The first-round of this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs generally lived up to the expected billing of the best two weeks of NHL hockey (or for many, the best weeks of any professional team sport) of the calendar year. Just one four-game sweep and three series that tonight will go to their seventh and deciding game. The other four series generally had compelling storylines and that kind of physically gruelling play and high skill level that quite often makes the first playoff round one where victorious team just “survive and endure” and hope they still have enough left in the tank to “survive and endure” three more rounds.
More than that, this was a round with a couple of unusual aspects. Goals are normally very difficult to come by this time of year, yet this Spring they often came in bunches. Consider Columbus’ three in five minutes against Pittsburgh on Monday—don’t even try to say you saw that coming.
And points to a second observation, having the lead seemed a much more precarious position then a seemingly lock down aspect in other years. Leads and especially multi-goal leads seemed to easily go by the wayside, keeping games up in the air until the final whistle and providing a very surprisingly final result to anyone who wasn’t able to watch the whole three periods.
But the first round is reaching its conclusion. Looking ahead, when we’re down to the final eight teams vying for the Stanley Cup, it is unusual to have serious doubts and questions about any of them. But the Pittsburgh Penguins are such a team. As had been expected when they (literally) won the lottery in 2005, the Penguins’ rebuilding programme was fast-tracked by the luck of being able to draft Sidney Crosby. His rookie year (2005-06) was the only Crosby the Pens finished out of the Playoffs; they made it to the Stanley Cup Final in this third year (2008) and won the Cup in his fourth (2009). It was easy to believe that the latest Stanley Cup dynasty had arrived, one comparable to the 1970’s Montreal Canadiens and the 1980’s New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers.
And yet, here we sit five years later and the Penguins have no more Stanley Cup Final appearances, let alone a Cup. Another team—the Chicago Blackhawks—has won multiple titles over that period. It isn’t just that Pittsburgh hasn’t won any more Cups in the Crosby era, but the manner in which they keep getting eliminated. Two years ago it was an old fashioned (at times) Broad Street Bullies performance by the Philadelphia Flyers that knocked the composure out of the Penguins (Crosby included) and knocked them out of the playoffs. Last year the Penguins’ feeble effort was thoroughly crushed in the Eastern Conference Final by the Boston Bruins.
Warning signs last year appeared in the first round when Pittsburgh had far more difficulty with the New York Islanders than they should have. The same can be said this year, as they were basically reduced to hanging on to eliminated the Columbus Blue Jackets in six.
It is easy to blame the goaltending—and Marc-Andre Fleury has certainly provided much ammunition for that, including agaisnt Columbus—but he really didn’t play any worse than Sergei Bobrovsky did for Columbus, or any worse two years ago than Ilya Byrzgalov did for Philadelphia. There are other issues at play in Pittsburgh.
The Penguins scored an average of 3.5 goals per game against Columbus, but it wasn’t the usual suspects. As a matter of fact the top two Penguins scorers in playoff scoring are both defenceman, Matt Niskanen and Paul Martin, with eight points each.
At the end of the day it comes down to Crosby. Sid (no longer the Kid) had 27 points in 20 playoff games, then by 31 points in 24 playoff games in the years he led the Pens to the Final. Beside the golden goal for Team Canada in 2010, he hasn’t seemed to have scored a playoff goal of significance since.
Mario Lemieux led his Penguins teams to the playoffs in one of his first six seasons. Then they won two Stanley Cups in a row. The great broadcaster Dick Irvin, once compared the careers of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, with Gretzky having had a better overall career but for those two Stanley Cup championships, it was Lemieux who brought his game to a higher level. All other problems with the Penguins aside, Crosby has to attain that level he did five years ago and that Lemieux did in 1991 and 1992. As he leads, the Penguins follow. If once again he can find that the form that won him a Cup ring, his team may follow. If he doesn’t, they may fall with him.