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| The Pens think THIS GUY is the answer to all their problems. He's not. |
I'm going to make a
prediction that Phil Kessel will get his name engraved on the Stanley Cup as a
Penguin the exact same amount of times as I will. (sidenote: I can't skate!)
This has nothing to do
with Kessel not being a talented player, it has everything to do with me not
trusting the Penguins organization to do the right thing. It is about the Penguins once again trying to
fit a square peg into a round hole.
Management and Ownership
of the Penguins seem to think that their team is close to winning another Cup.
They aren’t.
Here are the
facts.
The Penguins needed a
win in the final weekend of the regular season to even secure a spot in this year’s
playoffs. They were the worst team in the Eastern Conference point-wise
to make the playoffs, and only Calgary in the Western Conference had a lower
point total of teams to make the playoffs. By that math, they were 15th
of 30 teams in points last season. If that isn't average, I don't know
what is. And average teams aren't one guy away from winning a championship.
This team lost in the
1st round of the playoffs in just 5 games. That is the fewest amount of
playoff wins the team has had in a post season since the first year of the
Sid-Geno-Fleury Era, when they lost in 5 games to the Senators.
This team had 49 points
after 32 games this season, then got just 49 more in the final 50 games,
finishing with a losing record in those final 50 games.
How does one player
suddenly make a team with so many needs, and so many faults, a serious Cup
contender? The answer, they don't.
The Penguins need a
reboot, but management doesn't see that. Instead they will continue waste
away the prime years of two superstars in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin as
they attempt to find quick fixes instead of rebuilding the team for years
to come.
The Penguins have put
all their eggs in one basket with Kessel, all the while ignoring the fact that
he doesn't fit the team in the biggest areas of need.
The Penguins need a
gritty goal scorer. They need someone that will camp in-front of the net
and make it his job to screen the goalie every time the play is in the
offensive end. They need a big physical player that will throw their
body around.
This is not what Phil
Kessel does.
Kessel is a goal scorer,
and a damn good one at that. He has scored 30+ goals in 5 of the last 7
seasons. He isn't a grinder. He won't win pucks out of the
corner. He won't sit in front of the net on the power play or get ugly
goals by crashing the net. And he certainly doesn't play both ends of the
ice. He was a -34 this past season in
Toronto, which was the 2nd worse in the NHL.
Will Kessel help the
Penguins? Of course, but not in areas they
need it the most.
Yet the Penguins
ownership and management think that Kessel is the solution. So much so
that they are now on the hook for $47.6M over the next 7 years. So much
so that instead of getting multiple pieces that fill the needed
roles for the team at a much lower cost, they will pay $6.8M a year to a guy
that fills none of them.
Then again, this should
surprise no one that has followed this organization. This is the
organization that has been putting band-aids over gunshot wounds since they won
the Cup in 2009. The same organization that has traded away more draft
picks (32) than have had players drafted make it to the NHL (22) over the
past 10 years. (They traded another 1st
round pick away to get Kessel, making it 3 straight years that they will not
have a selection in the 1st round of the draft.). It is the same organization that with Kessel,
has now tied up 53% of their salary in 5 players.
If you want to win, you
have to make tough choices. You have to trade guys that fans like.
You have to cut ties with players that have given their all for you. You
have to be willing to part ways with guys that won with you and that the
organization has been built on. You have to be willing to trade anyone on
your roster if it will help your team in the long run. I do mean ANYONE,
including Letang, Fleury, Malkin and even Crosby.
The Penguins won’t make
these type of moves, and because of that, they won’t be engraving Phil Kessel’s
name into the Stanley Cup any time soon.
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