Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.
Who's In:Miroslav Satan, F (FA-NYI), Ruslan Fedotenko, F (FA-NYI), Matt Cooke, F (FA-WAS), Eric Godard, F(FA-CGY), Janne Pesonen, F (FA-Kärpät, Finland)
Who's Out:Marian Hossa, F (FA-DET), Ryan Malone, F (FA-TBA), Jarkko Ruutu, F (FA-OTT), Gary Roberts, F (FA-TBA), Georges Laraque, F (FA-MTL), Ty Conklin, G (FA-DET), Adam Hall, F (FA-TBA)
What's Changed: Everything is different but nothing has changed in Pittsburgh. Hossa, Malone, Roberts, and Ruutu are gone, but this was Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin's team when they were all in Pittsburgh and the team still belongs to them with those four gone. A lot has been made about the guys that have departed, especially Malone and Hossa, but Malone's breakout was greatly aided by Malkin and the Penguins earned the second seed in the playoffs last year almost entirely without Hossa's help. At this point, there's no use in talking about the guys that are gone because they're gone.
In fact, the losses that the Penguins might find hardest to overcome this season have nothing to do with free agency. Ryan Whitney and Sergei Gonchar are both out until around the ball drops on 2009 (maybe longer in Gonchar's case). That leaves the Penguins power play in the hands of highly touted youngsters Kris Letang and Alex Goligoski. Letang played 67 games with the Penguins last year and showed good poise for a 20-year-old rookie defenseman. His accolates from the QMJHL are as long as my arm and even though he only scored 17 points, he flashed a ton of potential. Goligoski had a great season with Scranton-Wilkes Barre last year and set an AHL record for points scored by a defenseman in the playoffs. The questions surrounding these two have nothing to do with ability, but rather how a 21 and 23-year-old defenseman will replace Gonchar, who many think should've been a Norris finalist last year, and Whitney, one of the best young offenseive defensemen in the league.
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As troublesome as the losses of Gonchar and Whitney are, the Penguins' questions do go way beyond defense. They reached the Stanely Cup Finals last year and were inches away from sending Game 6 of those finals into overtime. The task of getting back is much more difficult this year, and that's only partly to do with the players that they lost. Last year the Pens waltzed through the Eastern Conference playoffs with a 12-2 record. It's only the preseason, but I have a hard time believing that the Capitals and Flyers are going to let any thing close to that happen this season. And while people like me can downplay the losses of Hossa and Malone as much as we want, the fact is that besides Crosby, Malkin, and a few other holdovers, the forwards on the Penguins this year barely even resemble the forwards from last year. Roster turnover on the scale that the Penguins have experience always takes a while to overcome.
Still, the people writing this Penguin team off as a disappointment waiting to happen are selling them short. Jordan Staal is likely going to move to either Crosby or Malkin's wing and he should fill the power forward role that Malone's departure opens up very nicely. He struggled as the third line center last year, but he stepped up big in several playoff years and pairing him with Malkin or Crosby could lead to a breakout for the youngest Staal. Satan won't replace Hossa, but he will be better than the players that rotated through Crosby's wings before Hossa was acquired last year. Fedotenko's another good acquisition, a solid two-way player that should benefit from playing along side Malkin.
Consider where the Penguins were at this point last October. They had Crosby, the reigning MVP, but Malkin was a bit of a question mark after he faded down the stretch and in the playoffs of his first season. Ryan Malone and Brooks Orpik were chronic underachievers and guys like Colby Armstrong were getting playing time on Crosby's wing. There were still questions about Marc-Andre Fleury's ability to be a top-flight goaltender. This year their top two lines could be Staal/Crosby/Satan and Fedotenko/Malkin/Sykora. Malkin grew into a true star in the second half of the season and the first two rounds of the playoffs. Orpik finally got his act together after Michel Therrien rattled his cage last winter and his signing was one of the high points of the winter for the Penguins. Fleury was brilliant after he returned from his high ankle sprain and almost single-handedly won the marathon Game 5 of the Finals. The expectations are raised and the competition has improved, but the Penguins are in better shape headed in to this season than last season.
Who's the hook: Everyone. Crosby and Malkin need to prove that it was them that elevated the play of guys like Malone and that the other parts of the team are fungible. Staal and Satan and Fedotenko all need to step up their roles on Crosby and Malkin's wings. Goligoski and Letang need to do a reasonable approximation of Whitney and Gonchar, but they need to know that they're not going to replace them. Orpik and Mark Eaton, who's been the Pens best defender the past couple of years when healthy, need to lead the young defensive corps until Gonchar and Whitney get healthy. And Michel Therrien, who seems like he's always on the hot seat, has to keep everything together for a team that's very different than the one he coached to the Finals just a few short months ago.
What to expect: Let's see, 105 points and the four seed two years ago, 102 points and the two seed last year ... I'd guess somewhere in the 97-105 point range and one of the top five seeds in the East. Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury will ensure that it won't be anything less.
Gratuitous YouTube Embed: I'm going to cheat because I have two. The first is the Red Wings winning the 2008 Stanley Cup. Because nothing in the world can make you want something more than not being able to have it.
The second is the Janne Pesonen highlight video from Finland. Because Pesonen has surprised people at camp and looks like he's going to make the team and because the song in it will own your life.
