A Penguins Season Post-Mortem: Part II

Grisly was the word of the evening at my house last night.

While my wife was watching a horror movie called The Last House On The Left, I tuned in to game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Flyers and Canadiens only to be harsly reminded of the grisly feeling I had from last week when the Pens lost game 7 to the Habs -- and blew their chance to be hosting arch-rival Philadelphia in their 3rd straight east final in the process.

Then, to top it off, I had to digest the Flyers handing Montreal their lunch in a 6-0 game one defeat that made the team who looked like world-beaters knocking off the Penguins just days before instead seem like bottom-feeders.

Yep, blood, gore and anger were abound on the big screen in my house no matter what room you were in.

Which brings us again to the continually painful post-mortem of Pittsburgh's early departure from the playoff party.

I mentioned last week that I wanted to mention a quote from the Pens' Captain in the aftermath of the game 7 loss that I felt somewhat interesting.

When asked if he was surprised by the Canadiens' gumption in the series, Crosby said no, but went on to talk about how he felt his team had been caught waiting too much in the series. He said, quite simply, that "we were just a little too cautious."

Here's the Q & A session with #87 in its entirety:

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=529016&navid=DLNHLhome

Curious, don't you think, that a defending Stanley Cup champion played "a little too cautious" in an entire series against such a big underdog -- or even in a game 7 after winning two of those (on the road no less) on the way to hosting the Silver Chalice the prior season?

Sounds like a team playing not to lose, rather than playing to win. And that surprises me greatly, because that's not what we've seen from the local hockey club the last few years.

I'm not sure I have an explanation; I just found the remark notable.

One other thing that I didn't mention last week that I wanted to address was the guy behind the Penguins' bench -- Head Coach Dan Bylsma. And interestingly, my thoughts about Byslma have changed a little in just the last few days.

Byslma has had a strong start to his coaching career since first going behind the bench in Pittsburgh last February. He's implemented a system that suits the strengths of his players -- and that I generally like (not that my tastes matter, but still .....)

I also like that Bylsma isn't afraid to go with what he believes will be the best lineup on a night-to-night basis, even if that means banishing respected veterans to the press-box.

As of 3 or 4 days ago, I was going to say that Bylsma's willingness to rub an experienced player the wrong way by scratching him healthy might have been about the only instance where he seems in any way critical or hard on his players. And I was going to question that.

That was until Friday when Blysma acknowledged that Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury didn't give the team what they are capable of this year -- and, in particular, this post-season.

Now, Bylsma didn't go off the deep end with his remarks, but he did make it clear that he expects more from those two key cogs in the Penguins' success.

Those are the type of comments that I haven't heard from Bylsma since he's been the Pittsburgh bench-boss. Maybe that's because the team hasn't had a great deal of adversity during that time -- who knows? But the fact of the matter is that, while a generally positive environment around the team and in the locker room was a welcome change from what the players received regularly under former coach Michael Therrein, some criticism and tough love is probably warranted from time to time in order to give the message from behind the bench more balance.

Certainly, Bylsma is a player's coach. And he's a coach with confidence in his players and system. He believes that if you play your game, you'll end up on the right side of the win/loss ledger more than not.

However, with the team being inconsistent and not reaching it's peak most of this season, there were times when I felt that Blysma needed to buck down on the players a bit more. Not constantly. Not all the time. Just sometimes.

Many people say that's where he needs the 'bad cop' assistant coach behind the bench -- which neither Mike Yeo or Tony Granato are. I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I still think criticism, when warranted, has to come from the lead dog sometimes.

One other note about Bylsma.

I read one piece where someone felt he was outcoached in the second round by Montreal coaching veteran Jacques Martin.

The theory went that Bylsma didn't win the matchup battle because he didn't do enough to help Crosby and Malkin produce ---- by, for example, getting them on the ice opposite players other than Canadiens' defenseman Hal Gill.

I'm not sure I agree with that critique. There's certainly something to be said for matchups in the post-season. Generally, I'm in favor of trying to exploit anything and everything to your advantage. But to suggest that Bylsma didn't do a good enough job of that is false, in my opinion.

There were times when Crosby or Malkin were out there on the ice against Montreal's #5 and #6 blueliners. Not every time, of course. But it did happen. Even so, if I were Bylsma, it would be hard for me to think that Crosby wouldn't win a head-to-head battle over the course of a 7-game series against the likes of Gill and Josh Gorges after just steamrolling one of the best defensive pairs in the game in Chris Philips and Anton Volchenkov of the Ottawa Senators in round 1.

Any GM in the league would pick that pair rather than Gill and Gorges and take their chances against Crosby, and #87 simply ate them for breakfast in the first round. There was absolutely no reason to think he couldn't do the same in round 2. The fact that Crosby struggled in that round was less a by-product of the play of Gill and Gorges and more about Habs' netminder Jaroslav Halak and the team defensive system the Canadiens trot out there every night.

Finally, I want to touch on Evgeni Malkin again.

In my post on Friday, I talked about the ridiculousness of the notion that Malkin was going to -- or should be -- traded, ripping up an article that one genius at The Hockey News wrote where he advocated for such a deal.

Apparently, the idea of dealing Geno has filtered down to the local media, too, as Pittsburgh Tribune Review Beat Writer Rob Rossi wrote about yesterday in this piece:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/penguins/s_681429.html

Now, I like Rossi. He works hard and covers the team pretty well. And I enjoy the fact that he often offers background insights into the club while not always covering them from a traditional, straightforward angle.

But he's grossly off the mark when he suggests that the Penguins might be a better club to trade Malkin.

I agree that the team could fill a lot of other needs by dealing #71, but I disagree that doing so would necessarily make them a better club.

I won't belabor this becasue I talked about it a little bit the other day, but I will say that the Penguins are not going to trade Malkin. Nope. Not going to happen. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next month. Not next year.

Penguins' GM Ray Shero has structured his club as the best one down the middle in the game. And it's hard to argue with the success the team has had with that model over the last 3 seasons. Failing to go the distance in one year isn't enough to alter that, nor should it be.

Now, if the Penguins underachieve the next 1 or 2 seasons, this might be a subject worth revisiting. But right now, forget about it. Malkin's still one of the top 5 players in the game, and isn't going anywhere. Pittsburgh faithful should be thankful to have both him and Crosby suit up for them every night.

The media should, too.

And, by the way, even if the Penguins were to look to deal Malkin, I don't think there's any way they'd approach a return the likes of which Rossi requires. Despite how talented Geno is, teams won't offer six players for him. And certainly not 2 front line players (one up front and one on defense), two roster players AND either two #1 picks or two 'top' prospects. Not only is that not going to happen, the Penguins probably wouldn't be able to fit any 4 returning roster players of that caliber under the cap with 8.7 million dollars between them.

I'll have Part III of the post-mortem later this week, where I'll talk largely about Sergei Gonchar. I know I promised that this time, but I got on my soapbox a little bit today, so I apologize. Addressing Sarge's status next time will be a nice segway into thinking about free agency, too.

Also, after the post-mortem, I'll have end-of-the-season player grades.

More soon.