Bill Clement

Two seasons ago the Penguins blinked and they were out of the playoffs, eliminated in the first round. Last season they caught fire in the postseason, dropping just two games over their first three series. Then they met their match in the Stanley Cup finals, losing in six games to the Red Wings.

The summer brought some changes to the Penguins as Year 4 of the salary-cap era led to the departures of some players who played significant roles in the overwhelming success of last season. The team’s young core is still intact but there is the question of whether Pittsburgh can once again lay claim to Eastern Conference supremacy.

One school of thought is the Penguins are not as strong a team as they were at the end of last season for several reasons chief among them the fact they no longer have right winger Marian Hossa, whom they dealt for at the trade deadline. Hossa had 15 goals and 21 assists for Pittsburgh in 32 games. But the five-time All-Star became a free agent this summer and spurned a multi-year offer from the Penguins to sign a one-year deal for less money with the Red Wings.

Also gone and now playing in Tampa Bay is left winger Ryan Malone, who broke out last season to post career highs in goals (27), assists (24) and plus/minus (+14). Hossa and Malone were key cogs in Pittsburgh’s rise last season and they leave big skates to fill.

The Penguins went the free-agent route and found replacements for Hossa and Malone in Miroslav Satan and Ruslan Fedotenko, both of whom are coming off disappointing seasons with the Islanders. Satan and Fedotenko aren’t making the kind of money that Hossa and Malone are and their impact isn’t expected to equal that of the duo they have replaced.

Pittsburgh is also without two of its top defensemen. Sergei Gonchar was injured in the Penguins’ exhibition opener and he had surgery on a dislocated left shoulder in early October. He’s out until at least March. Ryan Whitney had his left foot operated on in mid-August and it’s expected he’ll be able to return sometime before the New Year.

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Also goalie Marc-Andre Fleury has not played since Nov. 15, sidelined with an undisclosed injury. But Fleury seems close to coming back and could return to full practice by the second week in December. By the job he did in net as the Penguins marched to within two wins of the Stanley Cup, Fleury showed he had elevated his status to be among the upper-echelon goalies in the league. Coming off his injury his challenge will be to make sure his level of play is what it was last season. That’s crucial to Pittsburgh’s success.

While some feel Pittsburgh isn’t quite the team it was in 2007-08, others believe that the Penguins despite their personnel losses and injuries have gained from last season because their core players, their super impressive young stars led by Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal, are a year older and year better. Crosby and Malkin began December as the top two in points in the league. In 82 games last season Staal scored 12 times as he endured a sophomore slump. Through his first 25 games this season he was already two-thirds towards equaling that mark with 8 goals.

One thing very noticeable this season with Malkin is he is not trying to do quite as much by himself. He was guilty of that in the past. He continues to learn how to use other players on the ice to get the job done. It doesn’t have to be all him and he now realizes that. As a result of his adjustment his decision making has improved and he has cut down on the times he’s turns the puck over.

When looking at whether Pittsburgh could prove as tough an out as last season one area to focus on is faceoffs, where the Penguins have shown dramatic improvement. Pittsburgh was the worst faceoff team in the league last season, winning just 46.1 percent of its draws. Much of the upgrade in this area can be traced to the deal swung by the Penguins with the Coyotes on Oct. 9 in which Pittsburgh obtained Mike Zigomanis for future considerations.

Zigomanis would seem like an insignificant addition to the roster but that’s not the case because the Penguins are a puck control and a puck possession team. Given their style of play they need a really strong faceoff guy, especially when they are trying to preserve one-goal leads or overcome one-goal deficits. They’ve found their man in Zigomanis, who a little over two months into the season was leading the NHL in faceoffs won with 63.7 percentage.

While the Penguins still have multiple weapons there’s no denying they are not as deep in the forward ranks with high-end talent as they were last season. And being pretty much right up against the salary cap, it’s unlikely help will arrive in the form of a high-scoring winger by the trade deadline.

Every great player needs support and Crosby and Malkin don’t have quite the support on the wings they had a year ago. But if they have matured enough and if they become dominant enough they could make up for that with the help of a defense that when healthy is the deepest and the best in their conference.

If by playoff time the Penguins are without serious injuries and we’ve seen that Crosby, Malkin and Staal have raised their games through their added experience and maturity, Pittsburgh is the team to beat in the Eastern Conference.

It’s fine for the Penguins to have the notion of getting another crack at winning the Stanley Cup in the back of their minds but they had better not try to win the marathon in the first 10 miles. It can’t be done. Their focus should be on being the best team they can be, it should be on winning their division, then winning the conference and getting the chance to once again play for a championship.

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