Are The Penguins Better Than Last Year?

With the Penguins losing their first game in reglation since February 22 on Sunday to Philadelphia, and now sitting in 6th in the Eastern Conference after the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 OT win over the Florida Panthers last night pushed them one point above Pittsburgh, I thought it was a good time to kick the can on a topic which Pittsburgh Tribune Review columnist Joe Starkey raised in his column yesterday.

Are the Penguins better than last year?

First of all, here's a link to Joe's piece:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/penguins/s_617326.html

I agree with a lot of what Joe said, starting with the premise that the idea isn't so far-fetched as one might think at first.

Sure, this year's Penguins have a lot of ground to cover before they are in the same discussion as last year's squad that came within 2 wins of capturing the silver chalice.

However, on paper, the comparison is fair.

As I mentiond in this space recently, the Penguins have an outside shot at a 3rd straight 100 point season, which puts them only a few points off the pace from last season, and the year before.

Marc-Andre Fleury is likely to finish with 35 or more wins, and is starting to show the form he displayed last season after returning from his ankle injury.

The defense as a whole consists largely of the same group, with only Ryan Whitney having since moved on to Anaheim in the trade that netted LW Chris Kunitz. Whitney underperformed last year, however, and on the whole, I haven't noticed the Penguins missing him on the ice a great deal. Just in the time since he has been gone, they've ridiculously averaged near 4 goals per game, so it's hard to argue that they miss his offensive ability and transition skills. And certainly nobody is going to contend that they miss him on the defensive end.

Although Sergei Gonchar missed most of this season with a shoulder injury, he has returned with a vengence in the last 15 games, looking like he didn't miss 5 days, let alone 5 months. His presence on the ice for the Penguins is immeasurable.

Last season, I thought it was inevitable that the Penguins would have to move Gonchar while they could before his contract ended because there was no way they could afford him under the salary cap when his current deal expires. My thought at the time was they'd have to take a chance in giving Whitney the offensive reins from the backline.

We all see how that turned out. Gonchar has proven indispensible back there, and a priority for the Penguins to bring back, even at 35.

Overall, I think the Penguins' "D" isn't playing quite as well defensively as last season, but I believe they remain capable of playing well enough to win. Although their new system isn't quite as tight as the one former coach Michel Therrein had them playing, the real test will be how well they can lock down in the playoffs and win close games when they need to.

Up front, there's no denying that the Penguins sustained some meaningful losses in the offseason. Marion Hossa is one of the top 10 offensive players in the game, and Ryan Malone was an outstanding 2nd line do-it-all player for them last year. But Kunitz has shown to be a player similar to Malone, in that he gets his nose dirty, goes to the net to score, and has the hands to finish. The only difference is that he's playing with Crosby and not Malkin.

Meanwhile, Bill Guerin is certainly no Hossa, but he's still a credible scoring threat, even at 38. He knows where to go in the offensive zone and can still shoot the puck.

One can fairly argue that, with both of those guys playing on Crosby's wing this season, his line is better overall than it was with just Hossa and a miscast 3rd line forward like Pascal Dupuis on his other side.

I completely agree with Starkey that Matt Cooke is a better player, and nearly as good an agitator as Jarkko Ruutu was. That's why I didn't understand all the talk I had been hearing leading up to this season's trade deadline about our interest in re-acquiring Ruutu.

RW Petr Sykora has slumped lately, but continues to be a viable scoring threat aside 2nd line center Evegni Malkin. What has hurt Sykora recently is that he's not getting 1st unit power play time anymore, and I think that's hurt his confidence a little.

Speaking of Malkin -- and we haven't even talked about him yet -- he's having a better season than he did last year. Malkin is scoring more and developing into a more complete player. He still can be careless with the puck at times, and that's something he has to pay particular attention to in the playoffs when even a single giveaway can send you home for the season, but it should be clear to everyone by now that he's simply come into his own this season.

2 other wingers, Ruslan Fedotenko and Miroslav Satan, have, in the aggregate, disappointed this year. Even though Satan has 17 goals, his trademark inconsistency landed him with the Penguins' minor league affiliate in Wilkes-Barre, where Satan hasn't played since 1995.

After a stretch of about 6 or 7 games in the middle of the season when he was one of the Penguins' best forwards, Fedotenko has gone scoreless in this last 14 games and has only 2 goals in his last 20. The only reason he's still playing on Malkin's left side is because the Penguins don't have a better option there.

On the other hand, if we're talking about comparing this year's squad with last year's, that's the only reason Dupuis was playing with Crosby on the first line.

The last guy I want to size up for comparison sake is Jordan Staal.

Really, there is no comparison here. Staal had a poor sophmore season last year. This year, he has again approached the form he displayed in his rookie season. He has topped the 20 goal plateau again, and has continued to develop as an outstanding 2 way hockey player. He has especially thrived under new interim head coach Dan Bylmsa. He's skating like the wind, controlling the puck, and just dominating on the ice with his size and skill at times. He presents a tough matchup for opposing teams on the 3rd line.

It wouldn't be difficult to argue that, with the way he's played this season, the Penguins have a legitimate 2nd line guy leading their 3rd group.

The other Penguin forwards -- Dupuis, Max Talbot, Craig Adams -- all provide the necessary 4th line energy and grit needed, as most of them did in those roles last year.

Overall, the Penguins have 5 20-goal scorers, with Guerin only 1 goal away from making the Penguins just the 2nd time in the league to have 6, behind Philadelphia. They are quickly rising up the ranks offensively in the NHL.

Considering everything, it's not a stretch to favorably compare the Penguins team this year with the one from last year. If not for the terrible 2 month period of sleepwalking they had in the middle of this year when they were notably underachieving, they'd be right in the mix at the top of the Conference. As it is, they are still looking to ensure a postseason birth. But that doesn't mean that, when the smoke clears, this team can't be talked about in the same breath as last season's group.

As I mentioned, the true measuring stick for comparison will be the postseason, assuming the Penguins get there.

I know if I were one of the top teams in the East, I'd prefer to avoid the Penguins ...