In any professional sport, it’s just so difficult to repeat as champs. While a team may be able to fly under the radar and swoop in to win a championship, that team will find out in the second year that it won't be able to sneak up on the opposition and it will receive the best game from each opponent.
Also, the champs may not have the same killer instinct as they would have the year before as the contenders. So many factors come into play when a team is trying to build a dynasty and the Pittsburgh Penguins found that out the hard way a year ago by sleepwalking into the playoffs, getting past the Sens in the opening round, but ultimately losing to the Habs in the second round.
So, GM Ray Shero decided to shake things up in a big way in Pittsburgh and what they’ve come up with is a team that is re-loaded, rejuvenated and ready to prove to the hockey world that they aren’t going to be a team that just settles for winning one Stanley Cup. They believe their time is now and they want to get back to the dance.
We all know that the Penguins go as far as their three top centres can take them. We can expect 90-110 point seasons out of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, unless injury occurs. Jordan Staal has to still be the front-runner for best third-line centre in the NHL because of his ability to score in the offensive zone and be so dynamic in the defensive zone.
When you look at the rest of the forwards, you really begin to grasp just how good Crosby and Malkin are. They are so talented that they make the players they line up with that much better as well. For example, if it weren’t for Crosby, could we talk about Pascal Dupuis as a first-line winger anywhere else? If it weren’t for Malkin, could we talk about Aaron Asham as a second-line player?
Defensively, the Penguins made a big improvement to get younger and a little tougher. They lost Sergei Gonchar to the Sens on July 1st, but more than made up for that by picking up Paul Martin from New Jersey and Zybenek Michalek from Phoenix to make up their first pairing. Their second pairing of Brooks Orpik and Kris Letang is solid as well and the third pairing of Alex Goligoski and Ben Lovejoy is good enough to not be a liability for the few minutes that they’ll see every night.
The goaltending is solid with Marc-Andre Fleury at the helm. People always seem to want more from the 25 year-old, but starting 66 games and winning 37 of them is a good start. Having a 2.65 GAA with a save percentage of 910 is also good.
Two players to look out for in camp are Pascal Dupuis and Mike Comrie. Dupuis will be counted on for more production after the loss of Alexei Ponikarovsky, Bill Guerin and Ruslan Fedotenko from the lineup. Dupuis only had 38 points last season and his best season was in 2002-2003 with the Wild when he picked up 48 points. Can he contribute on the top line or second line for this club? Comrie was brought in at a low price to bolster the depth, but with a lack of scoring outside of the superstars, how much can he contribute to the lineup?