Puck dynasty: Penguins in historic company
PITTSBURGH — The salary cap was a passion project for Mario Lemieux, the owner, when the NHL wrestled with it during the 2004-05 lockout.
“We couldn’t compete with the [New York] Rangers and L.A. and the big markets and Chicago and Detroit,” the Pittsburgh Penguins Hall of Famer-turnedchairman recalled.
So Lemieux pushed for the cap during the NHL’s lost winter, well aware the ripple effects would include a rise in league parity at the potential expense of the dynasties that have been a part of the league since it started awarding the Stanley Cup nearly a century ago. The math was easy for Lemieux. Better to have 30ish solvent and competitive clubs than just a handful.
The cap has proven to be more of a speed bump than a road block for the Penguins. The proof was all around Lemieux as he spoke on the ice at Bridgestone Arena on Sunday night after the Penguins nudged past the Nashville Predators in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final to become the first team in 19 years and the first of the salary cap era to win back-to-back titles.
“It’s hard to win the cups as we’ve found over the last 10-12 years,” Lemieux said.
Just not impossible. The Penguins flew home to Pittsburgh on Monday with the cup in their possession for the third time in nine years. A downtown parade is scheduled for Wednesday, a party that’s on the verge of becoming a rite of late spring. Pittsburgh has done it by investing heavily in their core group and finding the right complement of players and staff around Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang to make it work.
“I always say best organization, amazing team,” Malkin said. “We have great chance [to] win every year.”
That’s not how it’s supposed to work nowadays. Championship windows are supposed to be narrower with the cap in place, not wider. The Penguins have more cup appearances (four), playoff wins (90) and regular-season victories (467) over the last decade than any team in the NHL. And it’s not really that close. While Crosby is loath to talk about his “legacy” — he won’t turn 30 until August — the way he describes the only franchise he’s ever known sounds an awful lot like a “dynasty.”
“Your goal is to win every year and our team just had a collection of guys that knew how to win, knew how to find ways,” Crosby said after picking up his second straight Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
The Penguins are right up against the salary cap annually but they also don’t overpay their stars. Considering their value to the team both Crosby ($8.7 million US) and Malkin ($9.5 million US) are bargains. They’re not the only ones. Rookie Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary and Scott Wilson all found themselves playing vital roles at some point during the post-season. None of them had a cap hit of more than $675,000.
No wonder Malkin is hardly in the mood to put his career into perspective. He’ll turn 31 next month. He, Phil Kessel and Letang are all under contract through 2022. Crosby until 2025.