SB Nation Pittsburgh: All Posts by Dan Hopper

Why It's Not Wrong To Criticize Marc-Andre Fleury For The Penguins' Elimination

2012-04-23T12:15:01Z

Seemingly every argument about Marc-Andre Fleury's performance in the 2012 NHL Playoffs has followed this pattern:

Fan: "Fleury has played really, really poorly in this Flyers series. He has to be better."

Media / Other Fan: "If you think Fleury is the Penguins' only problem in this series, you're crazy."

That's not a counterargument. Pointing out that Fleury wasn't the Penguins' only problem in their six-game elimination at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers is not a viable response to criticism of Fleury's play in this series. No rational Penguins fan would even begin to argue that Fleury was the Pens' only problem in the Flyers series, and to reiterate this fact in response to Fleury-criticism serves to merely state the obvious and deflect arguments from ignorant trolls whose blind Fleury blame doesn't actually merit a response.

Saying "Fleury wasn't the only problem" does not address the concerns of the rational majority of Penguins fans who have argued, with full knowledge of the Penguins' other glaring problems this postseason, that Fleury's play was also atrocious. Even if we take into account Fleury's calm two periods in Game 4 and a dominant third period in Game 5, his overall performance in the Flyers series was unacceptable by NHL goaltender standards, let alone by the standards of a supposed 'clutch' franchise goaltender making over $5 million a year.

Critiques of Fleury's play, no matter how rational, are frequently met with defensive responses from media members and fans hesitant to throw the Pens' goalie under the bus for a number of understandable, if fallacious, reasons. Here are the four main reasons why almost any criticism of Fleury (or any goalie) is met with instant skepticism from knowledgeable hockey people in a way that criticism of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin or Kris Letang rarely inspires, and why these reasons are not valid defenses of Fleury's play:

1. The goalie's poor play is rarely a team's only problem. Goaltender success is often synonymous with a team's defensive performance (look at the St. Louis goalies' save percentages this year), and as we've already mentioned, this most certainly was the case in the Penguins/Flyers series. However, stating that Fleury wasn't "the only problem" is redundant and self-evident (can any one person truly be the sole cause of a series outcome, in any sport?), and this does not in any way alter the fact that Fleury's play was, independently of his subhuman defense, still roundly unacceptable.

2. Criticizing the goalie makes you sound like a 'beginner' hockey fan. Complaining about the goalie is tantamount to yelling at the Penguins to shoot more: it instantly makes you sound like a novice hockey fan who doesn't truly know what he/she is talking about. However, that doesn't alter the fact that sometimes the goalie does play poorly, and sometimes the Penguins do need to shoot more. Just because these arguments seem overly-basic and happen to overlap with the rallying cries of frustrated casual fans doesn't instantly invalidate them when they are obviously true. I myself often hesitate to argue that the Penguins need to shoot more even in games when it's clearly the case, simply because yelling "Shoot it!" makes you sound like that drunk mulleted dude in your Consol balcony section whose understanding of hockey consists of nothing beyond spilling his drink when the Penguins miss one pass on a power play. In our self-conscious desires to avoid making these arguments and risk seeming ignorant about the sport, we sometimes ironically allow ourselves to overlook extremely evident truths, such as Fleury's noticeably terrible series.

3. Players and coaches never criticize the goalie. This is an unwritten rule followed throughout hockey at any level, essentially from Mites on up. Basically, skaters and coaches all understand how hard the goalie's job is, they understand how their own play affects the goalie's, and deep down, everyone's secretly thankful that someone else is in goal. It's the same reason why goalies can usually join intramural teams for free; goalies are always in demand and always automatically respected because no one wants to have that job, and understandably so, given the goalie's uniquely conspicuous ability to affect the outcome of a game.

As a result, players and coaches will almost never publicly blame a goalie no matter how poorly they perform (good luck finding any Penguins player saying one negative word about Fleury's performance in these playoffs.) This doesn't mean that goalies should be automatically absolved from blame; on the contrary, the fact that players and coaches will never blame their goalies is all the more reason to disregard their comments when evaluating a goaltender's performance. Of course Dan Bylsma is going to say he has full confidence in Fleury, because no coach in the NHL would say anything else about their goalie, ever (except for the ultra-rare instance of John Tortorella on the Lightning saying it was time for John Grahame to "Make a f***ing save," a comment so rare as to be historically memorable).

We aren't Penguins players or coaches, and we don't have to worry about an unwritten hockey code or about our teammate's confidence when evaluating Fleury's performance. We can judge his performance as dispassionate, objective observers, and by any estimation, both statistical and in a straight-up visual sense, Fleury performed horrendously in the Flyers series. Post-game comments from Fleury's teammates should not convince us otherwise, because, again, no one ever publicly criticizes their goalie.

4. Expectations for goaltenders in the NHL are at an all-time high. Goaltending in the NHL leaguewide has arguably never been better than it is right now, and as a result, expectations for goaltenders are at an all-time high. As we've stated several times, people have deflected blame from Fleury's atrocious .834 save percentage and 4.63 GAA by citing the Penguins' wholly-incompetent team defense against the Flyers, and pointing out the all-too-frequent occurrences where goals just simply "weren't Fleury's fault." This notion isn't untrue in a vacuum, but look around the rest of the playoffs and you'll see superhuman performances by Craig Anderson (stopped 41 of 41 shots in Ottawa's Game 5 win at Madison Square Garden), Pekka Rinne (allowed three goals on 84 shots in the Predators' Game 3 and 4 wins over Detroit), Jonathan Quick (stopped 87 of 89 shots in the Kings' Game 2 and 3 wins over No. 1-seeded Vancouver), and even playoff newcomer Braden Holtby (.946 SV% though five games against the defending-champion Bruins).

Certainly no goalie's defense in these playoffs has abandoned them quite like Fleury's, and the SV% statistic often functions at the whim of the quality of the shots in question, but still, the difference between the aforementioned goaltenders' performances and that of the supposedly-clutch, franchise goaltender Fleury is so unbelievably staggering, it leaves almost no room for interpretation. Yes, many of the goals Fleury allowed weren't "his fault," but elite goaltenders league-wide frequently stop shots that wouldn't have been "their fault" if they'd gone in. No one would've blamed Craig Anderson if he'd allowed two or three goals in that Rangers game, but he didn't, and as a result, he almost single-handedly willed the Senators to that crucial victory with virtually no offensive support.

Obviously, expecting Fleury to post shutouts or even a 90+ SV% behind the Penguins' defense this series would've been unreasonable, but even taking into account the poor defense, Fleury consistently failed to make exemplary saves that elite-performing goalies in the NHL Playoffs make with moderate regularity. Plus, given the Penguins' offensive output and the Flyers' own defensive deficiencies this series, there's no telling what an additional one or two big saves might've done in the Penguins' losses; simply subtracting a goal or two from the final scores and saying "The Pens would've lost anyway" is fallacious, since it assumes that the outcome would've played out exactly the same regardless of the score, it fails to take into account the Penguins' team confidence & momentum, and it disregards the Flyers' ability to play a more defensive system when they have a bigger lead (though this only noticeably occurred in Game 6).

The bottom line is, we can criticize Fleury's performance in the Flyers series without absolving the Penguins' defense, without sounding like a whiny, ignorant fan, and without starting some giant meta-debate about Fleury's "clutchness" or the Penguins' ability to move forward with him as their franchise goalie. We know Fleury can play better because we've seen Fleury play better all season long, and numerous times in the past. We know the Penguins can win a Cup with Fleury as their goaltender because they literally won a Cup with Fleury as their goaltender. But none of this changes the fact that Marc-Andre Fleury simply didn't play well enough in the Penguins' series against the Flyers, and if we're going to shower him with well-earned praise for his fantastic third-period performance in Game 5, we absolutely cannot ignore his inconceivably poor performance throughout the rest of the series.

Fleury didn't initiate the Pens' collapse against the Flyers, but he also did little to nothing to prevent it, and given the unprecedented state of elite goaltending in the NHL these days, his performance as a supposedly franchise goaltender was unacceptable. Sure, that drunk mulleted dude who knows nothing might scream the same thing (in his own words), but that doesn't make you both wrong.

How Much Is The Penguins' Tyler Kennedy Worth?

2011-06-28T07:34:12Z

Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Ray Shero has declined to tender a qualifying offer to restricted free agent Tyler Kennedy, and if the Penguins fail to reach an agreement with Kennedy before Friday, he'll be able to test the open market. This leaves Shero with, essentially, three days to answer the question that Penguins fans have been pondering for the past two months: Just how much is Tyler Kennedy worth to the Penguins?

In 80 regular season games this past season, Tyler Kennedy posted 21 goals and 24 assists, finishing third on the team in goals and fourth in total points. Furthermore, he was largely (and correctly) credited as one of the few Penguins who noticeably upped his production following the midseason injuries to Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, helping the Pens seal a No. 4 playoff seed (en route to a seven-game, first-round playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning) that looks, in retrospect, like a legitimate accomplishment.

However, in the emotionless, Vulcan-like world that is NHL Salary Cap finagling, some perspective is always in order. While both of these frequently-cited marks in Kennedy's favor are factually true, in that he did have a career year at the age of 24 and picked up the Pens' offensive slack at a time when they needed it the most, both of these compliments also paint a misleading picture with regard to Kennedy's value to the Penguins in 2011-12 and beyond.

First, Kennedy's career year: In Kennedy's previous two seasons, he scored 15 goals in 67 games and 13 goals in 64 games, prior to this year's high-water mark of 21 in 80. However, in those other seasons, Kennedy spent almost no time on the Penguins' power play (likely due to some fully-healthy individuals with high jersey numbers), notching zero power play goals in 2008-09 and one in 2009-10, before suddenly adding seven power play goals (and seven power play assists) in 2010-2011. A very significant portion of Kennedy's so-called career year can be directly attributed to his finally getting a chance to play with the man advantage, in addition to simply playing more games that he did the prior two seasons.

Furthermore, Kennedy's specific game translates particularly well to the power play. A vast number of his goals were scored coming off the left circle or jamming rebounds in from the left side of the crease, an opportunity only afforded him when he plays left wing on the power play as opposed to right wing during even situations (a better fit for breakouts and neutral-zone puck possession). While we certainly shouldn't fail to credit Kennedy for taking advantage of these opportunities, his career statistical season was largely attributable to his increased playing time on the power play, a role which won't be as available on a theoretically-healthy 2011-12 Penguins squad.

Secondly, on Kennedy "stepping up his game" with Crosby and Malkin out: Kennedy certainly deserves credit for scoring when the Pens needed offense the most, as any of us who watched the Pens' offensive opposite-of-fireworks the last third of the season can attest. However, this compliment seems to imply that it was more difficult for Kennedy to score with Crosby and Malkin out, when in reality, the opposite was true; with Crosby and Malkin hurt, not only did Kennedy's power play time increase (as mentioned above), his overall playing time also increased from 12:35 minutes per game a year ago to 14:32 per game this season. He didn't play on a line with Crosby or Malkin to begin with, so their absence didn't really impact his 5-on-5 production at all, and with the Pens rolling three essentially indistinguishable top lines, Kennedy didn't have to constantly face the other teams' top defensive pairs in the same way that Malkin would've in Crosby's absence.

While Tyler Kennedy absolutely deserves praise for his increased production this past season, the Penguins can't afford to overvalue a couple months of play that were largely aided by increased playing time, especially when that playing time likely won't be available next season. Yes, the Penguins need secondary scoring, and yes, Kennedy notched 21 goals, but does anyone doubt that a healthy Dustin Jeffrey (an "if" to begin with, admittedly) could also score 21 goals in 80 games if he spent half the season on the power play? Or, more precisely, is there really a $2 million difference between Kennedy and Jeffrey, or Kennedy and Mark Letestu?

My suggestion: Offer Kennedy three years, $6.5 million, and if he takes it, know that you've got a solid young third-liner who can cycle, control the puck, and chip in some goals under contract until age 28. The $2 million-plus cap hit still wouldn't prevent the Pens from signing Jaromir Jagr for a year (and possibly even re-signing Pascal Dupuis), but if the number becomes a problem in the next couple seasons as more core Penguins approach free agency, it'll be an easy contract to move.

The irony is, Kennedy would actually be more valuable to a lot of other teams than he would to the Penguins; it's easy to imagine, say, the Wild or Panthers signing him for $3 million annually, playing him on the top power play unit partly out of necessity and partly to get a return on their investment, and Kennedy repaying them with a 26-goal season that'll slightly unnerve Penguin fans for letting him get away. But Kennedy isn't a 25+ goal-scorer on the 2011-12 Penguins as long as they remain somewhat healthy (just punched through my dining room table while knocking on it), and they cannot afford to pay him as one.

If Kennedy comes back, then great. If he signs elsewhere, then it'll hardly be a catastrophic loss to a team that dealt with a couple of ever-so-slightly significant injuries this past season. When someone emails me in November saying, "Can you believe Kennedy's already got 10 goals for Minnesota?", I'll just be sure to have the link to Kennedy's 2010 playoff stats to calm myself back down.

2011 MLB Draft: If The Pirates Pass On Anthony Rendon, Fans Will Never Let Them Forget It

2011-06-06T07:08:01Z

If the Pirates do indeed select UCLA pitcher Gerrit Cole with the first overall pick of the 2011 MLB Draft instead of highly-touted position player Anthony Rendon - as sources continue to speculate that they will - then Pirates fans and Pittsburgh media will forever link Rendon's career to the Pirates franchise, with potentially-devastating consequences. Fairly or not, any success Rendon finds in his career will in some way reflect negatively on the Pirates, and if Rendon does become a more valuable player than Cole by any reasonable margin, it'll usher in a wave of fan backlash and vitriolic blog posts the likes of which Pirates Nation hasn't seen since ... well, they actually see them on a near-hourly basis. But these will contain far more all-caps F-words.

I'm not suggesting that the Pirates or any front-office should make decisions based on fear of public backlash. I happen to agree with Charlie Wilmoth that the Pirates should draft Rendon, but if Bucs GM Neal Huntington truly believes that Cole has a higher ceiling or represents a better bet because of Rendon's injury troubles, then Huntington absolutely should stick to his guns. I'm simply suggesting that no matter how defensible a Cole selection appears at the moment, Pirates fans will track Rendon's performance throughout his entire career with anticipation and possible envy. If Rendon ends up being a superstar and Cole doesn't, the team's decision not to draft Rendon will likely alienate even some of the most hardcore Pirates fans from the current front office to an irreparable degree.

Conversely, if the Pirates do end up taking Rendon, and Cole ends up being the bigger star, there would still assuredly be disappointment and second-guessing amongst Pirate fans, but to nowhere near the same degree. Rendon has been a premier, no-brainer type of draft talent for nearly two years now, and while his stock has fluctuated because of lingering injuries and relatively low power numbers this season, he's still a dominant college position player who some scouts last year said they would've "drafted over Bryce Harper." Cole appears at No. 1 or No. 2 overall on most scouts' lists, but he simply does not possess the superlative cachet that Rendon did at his perceived peak. If Cole becomes a superstar with another team, making a 'The Pirates didn't realize Cole could be this good' argument in 2015 will be a lot easier than making the same argument of Rendon.

I'm not arguing that Cole is the bigger risk (though he very likely is); we can debate Rendon's shoulder injury versus college pitchers' arms in general ad nauseam, with no way of ever really knowing. I'm simply stating that if the Pirates do not select Anthony Rendon, they will ensure a link between Rendon and their franchise for the rest of his career. But if they select Rendon over Cole or any other non-ultrahyped player in this largely muddled draft field, it wouldn't create quite the same forever-linked relationship between the Pirates and those prospects.

I realize we're speaking in terms that appear to be largely hypothetical (a high school English teacher once told me to "always stay out of Hypothetical Land" after reading my (terrible) paper arguing that Macbeth's kingship was doomed from the start), but I'd argue that predicting Pirate-fan backlash is one of the surest bets in sports. We have no way of knowing whether Rendon will in fact become a bigger star than Cole, but I'd argue that were that to happen, predicting that this would mark enormous fan-and-media backlash towards the current Pirates front office is borderline-automatic.

The worst-case scenario is so easy to imagine, it's almost tangible:

-P- March 2013: Cole undergoes Tommy John surgery. Cue 900,000 columns and blog posts about the Pirates' awful injury history with drafted pitchers, each including the word "curse" no fewer than three times.

-P- May 2013: After tearing through the minors, a healthy Rendon gets called up by the Mariners and appears on the cover of ESPN Magazine's "Who's NOW" issue alongside Dustin Ackley and, let's say, Taylor Lautner.

-P- June 2013: Neal Huntington makes the offhanded comment that "We had the best information available at the time" regarding Rendon's shoulder, prompting Ron Cook to write a column blasting Huntington and including three back-to-back one-fragment paragraphs, "Best information? Shame on Huntington. Shame on medicine."

-P- September 2014: Cole's fellow UCLA pitcher Trevor Bauer makes his MLB debut with five scoreless innings, prompting Bob Smizik's subsequent blog post that Cole wasn't even the best prospect on his own college team. It will include the word "Ha!"

-P- October 2014: As Rendon's stardom swells, the rest of us in the blogosphere are so taken aback by the collective undirected ire of Pirates fans and media that we write columns defending the decision to draft Cole, saying, "I would've taken Rendon too, but let's calm down people - the Pirates believed X, Y, and Z and these things aren't completely crazy."

-P- November 2015: Mass suicide.

Ehhh, probably not, actually, that's too far. It'll just remain an increasingly pleasant-sounding fantasy.

Or maybe, you know, Cole will just become a superstar and all this will be moot. Either way, let's just hope that when 2015 rolls around, our iPad 7s have capslock.

The Curious Case Of Maxime Talbot

2011-03-25T06:21:41Z

Was that title reference appropriately non-topical enough? As 2008 Oscar nominees go, I was torn between that, "Slumdog MAXionnaire" or "MILKxime Talbot." I think I made the right choice.

Alright, I admit, I'm stalling. We're all stalling. Why? Because as Penguins fans, there's an unpleasant truth we're collectively ignoring. We have all, consciously or not, completely buried the simultaneously inconceivable and inevitable notion that there may not be a place for Max Talbot on the 2011-12 Penguins.

Talbot currently makes $1.05 million and will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. Since the start of December 2010, Talbot has produced exactly three goals and seven assists in 47 games - more than half an NHL season. This marks a modest but still largely-insignificant statistical rebound from his injury-marred '09-'10 season when he managed just two goals in 45 games.

In the last two seasons combined, Talbot has 10 goals and 15 assists in 118 games. Granted, this includes his hobbled '09-'10, but it also includes the past three months of 2011 when his role and ice time have been expanded. Since the 2011 All-Star Game, he's been averaging 15:55 of ice time per game, nearly two full minutes more per game than during his healthy '08-'09 campaign. He's been an effective piece of the Pens' penalty-killing unit this year, but his production over the past two seasons even by third- or fourth-liner standards has been noticeably underwhelming.

Additionally, the Penguins' Salary Cap picture in 2011-12 figures to be extremely tight; assuming the return of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the full-season additions of James Neal ($2.875 cap hit) and Matt Niskanen ($1.5 mil), and the offseason restricted free agency of Tyler Kennedy (certain to receive a raise on his $725,000 salary), the Penguins' current roster would, if each unrestricted free agent besides Kovalev were retained at the exact same pay rate, be over the current salary cap. Even if the cap increases next season, the Penguins will assuredly have to shed payroll in one area or another, and spending $1-$1.5 million on fourth-line role-players - even uber-fan-favorites with penalty-killing skills - just doesn't seem like a plausible option.

Here's where the case gets tricky: If we were talking about literally any other player in the NHL - any 27-year-old, UFA-to-be fourth-liner posting a second-straight subpar season on a cap-strapped club with roughly 10 absolutely essential contracts already on the books for next year - then this would be a no-brainer, and that player wouldn't be retained. But this is Max Talbot, and this is the Pittsburgh Penguins. To call Talbot a "fan favorite" in Pittsburgh is an understatement of superstar proportions. After his 2009 Stanley Cup heroics and ongoing unmatched rapport with Pens fans, Talbot's status in the 'Burgh defies run-of-the-mill sports terminology; "god" might not be the entirely correct term, but it's at least on the right track.

So what are Ray Shero's offseason alternatives if he decides the Pens cannot let Talbot go?

1) The Pens could re-sign Talbot and let the rest of their veteran UFAs walk - this would mean waving goodbye to Pascal Dupuis, Alexei Kovalev, Mike Rupp, Arron Asham, and Eric Godard. However, Rupp, Asham, and Godard (and Mike Comrie) figure to be out of the Pens' plans regardless of Talbot's status, and letting them go would barely free up any cap space versus the Wilkes-Barre players or cheaper veteran alternatives that Shero would bring in to replace them. It would basically come down to signing Talbot at the expense of Dupuis, and while Dupuis is older and certainly not irreplaceable, he's still unarguably been a more effective player than Talbot over the past two seasons.

2) The Pens could trade either Chris Kunitz or RFA-to-be Tyler Kennedy. This wouldn't be a move solely to fit Talbot under the cap, obviously, but an unrelated hockey trade that would also in turn free up the cap space for the Pens to re-sign some bottom-line veterans like Talbot and Dupuis (or retain Kovalev at a reduced rate, or bring in other bottom-liners of the Glen Metropolit School of Random Immortal Bottom-Line NHLers). Kunitz has one more year on his deal at a $3.725 cap hit, which is close to league-appropriate, plus he's been extremely effective this year and likely wouldn't fetch much in a trade - to acquire Simon Gagne (one year at $5.25 mil left on his deal), the Lightning only had to surrender a fourth-round pick and fringe NHL defenseman Matt Walker. Kunitz's salary would be more palatable to suitors, but it's unlikely he'd bring much more in return than Gagne, a recent 30-goal scorer.

Trading Kennedy would make even less sense, as he's still only 24, still under team control, and currently in the midst of a probable 20-goal campaign, and his RFA salary likely wouldn't be much more expensive than Talbot's. Kennedy would probably fetch more in the open market than Kunitz, but he's been one of the few Penguin third/fourth-liners who has notably stepped up his game in the absence of Crosby and Malkin, and trading him primarily for salary relief wouldn't make sense.

3) The Pens could re-sign Talbot at a reduced rate. This would be the storybook scenario for the Penguins and Penguin fans, and it would allow Talbot to stay in a place where he's more beloved and famous than he'll ever be anywhere else, but it also might require the former Cup Finals hero to leave $1-$1.5 mil on the table, and that might be asking a little much of a player who's already given the organization plenty. Would Talbot accept $700,000 annually from the Pens if a younger team looking for leadership like Tampa or Minnesota or Phoenix offers him three years and $6 million? And similarly, would the Penguins even want to pay for Talbot at all when they've got such an effective young crop of skill players and potential role players coming up through their system?

None of these options seem particularly palatable, or even plausible. So does this mean Talbot's gone for sure next year? Many of my similarly Talbot-concerned friends keep repeating the mantra, "Let's wait and see what he does in the playoffs." The emotional part of me really wants to agree with this sentiment, but that's also what we said about Ruslan Fedotenko for two years, until there finally came a point where we all had to admit that a player's past playoff heroics can only buy him so much leeway when his day-to-day production just isn't there.

Max Talbot's situation presents the ultimate in sports "Practicality vs. Emotion" conflicts, and right now, I just don't see any way this resolves with all three parties - Talbot, the Penguins, and Penguin fans - completely satisfied. Which is why, until someone absolutely has to make a decision, we'll just keep stalling. Wait, I just thought of another bad one - how about, "Frost / MAXon"? Should I go back and change the title? Gonna have to give this one some more thought.

Penguins' Trades For James Neal And Alex Kovalev Were Clear Winners

2011-03-02T09:16:39Z

On the day after the NHL trade deadline, every hockey outlet quickly compiles its obligatory "Deadline Winners And Losers" feature, prefaced with the even-more-obligatory disclaimer, "We know you can't really name winners and losers the next day, but ..." and proceeding to do exactly that. It's the official sports trade deadline equivalent of that awkward guy at your office starting a sentence with "I'm not racist, but..."

While we certainly can't precisely foresee the eventual impacts of deadline rental players or the draft picks so often exchanged for them, we can judge deadline deals the next day based on the perceived value exchanged in individual deals versus other deals made around the same time. For example, if two rebuilding teams each make a trade with a contender, and one yields a second-round pick and one yields a third-round pick, the second-rounder is still worth more in the trade, even if the third-round selection eventually turns into a star while the second-round player never makes the NHL.

Judging the Penguins' trade deadline on this principle - comparing the value the Pens gave up and received versus other teams' comparable trades - yields only one possible conclusion: Ray Shero absolutely nailed both of his deadline deals.

When I say "deadline," obviously, I'm referring to the Penguins' two trades in the week leading up to the deadline: sending Alex Goligoski to the Dallas Stars for James Neal and Matt Niskanen, and sending a conditional seventh-round pick to the Ottawa Senators for Alex Kovalev. Let's compare the Penguins' moves to two seemingly comparable deadline deals: the Los Angeles Kings trading for the Edmonton Oilers' Dustin Penner, and the Washington Capitals trading for the New Jersey Devils' Jason Arnott.

James Neal is a 23-year-old power-forward-type left winger who's scored 24, 27 and 21 goals in his last three NHL seasons (the 21 being the current season in progress). He has one year remaining on his contract worth $3.5 million but carries only a $2.875 million cap hit for the 2011-2012 season, after which he will be a restricted free agent (meaning if any team signs him in free agency, they'll have to give up significant compensation, essentially meaning Neal will stay under the Penguins' control).

Dustin Penner is a 28-year-old power-forward-type left winger who's scored 17, 32 and 21 goals in his last three seasons (the 21 also being this current season). He has one year remaining on his contract worth $4.25 million with a $4.25 mil cap hit, after which he will be an unrestricted free agent.

For one year and one partial season of Penner, the Kings traded Colten Teubert (a 20-year-old defensive prospect drafted 13th overall by L.A. in 2008), a first-round pick in 2011, and a conditional second-round pick in 2012. For Neal (a comparable player to Penner who's five years younger, a lighter cap hit, and not Unrestricted after just one more season) and defenseman and former first-round pick Matt Niskanen, on the other hand, the Penguins traded only Alex Goligoski.

The difference between what the Kings gave up for an established power winger versus what the Penguins gave up is absolutely staggering. While Goligoski certainly carries less risk than Teubert (who is projected to be a top-four-type defenseman but hasn't cracked the NHL yet), Goligoski is five years older than Teubert and eligible for restricted free agency after the 2011-2012 season. Penner is slightly bigger than Neal and has a Stanley Cup under his belt, but was also very publicly criticized for his effort by former Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish two seasons ago. Also he's five years older than Neal and is likely exiting his prime, and he's eligible for unrestricted free agency after next season. How can a year and several months of Penner net a top defensive prospect and two high draft picks, while Dallas had to include another NHLer along with Neal - who's statistically comparable to Penner but younger and cheaper - just to receive Alex Goligoski?

Likewise, Washington's deadline acquisition of Jason Arnott was mildly praised by the aforementioned hockey media, as the Caps acquired the veteran center for the seemingly-reasonable cost of a second-round pick and grinding forward David Steckel. Again, however, when we compare this to the Penguins' trade for Alex Kovalev, the values given up by the contending teams are wildly out of whack.

Kovalev is 38, Arnott is 36, and they're both unrestricted free agents at the end of the season. Kovalev comes with a $5.0 mil cap hit for the current season, while Arnott comes with a comparable $4.5 mil. At the time of the trade, Kovalev had 14 goals and 13 assists this season through 53 games; when Arnott was dealt, his statline included 13 goals and 11 assists in 62 games. Obviously, the allegations of Kovalev's lack of effort that dogged him throughout his time in Ottawa and Montreal clearly lessened his perceived trade value, while Arnott's size and ability to play center likely earned him more suitors than Kovalev leading up to the deadline. But how can Kovalev only be worth a seventh-round pick while Arnott - in the midst of an even more horrid statistical season - yielded a second-rounder and a useful bottom-line NHL forward?

For what it's worth, in his last three postseasons (all with Montreal), "Doggin' It" Kovalev posted 11 goals and 10 assists in 22 games, while "Physical No. 2 Center" Arnott, in his three postseasons with Nashville, managed five goals and one assist in 15 games, never advancing past the first round. Surely, Kovalev's defensive reputation and cap hit limited his value. (Kovalev did reportedly have "as many as three suitors" in the past month, but Ottawa eventually admitted that it was really just Ray Shero and one other suitor, rival GM "Mryan Burray," who was actually Bryan Murray talking in a fake high voice.) But Arnott's cap hit is nearly as high as Kovalev's and his recent offensive production hasn't been any better. Grabbing Kovalev for a seventh-round pick was another unambiguous win for Ray Shero.

Ultimately, Alex Goligoski might blossom into a star "puck-moving defenseman" (my new favorite dead-horse of a term), and Alex Kovalev might burn out while Jason Arnott helps the Caps to a Cup Final. But neither of these potential outcomes would change the fact that the Penguins' trades for Neal, Niskanen and Kovalev were, based on the prices set by the current NHL trade landscape, clear wins. The trades made on the day of the deadline clearly came with higher price tags than the ones Shero made last week, and while we could certainly quibble about the specific merits of Dustin Penner vs. James Neal or Arnott vs. Kovalev, the Penguins gave up so much less in their trades than the Kings and Capitals did in their respective deals, it's almost unfathomable.

We can definitively say, even 24 hours after the deadline, that the Penguins are trade deadline winners. And yes, that'll still be true even a week from now when Neal and Kovalev collide in practice and both somehow require Tommy John surgery.

Mario Lemieux's Statement About Islanders' Fighting Not Hypocritical

2011-02-15T09:21:01Z

"I don't want him to change the way he plays at all. When I said 'reckless,' I was using the term in fear of him getting hurt, not him hurting anyone else. He's got to be him. I don't want him to change."

- Capitals Head Coach Bruce Boudreau on Alex Ovechkin, after Ovechkin's suspension-drawing knee-to-knee hit on Carolina's Tim Gleason, just weeks after Ovechkin was fined for a slew foot on Atlanta's Rich Peverley and months after Ovechkin injured Pittsburgh's Sergei Gonchar in the Playoffs on a nearly identical knee-to-knee hit.

As we all know by now, Penguins owner Mario Lemieux issued a statement criticizing the NHL's disciplinary reaction to the New York Islanders' conduct during the fight-filled Penguins/Islanders contest on Friday night. And because Mario Lemieux is Mario Lemieux and remains one of perhaps four living humans capable of doing something that results in a hockey story actually appearing on the ESPN.com homepage, his comments generated a fair amount of attention and predictable subsequent controversy, the majority of which was absolutely absurd.

For the record, while I agree with Lemieux's general point that the Islanders' conduct Friday night was indeed exceptionally embarrassing, I personally felt that the league's disciplinary response - Trevor Gillies' nine-game suspension, Matt Martin's four-game suspension, and the Islanders' $100,000 fine - was swift and sufficient. I do not agree that the league failed in this matter, and I too was surprised when I first read the statement from the ordinarily quiet executive.

Regardless of whether or not we agree with Lemieux's assessment of the specific penalties, however, the media's reaction to Lemieux's words has contained an array of viciously misguided assaults, and popular opinion (at least according to the majority of non-Pittsburgh blog comments and the Facebook walls of a number of my Philly, DC and New York friends, always an accurate barometer) has quickly painted Lemieux as both a whiner and a hypocrite.

Scott Burnside wrote a childishly inflammatory Lemieux piece on ESPN.com, which contains - in addition to references to Zeus, a "weighty cloak of self-righteousness," and a sarcastic "You go, Mario" (Burnside apparently wrote his piece after watching an In Living Color rerun) - some legitimate concerns about Lemieux's apparent hypocrisy:

Lemieux apparently didn't mind the state of the game so much when Matt Cooke, a player his Penguins signed to a new contract this past summer, put Marc Savard's career in jeopardy last season with a blindside check a thousand times worse than the one that recently felled Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby.

And Lemieux must have been too busy working on his short game last week to defend the game he loves when Cooke was suspended again, this time for four games, for drilling Columbus defenseman Fedor Tyutin headfirst into the boards.

Nope, Lemieux was pretty much silent on that one, too. Funny.

The Post-Gazette's Bob Smizik echoed the Cooke problem:

Lemieux can’t preach reform -- can’t expect to be taken seriously -- until he does something about Cooke. He could get rid of Cooke, which would be a last resort. He could first talk to Cooke and let him know what will and will not be tolerated by the Penguins.

If Cooke cleans up his act, Lemieux gains credibility. If Cooke does not clean up his act, Lemieux gains credibility when Cooke is released.

These same exact criticisms popped up last month when just-concussed Sidney Crosby dared to say the league should perhaps reevaluate its policy on headshots, and critics Internet-wide blasted Crosby for raising the issue on his own behalf after staying silent when Cooke concussed Savard the year before (because captains publicly call out their teammates all the time - Markus Naslund, for instance, still feels bad for Todd Bertuzzi).

While Lemieux ripping the NHL just a week after two separate Matt Cooke incidents may appear outwardly foolish, the recent backlash against Lemieux's statement has ignored several unarguable truths:

First, Lemieux's comments are not an endorsement, tacit or otherwise, of Matt Cooke's behavior. Lemieux's statement concentrated on the Islanders game and the Islanders game only. Whether or not you believe that his statement implicitly condones the actions of Matt Cooke, one thing the statement factually does not do is directly defend Matt Cooke's dangerous behavior, as Bruce Boudreau most certainly does on Ovechkin's behalf in the quote at the beginning of this piece.

Boudreau criticized Matt Cooke last week after he stuck out his leg and tripped Ovechkin, saying:

"[Cooke] knows damn well what he did. There's no doubt in my mind that he's good at it and he knows how to do it. He knows how to pick this stuff. We as a league, we still buy into this [idea] that, 'Oh it was an accidental thing.'"

An accidental thing, you know, like Ovechkin accidentally kneeing two dudes and accidentally slew footing another within three months of hockey.

My point is not to mock Boudreau - HBO already let him take care of that himself - but simply to beg the rhetorical question: does Boudreau's hypocritical defense of Ovechkin before criticizing Cooke change the fact that Cooke's conduct was completely unacceptable? Of course not. Cooke definitely stuck out his leg and tripped Ovechkin (and it could've been a lot worse if their knees collided), then completely cheap-shotted Fedor Tyutin later in the week. Pointing out that Boudreau once defended Ovechkin does not therefore falsify his claim that Cooke's conduct was out of line - all it does is make Boudreau's earlier statement appear funnier.

Lemieux, on the other hand, has never defended Matt Cooke's actions. If one wishes to interpret the organization's offseason decision to re-sign Cooke (a 15-goal scorer and prime component of the league's top penalty kill) or Lemieux's decision not to send an email last week saying "I criticize the actions of my own player who has already been suspended" as some implicit defense of Cooke's conduct, that seems highly inferential at best. To base an entire inflammatory column on it, as Burnside has done, complete with nonsensical references to Lemieux being a "petulant child stomping his feet" within "the posh offices at Consol Energy Center," then that to me reeks of deliberate, baseless character assault.

Speaking of borderline ad hominem attacks, allow me to return the favor and point out that Burnside has clearly had a personal vendetta against Lemieux ever since Lemieux dared to not take questions from Burnside during the '08 playoffs, then Burnside sarcastically congratulated Lemieux when he did take questions the following year. Read those two columns and ask yourself who really acted more like a petulant child.

Furthermore, if we are to establish the precedent that any team that harbors an agitator of Matt Cooke's caliber automatically has no right to speak out about league discipline, no matter how legitimate their gripe may be, then basically no franchises in the NHL ever have the right to say anything about league discipline. Smizik's point about dealing with Cooke's future conduct is well-taken, especially if the Penguins wish to clarify the obvious PR backlash this Lemieux message has opened, but that doesn't make him a hypocrite for arguing that the league should've sent a harsher message to the Islanders simply because a guy who's taken cheap shots is on his team's roster.

Friday night, the Islanders orchestrated a multifaceted revenge game on the Penguins, including a sucker punch and a concussion-inducing elbow, neither of which even involved minor-league goon Micheal Haley (144 PIM in 50 AHL games this year), who happened to be called up just in time for the Penguins game, his first-ever NHL appearance. How the existence of Matt Cooke - an individual who's taken some cheap shots throughout his career, including two last week - in any way lessens what the Islanders did or the Penguins' ability to criticize it, is beyond me.

Just to be clear, here's what Islanders GM Garth Snow had to say about Friday's game when the suspensions were announced:

"I'm very proud that our team showed restraint," he said. "That no one left the bench to create a bench-clearing brawl scenario."

Eh, he didn't re-sign Matt Cooke this offseason, so he's allowed to say it. We can only hope Whiny Lemieux convinces his team to exercise such restraint.

The Pirates' Offseason: The Value Of Change For The Sake Of Change

2011-01-19T08:15:36Z

Neal Huntington's transactions this offseason have raised skepticism amongst even some of Huntington's most vehement supporters - myself among them - not because the moves included any franchise-crippling contracts or because they signify some massive shift in philosophy, but because the moves on aggregate largely amount to a lot of change purely for the sake of change. Upon further examination, however, when we take into account the Pirates' financial situation, their historically poor 2010 season, their inability to land impact free agents without severely overpaying, and Neal Huntington's precarious employment, we must ask the question: For the 2011 Pirates, is change mostly for the sake of change necessarily a bad thing?

Let's look at the moves individually:

The Pirates signed veteran first baseman Lyle Overbay to a one-year, $5 million deal, and veteran corner outfielder Matt Diaz to a two-year, $4 million deal. As a result, most of the Pirates' 2011 at-bats at first base will likely go to a 34-year-old Overbay instead of a Garrett Jones / Steve Pearce platoon (or a John Bowker / Pearce platoon), while the right field at-bats will now likely be split between Jones and a 33-year old Diaz, squeezing the non-tendered 25-year-old Lastings Milledge out of the picture.

Upon first glance, spending a relatively large (for the Pirates' payroll) amount of money on middling mid-30s free agents would appear to represent a stark contrast from Huntington's philosophy of not playing for 82 wins and not wasting at-bats on mediocre veterans when younger alternatives with even the slightest shred of potential upside are available. Sure, Jones' production dropped off significantly in 2010 (his slugging percentage fell from .567 in '09 to .414), and while his few-month tear in '09 was likely flukish, he's still four years younger than Overbay and hit more HRs each of the last two years than Overbay has in all but one season in his career. Milledge was atrocious in 2010 at the plate, in the field, and on the basepaths (a truly impressive five-tools-of-sucking outfielder), but against left-handers - the primary role Diaz will likely fill - he's hit .289 AVG / .363 OBP / .435 SLG in his career. Sure, Overbay and Diaz each posted superior 2010 stat lines, but for a team like the Pirates who won't compete in 2011 anyway, isn't the risk of Overbay and Diaz falling off a cliff in their 30s at least as much of a possibility as Jones or Milledge suddenly clicking, or at least outperforming them?

Looking at other comparably parallel replacements, Zach Duke was unceremoniously dumped and replaced by San Diego's Kevin Correia on a two-year, $8 million free agent deal, and trade deadline pickup Chris Snyder will likely replace Ryan Doumit at catcher for the majority of 2011. The Duke/Correia comparison has been dissected ad nauseum, but basically, Correia has performed similarly to Duke over the past few seasons but with slightly more strikeouts, making him theoretically more capable of succeeding in front of the Pirates' poor defense. Snyder's offensive numbers are slightly inferior to Doumit's, and his cost is similar, but Doumit's atrocious defense behind the plate and longtime health questions make the switch look defensible.

Still, these upgrades across the board appear to be marginal at best, and come at a not-insignificant financial cost. In short, the signings largely boil down to change for the sake of change. So how is this not a bad thing?

To help understand why Huntington made these moves, imagine this scenario: The Pirates, coming off a 57-105 season, make absolutely no changes to their starting eight or their rotation from the end of 2010. With Lastings Milledge, Garrett Jones, John Bowker, Steve Pearce, Zach Duke, and Ryan Doumit all seeing frequent playing time, the team ends up in last place in the NL Central after eight weeks, and the remainder of the season is quickly and predictably rendered meaningless. In this scenario, is there any question that the Pirates' fanbase would be clamoring for the head of Neal Huntington? Furthermore, would there be any chance that Bob Nutting would conceive of extending Huntington after the season? Obviously, those answers would be "No"s, preceded by expletives in all caps.

Even with the moves, it's possible the Pirates will end up out of contention just as quickly and with the same questions about Huntington's job being raised, but the new faces at least represent some show of effort on Huntington's part and would likely delay the angry fan-mobs somewhat longer than in the above scenario. Plus, if the Pirates do improve their record significantly - winning 70-75 games seems entirely conceivable, even if the improvement comes almost entirely from the younger players the team already has - then Huntington's job is likely saved.

This isn't to suggest that Huntington should make moves purely with his public perception in mind - most of his best moves have actually been incredibly unpopular, and the last thing the Pirates can afford is a return to Dave Littlefield's pitiful prioritization of fan-placating - but when the Pirates are completely priced out of any meaningful free agents, and the players they're able to sign are at least competent major-leaguers who may represent slight upgrades without handcuffing the payroll or stunting the development of legitimate prospects, then there is simply nothing wrong with Neal Huntington making some essentially cosmetic changes if the end result is a slightly more enthused fanbase and an increased chance of short-term improvement. No matter how little Huntington factors pleasing the fans into his franchise plan, he can't execute that plan fully if doesn't have a job.

As a Pirates fan, I not only understand Huntington making changes for the sake of change, but a part of me also demands it. I can cite Zach Duke's xFIP as much as I want to argue that he's still a non-useless major league pitcher who had an unlucky 2010 largely caused by an atrocious defense, but still, the baser, gut-reactiony part of me has zero interest in watching another excruciating Duke start in 2011. I can cite Milledge's platoon splits and his age and pedigree and not be factually incorrect, and yet, if he were penciled into the 2011 Buccos lineup, the fan in me would be rolling my eyes in anticipation of his creatively spastic baserunning mistakes before Spring Training even let out. And I can clamor on and on about how a manager in baseball is mostly immaterial, and scoff at Clint Hurdle's inane one-line axioms, but if John Russell hadn't been fired, I would've seriously considered flushing my Extra Innings Package money down the toilet this year instead of spending it to watch the Pirates (and thus doing it figuratively).

The Pirates had to do something after the 57-win season, even if that something includes signing a pitcher with a 5.40 ERA in PETCO Park (roughly a six billion ERA with the Pirates' park and defense). Even if the changes are mostly cosmetic in nature, pleasing the Pirates masses without hurting the franchise in the long term carries significant tangible benefits, both for the team (ticket sales, interest, short-term improvement) and for the front office (Huntington possibly avoiding getting fired and/or literally crucified when Milledge gets picked off to end the game on Opening Day). In an offseason where a franchise (the Washington Nationals) whose two best potential players won't both be fully ready for two to three years just shelled out $127 million for a 31-year-old corner oufielder, the idea of making some minor changes just to make them is hardly the most insane thing in the world.

Why The Penguins Lead The NHL In Fighting Majors

2010-12-08T08:34:58Z

To see why the Penguins currently lead the NHL in fighting majors as a team, simply imagine the following two sentences being spoken in a Pittsburgh-uncle voice, and ask yourself which sounds better:

A) "This Deryk Engelland, he plays alright defense."

B) "This Deryk Engelland, he plays alright defense, an' he ain't afraid ta drop the gloves."

If you said B, congratulations! You can probably hold conversations with those dudes sitting next to you at Consol.

The Penguins currently lead the NHL with 28 fighting majors through 29 games - tied with the St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers - after compiling only 48 fighting majors in the entire 2009-10 season. How can we explain this increase in fighting majors for an (at least nominally) skill-based team that experienced only moderate roster turnover this past offseason?

Fighting in the NHL serves many functions, chief among them its obvious fan appeal, but if one asks a coach or player to explain the main reasons why NHLers choose to drop the gloves, their answers will probably be one of the following:

1) To retaliate, protect, or stick up for oneself or a teammate.

2) To change the momentum of a game by firing up the crowd and/or bench.

I propose, however, that the Penguins' surge in fighting majors is the primary result of a third reason: The Penguins have an excess of third- and fourth-line players seeking to distinguish themselves, and a player who fights can make himself useful, or at least noticeable, to teammates and fans even if he isn't producing.

According to the amusingly thorough Hockeyfights.com, here's the breakdown of the Pens' fighting majors:

Deryk Engelland - 8

Michael Rupp - 5

Craig Adams - 2

Arron Asham - 2

Mike Comrie - 2

Eric Godard - 2

Tyler Kennedy - 2

Matt Cooke - 1

Sidney Crosby - 1

Chris Kunitz - 1

Kris Letang - 1

Maxime Talbot - 1

Nearly half the Penguins' fighting penalties this season have come from Deryk Engelland and Mike Rupp. Engelland is a career fringe minor-leaguer who battles Ben Lovejoy for the Pens' sixth defensive spot, and Rupp is a fourth-line forward who has only managed two goals this season after netting a career-high 13 last year. While both players have played acceptably for the most part, they're both clearly aware of their precarious positions on the Pens' deep depth chart. By routinely dropping the gloves, the two have made themselves far more noticeable, and have thus distinguished themselves by providing a specific value that exists even if their on-ice play slips.

Furthermore, the next five players on the list - Adams, Asham, Comrie, Godard, and Kennedy - are all forwards coming in near the bottom of the Pens' depth chart who each stand to directly benefit by proving that they can fight. Godard and Asham are obviously fighters by trade, and two fights apiece actually seems low.

Comrie, on the other hand, is a skill forward who has failed to notch a single goal this season, and his two fights in 16 games with Pittsburgh (after averaging barely over one per season in his career) might be a deliberate attempt to show some grit in case he can land a third- or fourth-line role. Craig Adams is a playoff vet who offers value on the penalty kill, but with Jordan Staal's impending return and the solid play of Mark Letestu and Chris Conner, Adams will eventually find himself on the bubble, and anything he does to demonstrate a more well-rounded fourth-line game will help him retain his spot.

While Tyler Kennedy seems to be the exception to this list, as he's unlikely to be healthy-scratched on a given night, consider that his first fight came against Dallas on Nov. 3 after a stretch of six straight games in which he failed to record a point. This likely isn't a coincidence; a player can't just decide to start producing points, obviously, but a player usually can just decide to get into a fight.

The 2010-11 Penguins have a much deeper roster than in 2009-10, and as a result, a number of players in the least-secure positions on the team have made a deliberate effort to distinguish themselves this season by dropping the gloves with league-leading frequency. It's an easy way to distinguish oneself and provide some degree of potential intangible value, and when a team has as many third- and fourth-liners trying to distinguish themselves as the current Penguins do, it's not surprising that they lead the league in fights.

And if you doubt this argument, consider that Sidney Crosby's lone fight came Nov. 3 against the Stars, and he hasn't been healthy-scratched a single game since then. Point proven.