As I sit here, looking at the current NHL standings, I
wonder how exactly things got like this.
It didn’t happen all at once. It
was a slow, often painful sight to witness.
But here we are, 5 games left and the Pittsburgh Penguins are in serious
danger of missing the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2006.
Just let that sink in.
A team with two of the best players in the world, in the
prime of their careers, is in jeopardy of missing the playoffs. Pardon my French, but how the f*** did this
happen? How? As I watched the Penguins lose yet another 2
goal lead today in Columbus, I really pondered the answer to that
question.
And what I came up with wasn’t exactly a reassuring revelation.
The fact of the matter is, something has been wrong with
this team for a while. Ever since bowing
out to the Montreal Canadiens the year following their Stanley Cup victory in 7
games, the Penguins have never truly been able to recover. Why exactly?
It’s quite simple, the answer is right in front of us, it has been the
whole time.
This team, all of it, through to its core – is weak.
And I’m not talking just physically, but mentally as well.
Just look at the jumbled shit storm the Penguins currently
find themselves in. Hell, just look at
their most recent game. Playing a pretty
terrible Columbus Blue Jackets team, one that has been out of playoff contention
for the majority of the season, the once mighty Penguins looked like scared
little children in the face of actual hockey players. What’s more, 3/4ths of the team, maybe a
little more even, looked just flat out disinterested, like they had far more
interesting things to do than win a game that, in all reality, needed to be
won. But this was not the first time the
Penguins have looked like this during the season. In fact in recent memory, this is the only
way I can remember the Penguins playing. This disinterested, pathetic, weak
brand of hockey, one that has made me ashamed to call myself a Penguins fan
during the past few months.
And that’s a very
hard thing to say.
I love this sport and
I love this team. I follow them more closely
than any other squad, professional or otherwise. I can rattle off the starting roster from top
to bottom for the past 7 years. I’ve
stuck with them through what now seems to be years of playoff heartbreak and to
be honest that what real fans should do.
If the team in front of them plays their hearts out, that’s all real
fans can ask for. But when they play…when
they play like this, it’s a completely different story.
This is
pathetic. Flat out, pathetic play and
every player on the Penguins roster should be ashamed of the current product
they are putting on the ice night in and night out. And it’s everyone’s fault. From Mario Lemieux to Craig Adams. They’ve all allowed this culture, this
culture of “pussy hockey”, to thrive and consume every player in locker
room. Sure, every now and again the
players break out of this culture and show a glimpse of what they really can
be. Most recently it was Sidney Crosby,
Ben Lovejoy, Patrick Hornqvist and Marc-Andre Fleury, who all are usually the
only players on the ice (with maybe the exception of newly re-acquired Lovejoy)
who seem to really give a damn. The rest
just look like empty jerseys, carbon copies of mediocracy the Pens throw out on
a nightly basis because they have no other options to fill out a roster. Take for instance Beau Bennett, who can
hardly be considered even an AHL caliber player with the kind of performance’s
he has been putting out the entire season.
There’s no reason Bennett should be on any team’s NHL roster with the
way he’s been playing, but here he is on the Pens third line, night in and
night out.
The problem is that the same could be said about virtually every
player on the Penguins current roster, save a few rare instances. Sure every player’s situation is different,
whether it be Chris Kunitz’s rapidly detreating body, Derrick Pouliot’s overall
lack of defense ability or Craig Adam’s just overall terribleness, every
players has been equally terrible at different times this season. Now, the chicken is coming home to roost, as
it were, with every player’s hitch coming to bite them all at the same time and
it’s producing smashing results, as everyone can see.
These aren’t excuses I’m making for these players either, in
case you thought that’s what I was doing.
After using excuses all season as the reasoning behind their oft
terrible play, that’s the last they need right now.
No, no more
excuses. There’s no excuse for this,
whatever this is. It’s time for the management,
coaches and the players to look at themselves in the mirror and ask more out of
themselves. Because if the Penguins
flame out in the first round of the playoffs, or heaven forbid they don’t make
playoffs at all, I honestly can’t even predict what will happen. All I know is that if you thought last season
was bad, I can only imagine this one being 10 times more palpable.
But hey, baseball is right around the corner. So at least there’s that.
