Three months later, the work begins again

Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby raises the Stanley Cup at the championship parade in downtown Pittsburgh, PA on Monday, June 15, 2009.

If it seems like just a short time ago that Penguins captain Sidney Crosby hoisted the Stanley Cup above his head to conclude an exceptionally competitive 2009 Final series, that’s because it was indeed just a short time ago.

Only three months and a few hours have elapsed since the last game of the 2008-09 National Hockey League season when Pittsburgh visited Detroit and defeated the host Red Wings 2-1 in Game 7 to win the rematch for hockey’s most coveted trophy.  While non-playoff and early-eliminated teams had a rest of four to five months, some Penguins players barely had time to relax and reflect on their achievement before preparing for the upcoming season.

Notable Penguins such as Crosby, fellow centre Jordan Staal and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury attended Canada’s preliminary Olympic camp in Calgary at the end of August.  While the event was mostly for orientation purposes, some set plays were taught by the coaching staff and scrimmages and game action did occur.

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Pre-season training camp began yesterday morning with standard medical tests and the team plans to hold half-day practices Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, with their first live game action against the Columbus Blue Jackets (and possible Crosby Olympic linemate, Rick Nash) on Tuesday evening at 7.30 p.m. at Mellon Arena.

Speaking of linemates, training camp is traditionally the place where the nuts and bolts of forward line combinations, defensive pairings and power-play/penalty-kill units are ironed out.  In Pittsburgh, assuming full health, it is a given that the top line will feature Crosby flanked by left wing Chris Kunitz and right wing Bill Guerin.  The third line will likely be comprised of Staal, Tyler Kennedy and pesky Matt Cooke, whose 262 hits led all Eastern Conference left wingers.

The blue line seems set.  Hard-hitting Brooks Orpik will be paired with steady power-play quarterback Sergei Gonchar.  Kris Letang and Mark Eaton will form the second pair while newcomer Jay McKee, who ranked fourth at blocking shots in the Western Conference, will team up with highly-touted 24-year old Alex Goligoski to round out the defence corps.  McKee is expected to fill the role of shot-blocking, penalty-killing, shut-down defenceman that Rob Scuderi performed so well for the Penguins, especially in the playoffs, last year.  Scuderi, a fan favourite in Pittsburgh, signed with Los Angeles as a free-agent.

The only major question mark for the Penguins exists on the second line.  Art Ross and Conn Smythe winner Evgeni Malkin will centre left wing Ruslan Fedotenko, but putative right wing Maxime Talbot, who scored the two clutch Game 7 goals, had left shoulder surgery on July 7 to repair a torn labrum and will be missing in action until at least November.

Many think veteran Pascal Dupuis, generally a lower line forward, may slide up the depth chart temporarily or Kennedy may move up a line while the third and fourth lines are accordingly adjusted with penalty-kill and checking forwards.

In this writer’s contrarian opinion, the Penguins should use the pre-season to see if one of their young prospects can fill the void left by Talbot.  It may sound like an old cliche, or a throw-away comment to advocate for “one of the young guys”, but it would be a waste of Malkin’s talent to not give him a right wing with an adept ability to finish.  Dupuis and Kennedy are resourceful players, but an ideal Malkin linemate should have an above-average shooting percentage.  Talbot and Fedotenko do, and it is no surprise that when skating with Malkin during the playoffs, they were able to score a combined fifteen goals in twenty-four post-season contests.

So Pens fans, who will it be?  Who should it be?  In the next post, I will analyze the statistics of a few prospects who may well find themselves breaking camp with the big club instead of another opening day at Wilkes-Barre Scranton.

Statistical sources: nhl.com, pittsburghpenguins.com

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons