Sometimes the best owner...

..Is the one you never have.

Just think, if the Penguins didn't win the 2005 NHL Draft Lottery, Lemieux LLC probably would have sold the team to his buddy "Boots" Del Biaggio. Boots has gotten into some hot water by defaulting on loans and operating in a shady manner that will probably result in legal trouble. It's ironic that if Mario Lemieux (who took possession of the team to protect his assets by reorganizing it out of bankruptcy) ended up selling it to Boots he probably would have again lost out on his money.

Kudos to one of the best in the hockey blogosphere, Tom Benjamin, for pretty much seeing right through Del Baggio from when he popped onto the hockey scene.

The Morning After

(picture, espn.com)

But the Penguins never would have gotten there had it not been for Max Talbot, a player quickly achieving folk-hero status in Penguins circles.

Ok, so with Talbot now solidly in the ranks of Gary Roberts, Jarkko Ruuuuuutu and the USS Hal Gill is it possible the Penguins could have more folk-heroes than, you know, actual heroes? That's the mark of a solid team that's playing a lot of hockey.

And If Adam Hall keeps popping in goals he just might be next..

Not so fast my friend

Hope has been a big factor of the Penguins run.....Fans of a team can only hope a team can do so much. What the Penguins showed tonight, from top to bottom was an unbridled effort of soul and refusing to say die. And they made the play to win in triple over time.

What a ride, where do we start...

• Ryan Whitney. Often a goat for most Penguins fans. But after Sergei Gonchar was injured (while hustling back to successfully break up an odd man rush) the Penguins leaned on Whitney heavily for all three overtime periods. And he did his part. Whitney lead skaters on all teams with an amazing 50:46 of ice-time (out of a total of a total of the game-clock of 94:41) and was a +2 with 3 shots, 2 hits and 2 blocked shots.
• Three other Penguin defensemen (Rob Scuderi, Brooks Orpik, Hal Gill) played over 40 minutes picking up the slack from Gonchar's absence. Will that take it's toll on Wednesday? For now, that's a Wednesday problem...
• Marc-Andre Fleury. His detractors are pretty much silenced now. Fleury made 55 saves on 58 shots and did about everything possible to keep the Penguins in it. A team doesn't make it through 5+ periods without their goalie answering the bell. Should the Penguins lose (if it were tonight, or Wednesday or Saturday) it's nothing against MAF. He stood on his head and kept the puck out of the net on several sequences when Detroit was pressing.
• "How does that Marian Hossa deal look now in Pittsburgh?" was last week's thoughts of Capitals blog onfrozenblog.com. Well Hossa has 11 goals and 13 assists in 19 playoff games. No doubt the Pens swung for the fences, but it's paid off. We'd pull the trigger on that deal in a heartbeat. And something tells us the Hoss aint done just yet either.
• You can't tell us that Evgeni Malkin and over-time hero Petr Sykora aren't hurt. Malkin got taken down innocently and stayed down after the whistle. We're buying into Dave Molinari's theory that it might have happened when Philly's Mike Richards plastered Geno into the boards, possibly causing a rib injury. But the big boy aint doggin' it, he's tryin' his heart out. There's just not much left to dig deep into. Luckily, there's only a maximum of two more games left.
• We agreed with Coach Michel Therrien's call of a timeout halfway through the third period. We said to a buddy if we were coach we would call a TO the next whistle and sure enough Therrien did. Detroit had Pens on the ropes and even though they went on to score the tying goal soon after, the coach did his part to break the momentum and give his boys a breather. Just another example how Therrien will get no credit for the victory but discreetly played a part in keeping his finger on the pulse of the team and doing all he could to keep them in it.
• Another decision that we agreed with that Therrien made (before the goal happened, btw) was putting Maxime Talbot on the ice for the final minute of the game. He could have gone with Sykora or Gary Roberts but he put out there a guy he knew had the heart and the hands to make it happen. Talbot rewarded that trust by firing in a shot from in front of the net with :35 seconds to go to keep the dream alive. Few players out there play balls to the wall like Talbot, he just makes things happen when they have to. Good things happen to good people that try hard, and Max Talbot is proof of that.
• 2 assists and a boatload of chances for Sidney Crosby. He had a lot of jump in his step and was able to create a lot of offense. Plus he got back to break up several great chances for Detroit. As the old adage goes "your best players have to be your best players" and Crosby was definitely very dangerous all night long. He refused to lose and you have to believe a lot of that attitude bled over on the other guys, which is what captains do.
• Speaking of trying hard, Pascal Dupuis busted his ass all night long. He was great at digging up loose pucks. The first goal by Hossa was primarily assisted by Crosby but Dupuis made it possible by doing the dirty work. "Dupper" was the guy who looked the most desperate of any player out there and gave a very, very respectable effort.
• Few players have more heart than Ryan Malone. After taking a slapshot to the face opening up a nasty cut we feared for the worst. You know it's bad when the referees immediately whistle the play dead while the puck is in the open. Malone was cut bad and was in trouble. Luckily it was well under his eye (which no visor would have protected) and he was able to shake it off and nary miss a shift. Heart like that is what win championships. Malone earned a lot of respect here.
• Jordan Staal played over 34 minutes and was the only regular center (other than Adam Hall) to break 50% in faceoffs. Staal had 3 takeaways to 0 giveaways and played 3:40 of short-handed icetime. Did we mention he's 19 years old? What a solid, solid player.

As you've noticed, we've mentioned nearly every player in the lineup. Because it's a team effort when you win a Stanley Cup Final game in triple overtime. The boys get a well deserved day off and we'll see if there's anything left in the tank for Game 6. Sergei Gonchar told NBC that he'd "absolutely" be in there but we wonder how banged up he might be. He took a nasty spill into the wall and if we put a speculating cap on that could very well be a separated/dislocated shoulder. And the rest of the D is no doubt tired from picking up the Sarge's slack. But it's a team and when one falls the rest step up. That's what happened tonight. That's all we need. One game at a time, boys, let's go back home and win there.

14 down, 2 more to go.....

Unscientific look at fitting under the cap

We really wanted to focus on the Pens Stanley Cup run, but we had some extra time today and fiddled around with the numbers. Go to any website and a lot of places caution that this is the Penguins last chance for a while to be competitive. To be sure, the Penguins have a lot of unrestricted free agents and next year's team is certainly going to be much different than this year's version.

With that in mind, we made two charts. The first is the current outlook of the Pens contract situations. All contract numbers were derived from nhlnumbers.com

(Click to enlarge)

As you can see, we omitted all players that are not signed for next year and didn't include (with the exception of Alex Goligoski) any minor league players (like Ryan Stone and Jonathan Filewich) that could be on the NHL roster next season.

Now here's what could be....Will all of this happen? Probably not. We have no idea if Marian Hossa would accept something like a $42 million six year contract. He could likely fetch more on the open market. But who knows if he would want to take the chance of leaving Sidney Crosby and a great hockey city like Pittsburgh for another hockey oasis like an Atlanta-esque market.

The same could be said for Marc-Andre Fleury and Jordan Staal accepting long-term deals that would "only" pay $4.5 million annually. We haven't negotiated with them and don't know what they're looking for, we're just guessing based off what others in their age range have gotten. Those same words go for Evgeni Malkin. If he wants $10 million, the Pens may very well give that to him. We put $9 million long-term for the sake of argument, since that's about the range of where Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are.

There it is, a rough-draft blueprint of how it all could work (all hypothetical changes have be put in bold). Would it be pretty harrowing to sign 11 players for about $15 million in 2009-10? Yeah. But there are so many variables like the change in salary cap that it's difficult to look that far in the future.

As you could see, we also envisioned Ray Shero dealing Ryan Whitney to a team and then using much of the money currently allocated to him to sign Brooks Orpik. Whether either of those two events could occur is probably very much up for debate.

We're just throwing ideas against the wall here. Don't think we want all of this to happen, or are predicting it. If Hossa walks and signs for $8-$9 million it won't be surprising, it's probably the expected course of action for him to take. We just wanted to show one possible (albeit very unlikely) scenario in which the Pens can retain their core players and still keep some of the important pieces to the puzzle that are currently around.

We'd be very interested as to anyone's thoughts on this matter in the comments. We'll probably have all summer to stew on this issue anyways.....Or main hope (and focus) is that that summer doesn't begin tonight.

...Maybe you're willing to come a little further

As usual, we think the Pensblog got it right about where Penguins fans stand right now. Some are frustrated and have had enough. Some are resigned to an inevitable defeat. Some still have some hope.

At moments we think it's normal, and acceptable to feel any range of these emotions right now. No one said it would be easy.

Even though the media is telling you Detroit's coronation as Cup champions is a foregone conclusion, they still have to go out and win one more game. In the words of a noted scholar and American hero John Rambo: "Nothing is over....Nothing!"

Detroit was in this exact same situation last series with Dallas and The Stars took Game 5. This puppy isn't cooked just yet. Of course, it's going to be a huge challenge, the building will be buzzing with Lord Stanley in the building and the Red Wings will be doing everything in the powers not to have to go back to Pittsburgh for a Game 6.

If the Penguins can come out strong and play their game, they should have a chance; much like they had several chances to score in Game 4. Chances aren't worth dick unless you convert, so that's just as crucial.

This could be the end, and if it is, what a ride it's been. But that's still to be decided. If the Pens decide it's not over just yet, work their tails off and get some luck along the way, we're not through here. If not though, the hockey season will be over.

Just remember: hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things...

Gee Golly

The Pittsburgh Penguins have recalled defenseman Alex Goligoski from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (AHL), it was announced Sunday by Executive Vice President and General Manager Ray Shero.

Goligoski currently ranks second in the AHL playoffs with 25 points (four goals, 21 assists) in 19 postseason games as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton has advanced to the Calder Cup Finals vs. the Chicago Wolves.

This one came out of left-field to us.

Goligoski has had a really fine AHL playoff, but the difference between the Calder Cup and the Stanley Cup has to be immense. With Kris Letang rightfully (but sadly) 1000 miles away, the Pens needed something. Darryl Sydor hasn't been bad since being thrown back into the fire, but he hasn't been good either. Could Rob Scuderi (who got banged up but continued playing in Game 4) be too injured to go? Time will tell. JB reported that Pens assistant GM Chuck Fletcher did mention an injury situation and we don't recall who that could be, other than Scuderi.

Hopefully Golly will get the powerplay minutes on the left point that we've been calling to replace Evgeni Malkin. It's un-natural for Malkin, he doesn't like playing there and he hasn't been effective.

From Wilkes-Barre's perspective (who's down 2-0 to the Chicago Wolves in their series) this doesn't mean too much. Their next game isn't until Wednesday, by that point unfortunately Goligoski (along with maybe Tyler Kennedy) could be back by then.

But we'll have to see how it works out. Desperate times do call for desperate measures and the Pens are pulling out all the stops in a last gasp effort to win Game 5 in Detroit and force a Game 6 with renewed confidence in friendlier confines.

Crushing, Devastating, Disappointing, Frustrating

Any of those adjectives apply. The Pens had a 5 on 3 for 86 seconds and just couldn't get it done. Evgeni Malkin looks cashed for the year, Petr Sykora hasn't been heard from in weeks.

It's a dire situation. The Red Wings won a game the Penguins absolutely needed, and a game that could have gone either way with a bounce here and there.

The reality is Detroit is probably lifting Lord Stanley this season, likely Monday night even. As James Mirtle points out that a team with a 3-1 series advantage in the Stanley Cup finals is historically 28-1.

It's happened before. Ponder, for the briefest of moments, that the Pens steal a Game 5 in Detroit. Then they get to come home to extend the series. Then it'd all be on the line for a Game 7.

But that's a long ways away from this frustrated Sunday morning where the Pens look like a team that just has no answers for Detroit. If that's the case, we'll be the first ones to congratulate the Red Wings. But it's not over yet. Let's go down fighting 'til the bitter end, boys.