Personnel changes inevitable, of course
Christian Ehrhoff had his brain scrambled twice in the season that just ended for the Penguins, and still is trying to recover from the second concussion.
Nonetheless, he had perfect clarity of thought Sunday when asked what lies ahead for this team.
“Obviously, with the expectations here, when we exit in the first round, there are going to be some changes,” he said.
Some personnel turnover is inevitable after even the most successful seasons, and that description surely won’t be applied to 201415 for the Penguins.
They sputtered through the waning weeks of the regular season and absorbed a five-game loss to the New York Rangers in Round 1 of the playoffs.
What’s more, no fewer than nine players — forwards Blake Comeau, Maxim Lapierre, Steve Downie, Daniel Winnik and Craig Adams, defensemen Paul Martin, Taylor Chorney and Ehrhoff, and goalie Thomas Greiss — will be unrestricted free agents.
Precedent suggests most, if not all, will move on.
Which, if any, the Penguins will try to re-sign isn’t known — “It’s tough to predict who’s going to stay and who’s going to leave,” center Sidney Crosby said — although general manager Jim Rutherford might provide a few answers when he meets with reporters Tuesday.
The only place Crosby is going is to the Czech Republic, where he will represent Canada at the world championships.
Of course, he was the Penguins’ leading scorer in the regular season (84 points in 77 games) and the Rangers series (four points in five games), and this team is in no position to part with players who put up points on a regular basis.
The Penguins’ eye-dropper offense was a major factor in their late-season skid and early exit from the playoffs.
A team that once scored almost at will strained to generate a goal or two most games in the final month and a half.
“Sometimes, you can’t figure out the reason, or why it goes the way it does,” winger Nick Spaling said. “It’s definitely something we have to figure out and change for next year.”
Despite those offensive woes, most players insist a major overhaul of the roster is not in order, that the Penguins have the foundation of talent needed to compete at a championship level.
The real issue, their thinking goes, is staying healthy. Sunday, coach Mike Johnston pointed to March 14, when the Penguins lost Crosby before a game against Boston and Malkin in the early moments of it — just a day before Patric Hornqvist was hurt against Detroit — as the time when their season began to unravel.
“March 14 to the end of the season, it seemed like we just fell off a cliff, all of a sudden, at times with our play,” he said.
Crosby, Malkin and Hornqvist returned well before the New York series, but the Penguins feel that facing the Rangers without three of their top four defensemen — Kris Letang, Olli Maatta and Ehrhoff — had a profound impact on the outcome.
“I’m a big believer that a lot of your game starts from your defense,” Johnston said. “It starts from your breakout, your attack through the neutral zone, in the offensive zone.
“I really believe that hurt us down the stretch. We lost some defense who were the cornerstone of how we wanted to play.”
The Penguins hope at least two of those, Letang and Maatta, will be in their lineup for the regular-season opener in October.
Who they’ll share a locker room with won’t be known for a while, though.