Mark Madden: When Penguins go splat, core 3 will head elsewhere
The Pittsburgh Penguins’ 10-2 win at San Jose on Saturday was fun but insignificant.
The Sharks (0-10-1) may be historically bad. The Penguins (4-6-0, last in the Metropolitan Division) started their season rotten against perhaps the easiest part of their schedule. That victory, while needed, is like slapping a butterfly stitch on a shotgun wound.
When the Penguins kept the core three together, it guaranteed the Penguins would ultimately go splat.
A few disclaimers:
• Trading Evgeni Malkin in, say, 2018 for the huge return he would have fetched would have been no guarantee that the Penguins wouldn’t go splat. But it would have provided a legitimate chance to rebuild around Sidney Crosby and maybe win again.
• The Penguins may not be going splat just yet, though warning signs are plentiful. It is, however, 100% inevitable.
• The Penguins won’t avoid going splat, however temporarily, via changing their on-ice method. They refuse to do that. They will play fast despite getting slow. (Barring a coaching change.)
• Going splat is no insult to your precious fandom. No team wins forever. The Penguins were legit threats to win the Stanley Cup every year between 2008-18, doing so three times and making another final. Be grateful.
• Going splat ultimately made the Penguins great when they drafted Mario Lemieux after finishing dead last in 1984. Kept them in Pittsburgh, too.
Here’s what going splat this time will lead to:
• New GM/president of hockey ops Kyle Dubas has full power moving forward. Coach Mike Sullivan has won two Cups in Pittsburgh. His Boston connection with owners Fenway Sports Group is often cited. But Dubas’ seven-year contract trumps all. The biggest reason Dubas got hired is to pick up the pieces after things go splat. Not to maximize now.
• When the Penguins go splat, the core three will finish their careers somewhere else. Nobody’s feelings should be hurt by that.
When Malkin and Kris Letang got new contracts this past offseason, it was romanticized that the core three would finish their careers together, and in Pittsburgh. But that just kicked that can down the road.
Sure, the core three love Pittsburgh. They love each other. But they will hate playing for a hopeless team. They’ve never experienced that.
The Penguins don’t benefit by keeping aging, high-paid stars on a team going nowhere. That delays and complicates the rebuild.
The Penguins still will have a team after Crosby, Letang and Malkin are gone. They will sell tickets, expand their fan base via youth and yes, try to win again. All that happened after Lemieux retired, right? The franchise didn’t fold. (It just had the doors padlocked twice.)
Fans will point at the core three’s no-movement clauses. But all a no-movement clause really means is a player can choose and negotiate where he’s traded. That’s what will occur here.
When the Penguins go splat, those three will want out. Steal a late-career Cup somewhere else. (Here’s betting at least one does.)
You don’t think that’s going to happen. The core three and Sullivan probably don’t yet think that’s going to happen.
But here’s thinking Dubas knows. Ownership knows, too.
It’s how sports work.
It will be tough when that happens. (The only exception could be Crosby. Here’s predicting he’s an executive with the Penguins after he retires as a player. But he could always come back to do that.)
But it’s going to happen. Be prepared for it.
It will happen organically. It’s not yet close to playing out.
But exit strategies doubtless already are being considered.
Dubas knows these Penguins are done winning Stanley Cups. The organization posturing otherwise has been a charade for a few years. They could still make the playoffs. They could win a series. Unless they don’t.
It’s a shame the Penguins and San Jose can’t meet in the playoffs until the Stanley Cup Final.
