnston is another Dan Bylsma!
Trade all our defense prospects and fourth-liners for someone’s superstar!
This (insert utterly meaningless regular-season game) reminds me of the playoffs!
Where’s the passion with this team? Why don’t they care?
These aren’t fiction. I read this stuff every day from fans of this team. There was a slew of it even after Vancouver and that specific set of circumstances. And it blows me away. It really does. The expectations of this franchise have become almost surreal, surely unlike that of any other team in Pittsburgh. Whether it’s treating a trip to the conference final like a catastrophe, or not having both of the NHL’s leading scorers at any given point, or pouting each time a legitimate Vezina Trophy candidate or a legitimate Norris Trophy candidate makes a mistake … it’s spoiled. I’ll call it like it is. That is absolutely spoiled.
It’s unfortunate, too, because that cynical crowd is missing one truly remarkable season.
And it’s a season that, again, might be on the cusp of getting better.
I asked Nick Spaling after this game, in which he scored the fourth goal on a sweet tip of a Rob Scuderi point shot, about the general mood of getting players back …
That’s it exactly. Because, see, isolating on the Malkin line Wednesday doesn’t do this justice. Sure, it’s wonderful to have an entire second line return, but the equal effect is the spillover: The third line saw Spaling, Brandon Sutter and Beau Bennett freshly emerged from Chateau Bow-Wow, and that group obviously scored. Moreover, Bennett earned praise from Johnston for having driven hard to the net on that play, the primary focus of his scratches. Good for him. The kid was smiling a bit afterward, to boot. Sutter, too, looked sharper than he has in a while. And the fourth line, while hardly the caliber of other contenders, at least looked a bit bigger and nastier with Steve Downie joining Maxim Lapierre and Craig Adams. I’ll still take a replacement for Adams, but I’m by now wholly convinced that Adams will be skating a regular shift in Pittsburgh when all that’s left of our planet will be cockroaches, radioactive discharge and Wall-E.
It’s not a perfect roster. It could still use another defensemen, preferably one with size that rivals his mobility, especially if Christian Ehrhoff’s concussion issues linger. It might well need another winger, should Chris Kunitz fade back into the drapes again. But man alive, it’s a much, much better roster than some seem to realize, and that’s in no small part due to Jim Rutherford’s many sharp moves since last summer.
If you missed it, all four goals Wednesday came from Rutherford acquisitions.
It’s a happier roster, too. Don’t underestimate that.
“This felt good, to get out there, have all our guys and have that good jump,” Crosby said. “We finally have everyone. Now, we’ve got to build off that.”
Good health includes healthy thoughts. Those seem far more prevalent on the inside than the outside, and that tale is getting seriously stale around here.
I agree with the calling out of said fans.. BUT a couple hundred (even more maybe) fairweather fans on twitter, facebook etc give the tens,hundreds of thousands passionate fans that support this team no matter what, a terrible reputation. And it's sad. Yes they're a high profile with geno and crosby which ups their intake of bandwagoners that truly don't even know half the team. I'm glad you said this though, just wish the whole fan base WASNT dragged under with it. Great work DK!!
Michelle, you make a good point; however, I do agree w Dejan that a pretty large number of very vocal (in social media, and comments sections of the newspapers online editions) 'fans' are spoiled and entitled, and NEVER happy.
At the beginning of the year, when the Pens were winning, all those fans had to say was, 'this is the regular season, winning doesn't mean anything; what matters is what happens in the playoffs.' But, of course, once the Pens started struggling more in January, THEN these obnoxious types started with all the comments about how terrible the team was, and that the team should be basically blown up. There wasn't one player (or coach, or management member) that they weren't ready to throw under the bus.
And, guess what, the Pens are still bound to have some bad games between now and the end of the regular season. Plus, there are no guarantees with what will happen in the postseason.
I've no idea if this team can really compete for a Stanley Cup. The playoffs require a good (doesn't always have to even be great) team in good health hitting its stride at the right time, a lot of hard work, solid play from the goalie on out, and a certain amount of sheer puck luck and good bounces.
But, I like this team, and just hope they can stay healthy.
Oh, and I do want to say, in keeping w Dejan's own reporting, the commenters on this forum are generally more measured, polite, and sensible than those one sees in some other forums.
CoachD
2-12-2015, 11:04 am
The irrational fans far outweigh the rational ones in Pittsburgh and it's not even close. It's actually made "discussing" sports very difficult at times.
tonyragano
2-12-2015, 4:40 pm
So what bandwagon am I on? The reality bandwagon? I think I invented while the rest of you live in the land of rainbows and gumdrops while watching a first round eliminated team play every night. It's astonishing.
Z
2-12-2015, 12:50 am
Agree with everything. Except...
"treating a trip to the conference final like a catastrophe"
Getting swept and scoring two goals in four games while trying the same tired "gameplan", if you even want to call Bylsma's system a gameplan, over and over again, Iginla at LW. That series was a beatdown and both Shero and Bylsma should have been fired the second that final whistle sounded in Boston. Out of the past five playoff collapses, Boston series was undoubtably the worst.
Lol I can think of a few words stronger than "catastrophe" to describe the Boston series
DJ
2-12-2015, 12:58 am
Well stated on this particular point.
Stephen Petrilli
2-12-2015, 3:59 am
I think losing to the Rangers after being up 3-1 was worse
Marc
2-12-2015, 6:09 am
I as at Game 1 of the Boston series. The refs did the Pens no favors in that game. Game 2 wasn't much better, and by the time that they made it to Game 3, you could tell that all of the belief was gone. I really believe, and you can ridicule me all you want, that if the NHL applied the same rule book to the playoffs that they do to the regular season, the Pens would have at least 1 more cup by now
Graig
2-12-2015, 3:33 pm
The Boston series was far from a catastrophe. Frustrating, yes. But, we outplayed them for long stretches in that series, and Rask was just playing out of his mind. When we did manage to get it by him, it went off a post. We hit so many frigging post that series that it was ridiculous. You want a catastrophe? Try the Philly series in 2012. THAT abomination was a catastrophe.
CoachD
2-12-2015, 11:05 am
I think this whole post is a catastrophe.
BillyBaduka
2-12-2015, 6:02 pm
The Flyers series was the most dissappointing to me.
craig
2-13-2015, 12:14 am
So true!
GungHo4JungHo
2-12-2015, 12:55 am
I agree with your assessment of some of the fans. I like to call them the "sky falling faction." They're pretty prevalent and I'm not sure where they get off acting the the way they do because they're probably all Pirates and we all know what that teams been through over the years. The worst part of the "sky falling faction" is they're hatred of certain players - Letang & Fleury, most notably. And it doesn't matter how well they play.
I'm kind of rehashing what DK has already said but its worth saying again. This team is still a pretty young team dealing with lots of adversity in the health department. Can't exactly expect consistency with over 200 man games lost. Now that they're getting mostly everyone back it should be expected they play better, but even that should be within reason. Ehrhoff is still hurt; Maatta and Dupuis for the year. Bennett will probably be benched again and Adams will continue to play.
All in all, however, this team is good one so everyone should just enjoy watching the team continue to play. So GO PENGUINS!
Actually the fourth/fifth oldest team in the league
GungHo4JungHo
2-12-2015, 8:04 am
Defense is older and Kunitz and Adams take the average up but most of the offense is sub 30. Not sure why I included a comment on age to begin with. However, it's more about the fact it's a lot of new players trying to learn the system and gel together.
bpn8pitt
2-12-2015, 10:20 am
DanK, can I ask how old you are or at least age demographic?
CoachD
2-12-2015, 11:16 am
I think looking at average age is very misleading, we only have 5 players currently in the lineup that are 30+(6 once Ehrhoff returns) and if you look at the core of the team only MAF has reached 30yo and let's be honestly is us being 4/10ths of a year older than another team really make a difference, if I'm not mistaken it's only a 4 year difference between the youngest and oldest teams in the league, it's really not very significant.
Arriba Wilver
2-12-2015, 12:17 pm
You think the "wacko" Pens fans are Pirate fans? Really? My impression is some of the people who know the most about hockey (here at least) fit the
"The latter, of course, has had much of the Penguins’ passionate but always panicky fan base out on the ledge. Fans want this guy or that guy to get fired, traded, released, waived, rolled under a bus bound for Wheeling, you name it. That’s the beast that’s been created around here, for better or worse, by a decade-plus of success since Sidney Crosby’s arrival."
Arriba Wilver
2-12-2015, 12:19 pm
And they aren't "Pirate first" fans. Just ask Groat. Sorry, just a weird statement that says more about your bias than who you are belittling.
Z
2-12-2015, 12:59 am
To your point, I think a lot of the fans who aren't very knowledgeable when it comes to hockey are also the most vocal, the ones who call into Madden and get (deservedly) mocked. Firing Johnston? Teaching Sid a lesson for a slump? It's idiocy. Same people who blame Fleury after every loss. I refuse to believe the majority of Pens fans think like that.
I always say this.. Hockey is such a complex sport a lot of fans don't fully understand it. It's more than throwing a ball into an end zone or hitting a home run etc. the sport is probably the most high pace, which attracts people that watch just for the action and what not, and those people are the ones that feel the need to express (viciously) at times their opinions. I'll say it again, it's sad those people are looked at as the majority of fans. Couldn't be further. Internet just fulls it
Z
2-12-2015, 1:27 am
"Shoot da damn puck!"
"Get back in yer net, Flurrry!"
"Skate Geno yah lazy bum!"
And the best of all-time
"Somebody hit somebody!"
There are a ton of people who attend games at Consol who don't know what the hell is going on but still feel the need to loudly vocalize their opinions as if they do
phish.phanpa
2-12-2015, 10:28 am
Its the old saying isn't it? The people most qualified are rarely the ones you hear speak. The people most qualified to speak, make measured well thought out comments, and take a long time to levy judgement. The loudmouths who know nothing spout their opinion loudly for everyone to hear. Even now, in February its still way too early to make a valid, knowledgeable judgement about who will make it, even past the first round in the playoffs. This sport isnt like football where you can make an assessment on the teams halfway through the season and have a decent guess on who is going to make it deep into the playoffs.
ziggygreece
2-12-2015, 6:13 am
+2 to both of ya
deklewa185
2-12-2015, 6:26 am
I have to say that, at least in my experience, people go to games of every sport in every city and yell uninformed stuff. That's just how live sports work. There's beer flowing, there's a lot of energy, and not everyone has played hockey or baseball or football in their lives. I'd much rather have a bunch of drunk yinzers yelling at Crosby to shoot every time he touches the puck than an uninterested, quiet crowd like you'll find in other cities
A. Lane
2-12-2015, 7:21 am
Hockey is five guys skating around trying to put a puck past another guy. I think you can trivialize any sport just as easily as you can over complicate them.
GungHo4JungHo
2-12-2015, 8:09 am
Screaming to shoot the puck or fleury to get back in net are things that are deserved sometimes however. I think even the more level headed fans (like I consider myself) the team passes up open shots on net for a pass. We also all know Fleury has made some poor decisions on playing the puck.
Yelling for someone to hit someone is very comical and unbelievably dumb, though.
jeffrey
2-12-2015, 8:11 am
Just a small point, ziggygreece...I think you mean "yinz" not "ya" :)
alantig
2-12-2015, 2:33 pm
It didn't start at the new barn...
My favorite of all time was at a game at the Civic Arena (yes, Civic). Some moron near us was on Robbie Brown all night, and at one point screamed, "Jesus, Brown, can't you even take a simple pass?"
I leaned over to my wife and said, "Well, no, not when he's on the bench, he can't."
When I go to games now, usually with my son, I tend to try to stay in my own little world. At the age of four, he was making more intelligent comments about the game than 90% of the people around us. Both of my kids roll their eyes at some of the comments the "experts" in the stands and comment sections make. My daughter will occasionally make a purely emotional statement, but she follows it immediatey with, "Yeah, I know, but..."
Diane
2-12-2015, 1:04 am
Unfortunately with Crosby and Malkin, the expectations are really unfair, it takes more than any two players on any team to win Stanley Cups. A well rounded team with balance in offense and defense along with goal tending and a little bit of puck luck is needed. This team gives us an outstanding season year after year and some darn entertaining hockey as well, and yet fans will say it's all a failure if they don't win the cup. Enjoy the ride.
To be fair this has been the first legitimately enjoyable season in so long, because it's actually building up to something. Coaches who care about developing players and making adjustments and not doing the same thing over and over again to prove their way is the right way.
It has to be about more than the regular season. "The ride" is only fun if you know it's building to something bigger. Dan Bylsma setting the franchise record for wins and stacking points in the regular season and not playing or developing rookies
Z
2-12-2015, 1:15 am
...because it might hurt his regular season points total, that's not fun. It's not fun watching regular season games knowing your team would flame out for a fifth consecutive postseason as was the case all last season. Seeing Joe Vitale and Tanner Glass and Engelland and Orpik suck night after night but get the jersey over Simon Despres wasn't fun.
JB Destiny
2-12-2015, 1:38 am
Okay, It's mid February, the dead zone of Pittsburgh Sports, so I don't want to raise 'rah rah' flags, nor do I want to fire up torches and storm castlevania.. Tis the season of Dark n Grey vs. Black n Gold .. I try to balance emotions based on situation and context. (and Michelob Ultra)
But holy toledo.. THANK YOU for this article/insight.. It's an affirming read.
This service/site has greater payoff than the best scripted TV narratives.. things you wrote about months ago are unfolding like a child turning the page of a pop-up book.. It's great because you control what you do and write, and you live and breathe your responsibility as a journalist, observer, educated communicator, and you deliver in real time and real life.
Thank you
Anniversary coming up..
lest we forget, Dan Bylsma replaced Micehl Therion on Feb 15 2009.. around the time a sports writer at the PG opined that the Pens were done (he kinda had a point, in fact, more points than the Pens who had 59 in 57 games)
o/u for the 10,000 subscriber.. May the 4th (be with you)
Great Column, Dejan! Yes, we Pens fans are spoiled. We expect championships year in and year out.
But personally, I am more settled and do not overestimate regular season. We see more often than not that the playoffs are about just getting in and start playing games one-by-one untill that Win No.16.
More than ever, it is never over until it IS over.
Go, Pens!
Great article as always DK! I just bought a year subscription today.
Just a quick technical question... I know Arcobello wasn't great, but I thought he was much better then Sill (and of course Adams, but you've already addressed that confusion). So I'm guessing Arcobello going on waivers and Sill a healthy scratch must be something technical? Or is Sill somehow better than Arcobello and I'm missing something super special about him. I think Arcobello on a forth line could have worked. Then again, I'm partial to Bobby Farnham or a number of baby pens playing over Sill/Adams. Am I being unfair? Or what I am I missing in this equation.
I have a hard time comparing Arcobello and Sill, as I don't find much value in either, honestly. Coaches often cast a skill-type player as someone who plays on the top two lines or not at all. That's undoubtedly what happened here in Arcobello's case.
Eric
2-12-2015, 2:22 am
I was blown away by how well Comeau played his first game back and if it continues, the Pens will surprise a whole lot of people.
Despite what some continually post, the chemistry between line mates sometimes more than makes up for the individual talent of each guy, and that is something that shouldn't be overlooked or underestimated. We've seen in the recent past how sacrificing chemistry for talent can backfire in a big way
Would Kunitz and Dupuis be 1st liners on other teams...probably more like 3rd liners...but for the Pens, they ARE, because of the chemistry they have together with Sid, and they are a dangerous line when healthy. Losing Duper for the season was a tough hit to take, but Rutherford getting Perron (whose style of play resembles Pascal's) has provided the chemistry that was lost when Dupuis went down.
The same can be said for Comeau...probably not a top 6 on many, if any, other teams...but his style of play meshes wonderfully with Geno and Hornqvist, and suddenly that line is dangerous as well
BK
2-12-2015, 2:43 am
You can understand the "nuances" of a sport when you've played it all your life, and being harsh because you can look at something with a critical eye doesn't make you spoiled and doesn't necessarily make you a bad fan.
Just like being rah-rah all the time doesn't necessarily make you a good fan.
Injuries to key players is a huge deal and can be crippling, but at the same time you need to maximize what you have. On no planet where hockey is played should Bennett be scratched over Adams or Sill, especially when they are worse at doing exactly the same things Bennett was benched for to begin with. A game or two? Fine. But I'm sorry, when you're dressing waiver bait in Arcobello who joins a long list of hope and prayer wingers dating back a few years, forgive some of us for being jaded.
And again, even with injuries you still want to see a process where the right players are being put in the best position to succeed because they're part of your present plans and near future ones.
Like it or not, there are still a few too many similarities to how things were done with the previous staff, with certain marginal - to plain useless -players getting free passes due to nothing more than tenure. Honestly, what harm would it do to scratch Craig Adams for a couple of games? It's almost like they're terrified to even see what the possibilities are.
Tonight was a step in the right direction, with the trickle down effect of dressing Beau and adding Comeau creating a semblance of an actual NHL 4th line simply by subtracting Sill. It needs to continue though, and it shouldn't take a single loss to go back to the coach's comfort zone.
Bennett was scratched for a very clear reason that makes sense. He was playing poorly, and they concluded that he was the type of player who needed to have a complete change in his approach to the game. Letting him coast on his talent might win a couple games now because a bad Beau Bennett is better than the best from Sill or Adams, but it does not develop him and get him on track to being a much better player. The coaches were focused on the long term for Beau Bennett and the Penguins, not on the marginal chance that he might make the difference in a couple games in February. Beau Bennett watching from the press box had only the tiniest negative impact on their chances for success in those 4 games, but has the potential to pay huge dividends down the stretch and in the playoffs.
peblopeet
2-12-2015, 6:29 am
You are very literally the fan I was picturing as I read this column.
Erik Wolfe
2-12-2015, 7:26 am
I think his guy is the fan DK was referring to
Michelle
2-12-2015, 8:04 am
When the actual PLAYERS say this team has different feel to it than other years, I think I'll take they're word for it rather than someone that thinks because we haven't scratched adams yet, the team is just like previous years. Listen I'm not an adams advocate I hope to god I don't see him in the playoffs.. But I've seen him to good things on the PK (sans the past couple of games) but it's one guy, hopefully they make the correct decision tho when it's time
dannyboy1631
2-12-2015, 5:09 am
In my opinion, the top 6 is absolutely set. Blake Comeau was the best signing by this franchise in years, showing smarts and instant chemistry with Geno, all for under 800K?! If the reported rumors of the possible acquisition of Daniel Winnik are true, then the bottom 6 would be fairly formidable as well. Bottom line is that was the most inspired, playoff-style game I've seen from this group.
And you can sum up DK's article with another line a few scenes earlier..."I find your lack of faith disturbing."
PlazMan
2-12-2015, 8:27 am
Great addition jeffrey!
DJ
2-12-2015, 9:00 am
HCMJ: "Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."
Dave G
2-12-2015, 4:15 pm
All very amusing. Until you remember that the death star was blasted to smithereens by a group of rag-tag rebels.
ziggygreece
2-12-2015, 6:07 am
Chateau Bow-wow made me laugh out loud! This article is spot on The best was last night with the guy suggesting HCMJ get the gate after the year and go after mike babcock......SPOILED!! I also love how fans have us losing the first round of the playoffs as well. Can someone tell me when the playoffs were cause im pretty pissed i missed them. oh...yeah...thats right.
Oh, and speaking of misguided and unrealistic expectations, I actually saw these postings, one from a blogger and the other a comment on a national article.
Shortly after it was announced that Evander Kane was on the block, a blogger here in the Burgh said he wouldn't give more than a SECOND Round pick for Kane. The commenter said Scuderi and Adams for Kane.
Seriously? Why not throw in a broken 8-track player and your little brother's rubber band collection too?
Always enjoy the social media banter when the charter members of the complaint department have nothing else stuck in their craw - "NBC needs unbiased announcers", "Why does the national media hate the Pen?", "when they fire the hockey booth lets hope Collinsworth (his hatred has to span to all Pittsburgh sports after all) is collateral damage!" Apparently they haven't been hipped that most hockey fans outside of the Burgh refer to NBC's coverage as Nothing But Crosby AND rightfully consider Doc Emrick a national treasure.
Like Doc and Eddie O, but absolutely can't stand Milbury or Pierre M
loganbrubaker
2-12-2015, 5:12 pm
I stay away from studio team for the most part due to Milbury and Jones both.
kurt
2-12-2015, 6:59 am
One thing that hasn't been mentioned a lot in the media (that I've seen) is the free agency losses. While we in Pittsburgh know that it was time for some... well, almost all of them to move on, other teams paid our free agents some insane amounts of money to come there and play. There HAS to be some value there that was lost. It's surprising that this franchise lost those resources and came back with a new GM, coach, and everything else. Since we've been this successful, this fast, call me very pleased thus far.
Now, if no one comes within 10 yards of Tukka Rask in an entire playoff series, then I'll be extremely frustrated and want people thrown under Wheeling buses.
February 12, 2015
Column: Penguins find healthy perspective
by Dejan Kovacevic • Columns • Penguins
Blake Comeau is congratulated on his first-period goal by Evgeni Malkin and Simon Despres. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
None of this has been all that complex.
In fact, if surveying the Penguins’ problems spanning this starcrossed 2014-15 season, it can pretty much be condensed to these 15 words, spoken by Patric Hornqvist late Wednesday after that 4-1 rout of the Red Wings at Consol Energy Center: “We’ve got one hell of a hockey team.”
Wait for the other seven words. They followed a brief pause.
“When we’ve actually got our hockey team.”
Oh, yeah. The guy doesn’t just take a straight line to the net, you know.
Nothing could more directly sum up how and why this group, somehow 31-15-8 and a point off the Metropolitan Division lead despite a ridiculous 236 man-games lost to injury and cancer and blood clots and all manner of mumps, has found even firmer footing of late by shutting out Edmonton and Calgary and then — after a tired throwaway loss in Vancouver to end that trip — silenced an opponent that had won 12 of its previous 15 games.
These certainly weren’t the Oilers. Nor even the Flames, who’d won eight of 10 before the Penguins came to town.
“This was a really good Detroit team,” Mike Johnston said. “We’re aware of what they’ve been doing to other teams around the league, we needed to be ready for it, and I think we were.”
Which led into my followup question about, you know, how the Penguins have actually got their hockey team: “Well, you add Blake Comeau to the group, and you look at who we’ve gotten back in the past 10 days, with Hornqvist, Geno and now Comeau. That’s our whole line. And that was a very good line tonight.”
They were the stars, actually: Comeau, in his first game back from missing 20 games to a broken wrist, set up and scored the Penguins’ first two goals. Hornqvist, in his eighth game from missing 11 games to a broken foot and visibly struggling to regain his timing even through the Western Canada trip, scored and set up those same two goals. And Evgeni Malkin, who returned for that trip after a five-game absence of his own, was the centrifugal force making it all happen.
“It felt really good to have our line back together,” Hornqvist said, somehow without mentioning the obvious and dramatic upgrade of Comeau over the mercifully waived Marc Arcobello. “We have, Blake and I, kind of similar styles where we’ll get to the net and try to make room for Geno, get to loose pucks and try to finish plays. I haven’t been doing that so much lately …”
He drifted for a moment, possibly flashing back to countless chances squandered on the trip.
“But it takes time. It does. Even when you’re healthy, you have to get your legs back, your confidence. I feel like that’s coming. That’s why I’m happy for Blake to score right away. It takes a real weight off your mind.”
No doubt that was the impact. I asked Comeau about his celebration after scoring — a point-blank one-timer off a sharp, patient feed from Hornqvist below the goal line — and suggested it looked like half-happy, half-relieved.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Comeau came back with a soft smile. “Honestly, I’ve never been out this long in my hockey career. You’re out there skating by yourself. You don’t feel like part of the team. It’s no fun. To get right out out there and get on the scoresheet and feel like you contributed … yeah, that’s good.”
Here, take a look …
Nothing too complex in any of that, obviously. Including the goal.
But then, none of this is. What these Penguins have done is win at a decent rate while missing tons of players, and what they have a chance to do now is win at a better rate than the mostly blah pace since the week before Christmas. They were 22-6-5 at the time, and they’re 9-9-3 since.
The latter, of course, has had much of the Penguins’ passionate but always panicky fan base out on the ledge. Fans want this guy or that guy to get fired, traded, released, waived, rolled under a bus bound for Wheeling, you name it. That’s the beast that’s been created around here, for better or worse, by a decade-plus of success since Sidney Crosby’s arrival.
But it’s never been more misguided, I dare say, than this season.
I mean, wow, what did people expect was going to happen when the top five wingers on the roster went down for long stretches? Or when the same happened to the defensemen? Or when key figures Pascal Dupuis or Olli Maatta went down for the year?
Johnston is another Dan Bylsma!
Trade all our defense prospects and fourth-liners for someone’s superstar!
This (insert utterly meaningless regular-season game) reminds me of the playoffs!
Where’s the passion with this team? Why don’t they care?
These aren’t fiction. I read this stuff every day from fans of this team. There was a slew of it even after Vancouver and that specific set of circumstances. And it blows me away. It really does. The expectations of this franchise have become almost surreal, surely unlike that of any other team in Pittsburgh. Whether it’s treating a trip to the conference final like a catastrophe, or not having both of the NHL’s leading scorers at any given point, or pouting each time a legitimate Vezina Trophy candidate or a legitimate Norris Trophy candidate makes a mistake … it’s spoiled. I’ll call it like it is. That is absolutely spoiled.
It’s unfortunate, too, because that cynical crowd is missing one truly remarkable season.
And it’s a season that, again, might be on the cusp of getting better.
I asked Nick Spaling after this game, in which he scored the fourth goal on a sweet tip of a Rob Scuderi point shot, about the general mood of getting players back …
That’s it exactly. Because, see, isolating on the Malkin line Wednesday doesn’t do this justice. Sure, it’s wonderful to have an entire second line return, but the equal effect is the spillover: The third line saw Spaling, Brandon Sutter and Beau Bennett freshly emerged from Chateau Bow-Wow, and that group obviously scored. Moreover, Bennett earned praise from Johnston for having driven hard to the net on that play, the primary focus of his scratches. Good for him. The kid was smiling a bit afterward, to boot. Sutter, too, looked sharper than he has in a while. And the fourth line, while hardly the caliber of other contenders, at least looked a bit bigger and nastier with Steve Downie joining Maxim Lapierre and Craig Adams. I’ll still take a replacement for Adams, but I’m by now wholly convinced that Adams will be skating a regular shift in Pittsburgh when all that’s left of our planet will be cockroaches, radioactive discharge and Wall-E.
It’s not a perfect roster. It could still use another defensemen, preferably one with size that rivals his mobility, especially if Christian Ehrhoff’s concussion issues linger. It might well need another winger, should Chris Kunitz fade back into the drapes again. But man alive, it’s a much, much better roster than some seem to realize, and that’s in no small part due to Jim Rutherford’s many sharp moves since last summer.
If you missed it, all four goals Wednesday came from Rutherford acquisitions.
It’s a happier roster, too. Don’t underestimate that.
“This felt good, to get out there, have all our guys and have that good jump,” Crosby said. “We finally have everyone. Now, we’ve got to build off that.”
Good health includes healthy thoughts. Those seem far more prevalent on the inside than the outside, and that tale is getting seriously stale around here.