On Frozen Blog

Being the high-road breed of hockey fans we are, we are called in this hour of anguish for our rivals to the North and West to traffic in empathy, commiseration, and sportsmanship. The black and gold partisans may not return the courtesy when they’re playing the role of spectator to our Cup challenges years hence, but no matter. We will elevate ourselves above the urge to gloat and belittle whilst our foe’s fiendishly follicled followers sip stale-tasting Iron City and sulk on runner-up status.

We must resist any and all temptation to raise discussions of the Annointed One’s perhaps taking up residence in that ignominious realm of career-long Stanley-less Stud. He’s young of course, and the likelihood is strong I think that he’ll vie again deep in spring for his name’s engraving. Only a rat, then, would recite a roll call of legendary names knowing no raised arms, ever, at season’s end — names like Jean Ratelle, Marcel Dionne, Adam Oates, Darryl Sittler, Gilbert Perreault, Brad Park, Bernie Nichols, Dino Ciccarelli, Michel Goulet, Mike Gartner, Dale Hawerchuck, Jeremy Roenick, Dale Hunter, Peter Stastny, Pierre Turgeon, Trevor Linden, Peter Bondra, Rick Middleton, Cam Neely, Pat LaFontaine.

Not to be a Negative Nick, but it is certainly true that return Finals engagements are not guaranteed. Unforeseeable forces like ill-timed injuries and white-hot playoff goaltenders — who can forget the rookie Dryden shocking the dynasty-forming Bs in ‘71? — can wreak havoc with the best-laid roster assembly. But now is not the hour to reference this, while our counterparts stare blankly before domination’s path.

We ought to remind them of the lessons surely to be gained from so valiant a run through the spring season, and that with nearly 10 players inked for next season how Penguins’ management has merely a Herculean — and not necessarily impossible — task in reassembling a top-tier team to compete in the mighty Atlantic division.

What is to be gained at this hour from articulating, in shallow self-interest, mean-spirited metaphors — you know the type, commonly composed on message boards of bile, the sort that would liken the Penguins’ competitiveness in these Finals’ games to that of an arthritic, three-legged poodle at the Vicks’ Saturday night dog brawl. A seriously sick schadenfreuder — and these cretins do exist — might hasten to add, toy poodle, too.

Additionally, do Pens’ fans need to be reminded now of Evgeni Malkin’s missing-in-action meagerness in these Finals’ games, of how Harry Houdini himself never carried off so mystifying a disappearing act? I think not.

Marc-Andre Fleury can hold his head up high for injecting a fleeting sliver of hope late last week among the fanbase. That ultimately he failed as a young netminder in the Finals whereas Carolina’s Cam Ward shined as a rookie between the pipes on hockey’s biggest stage — and without a glut of superstars in front of him, it bears mentioning — is of little bearing.

There ought not now be any mention of how a team that spent nearly a decade drafting at or near the very top of successive drafts must seize glory’s opportunities in its early dawnings, as star contracts commonly become fiscal burdens and impossible renewals as free agency eligibility arrives earlier each year. Certainly it would aid the cause of this club were it on the receiving end of lavish luxury box revenues, and not instead a tenant in a rink that should be torn down. Fortunately on this front, the remedy rink is but a couple of years away. There is in Pittsburgh today a core that must suffer the shearing off only of two or three expensive, supremely talented parts very early this offseason.

Obviously, it does no good either to reference the mortgaging a hefty portion of the present and the future as required by acquiring the rental player Marian Hossa. Time — perhaps a decade’s worth — will soften the sting of young Shero’s shipping off two young and productive roster players and two no. 1 draft picks, in exchange for Hossa’s dozen goals. Many of them, however, were pretty.

Let it be said that with respect to Michel Therrien’s tactical adjustments — the in-game ones most particularly — that the Penguins’ bench boss has the look of good health about him, and that there are, indisputably, coaches in the league who dress worse than he does, and that there is every reason to believe he’d be a cheerful companion at a summer barbeque. How often have you read such commendation emanating from this keyboard, directed at this organization, during the young lifetime it has tormented?

I write wanting none of your in-box clogging admiration for my magnanimity in this moment. Place this file in the annals of sudden, heroic Glasnost if you must. But know that there are limits to such aid and comfort of the enemy. For instance, I still have one more Versus-NBC broadcast of a Pens’ game to endure.