Penguins begin and end with Crosby
Captain’s sheer will has Pittsburgh on the verge of qualifying for another Stanley Cup final
Following a glorious long weekend, here are the inglorious musings and meditations on the world of sports.
In their run to the Stanley Cup last year, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ playoff lineup featured four players who’d put in significant time in the minors, including goalie Matt Murray, who went 15-6 in the post-season, and Conor Sheary and Bryan Rust, who produced 10 and nine points respectively.
I still have to check the spelling of Sheary’s and Rust’s names.
This year, Sheary has slumped in the playoffs, but not to worry, the Pens again reached down to their American Hockey League affiliate to promote winger Jake Guentzel, who, of course, was tied for the playoff lead in goals with nine before Monday’s Nashville-Anaheim game.
Last year’s championship team also featured the sublime Kris Letang on the blue-line, the No. 1 defenceman who’s supposed to be integral to any championship team. But this year, Letang was lost before the playoffs with a herniated disc in his neck, leaving the Pens with Brian Dumoulin, Justin Schultz, Ian Cole. Olli Maatta, Ron Hainsey and Trevor Daley as their regular D-corps.
If anyone spots that No. 1 defenceman there, please let me know.
Schultz, by the way, leads Pens defencemen in playoff scoring with eight points after a 51-point, plus27 regular season. Before he arrived in Pittsburgh for the 2016 Cup run, Schultz spent four seasons in Edmonton where he was no better than minus-17.
You can probably guess where this is going. The Pens are now one win away from the Stanley Cup final and it’s a given Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel are great players. But this team begins and ends with Sidney Crosby and his work in the past two post-seasons might be unprecedented in the game’s annals.
To be sure, other teams have overachieved in the playoffs and others have caught fire in one Stanley Cup spring only to fade over time.
But no team has delivered back-toback Cups with a lineup comparable to the Penguins and that comes back to Crosby. It’s not often you see a great player carry a team to a title though sheer strength of will, but for the second straight year, we’re seeing that with the kid from Cole Harbour, N.S., who’s still only 29.
The goals and assists are one things. But the true measure of Crosby’s greatness lies in making an ordinary team a champion. It might be an apples-to-oranges comparison, but the only players I can think of who are comparable to Crosby in that regard are LeBron James and Tom Brady.
That might be the ultimate commentary on El Sid.
In a story about Kyle Turris last week, the term “miracle” was used to describe the Capital City Condors, an Ottawa-based program for hockey players with developmental disabilities.
To be clear, the Condors exist because of the hard work of the players and a dedicated group of volunteers. The miracle that’s produced on the ice is the residue of that work.
Don’t know if Windsor centre Gabe Vilardi is going to be around when the Canucks pick fifth in this summer’s NHL draft. Do know that a 6-foot-2, 200-pound centre who averaged well over a point a game in the Ontario league and doesn’t turn 18 until August ticks a lot of boxes for the Nux.
And finally, here’s a trivia question for the ages. Who did David Poile succeed as the GM of the Washington Capitals in 1982?
Answer: Roger Crozier, the old Red Wings goalie from the Original Six era and if you knew that, sorry, you’re very old.
Poile, of course, led the Nashville Predators to their first Stanley Cup final appearance Monday night and that’s a notable achievement.
But it’s the width and breadth of his career as a general manager that should be noted and celebrated, specifically his dogged work in building the Predators from a curiosity piece to a model NHL franchise.
The first hockey hire by the Preds in ’98, Poile survived dubious ownership and budgetary constraints throughout the years while keeping his team relevant. Under his watch, the Predators drafted and developed as well as any NHL team until the sheer sum of their personnel decisions produced this year’s powerhouse. Look at their lineup. Look at the draft picks and signings. It all runs through Poile, the son of original Canucks GM Bud Poile.
At 67, he’s also up for the NHL’s general manager of the year award and after a 45-year career, maybe it’s about time his work was acknowledged. But when you think about Poile, you think about the year-in, year-out consistency; the steady accounting of correct decisions that generally produced a winning team.
Over that time, he never sought the spotlight. But this year, it finally found him.