Are the Pens more educated in building a championship team?

[timbit]

Very interesting look at the makeup of the Pens Game 5 lineup.
They have a dramatically different look than every team in the NHL.
Thoughts?

http://www.bardown.com/an-interestin...ineup-1.758283

[CarlLester]

If you start with Crosby, Malkin, and a good goalie - I think you can fill the rest of the holes with Calgary beer league players and be almost at championship caliber.

[CroFlames]

Yeah I don't know if I'd give them that much credit. It's not like their GM and coach know something other hockey guys don't.

You have Crosby, Malkin and MAF. That didn't take skill to obtain. Any competent GM in the league could build a team around them. It doesn't take some super genius GM.

[cross16]

Most of those players they acquired from other teams and I would doubt very much that where they played junior/development hockey played a factor in their acquisition.

Probably doing a better job than most scouting the NCAA, but not sure its fair to say they've discovered a new blueprint.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

lol, "Aside from Sid and Geno..." That pretty much sums it up. Drafting out of college is not exactly new. The Pens have done well, but it isn't earthshattering news.

[Toonage]

They won a g** d*** lottery

[PepsiFree]

The Pens were also a dumpster fire until they hired Sullivan, and then everything just came together. Building a team isn't simple, and I think the media has a tendency to put things into a box and say "this is how great teams are built."

Great teams just have all the pieces fall into place at the right time. There is a huge element of good fortune to it.

[Resolute 14]

How much did College Hockey Inc. pay for that story, I wonder?

[Redrum]

I just wouldn't use teams that suck their way to the top as great examples.

[Firebot]

The Pens have a generational player and a franchise player, and they still only won 2 cups. Heck prior to last year they were seen as playoff chokers. For many years they were a half built team

Adding Phil Kessel on top of a stacked team is really what made it all work, along with Sullivan coming in and clearing the air. Kessel had 22 points last year, and 18 this year in the playoffs.

[Parallex]

Very interesting look at the makeup of the Pens Game 5 lineup.
They have a dramatically different look than every team in the NHL.
Thoughts?

My thought is that the % of NCAA players they have is happenstance. Start with a Generational Player in Crosby, Superstar level player in Malkin, and good goaltending and you have a competitive team regardless of anything else.

I'll give them some credit for team building in that they are clearly deliberately built to use and take advantage of team speed but they don't have a magic formula.

[Ashasx]

Step 1: Draft 2nd overall and select 2nd best centre over a 10 year span.
Step 2: Win draft lottery during lockout year.
Step 3: Draft generational player.

####ing brilliant.

[Geeoff]

The Predators are a brilliantly built team that put their roster together with mediocre draft positions, shrewd trades and great prospect development. That's a better article than the team that tanked at the right time to get 2 of the 5 best players of a generation.

[Flash Walken]

I think the NCAA approach to practices and review instead of a strenuous season of games produces on average, better all-around players capable of being plugged into an existing lineup without decline.

When you already have the best top-end skill in the league, you don't need to shoot for the moon, you just need to assemble a supporting cast with few faults. Mature, Intelligent players who can support your star players are more important than young bucks looking to make their mark (by perhaps bucking the saddle).

Need horses who are dependable in their harnesses, not freewheeling stallions that need to be broken.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

You could argue the Pens have not taken full advantage of the great fortune they were given 10 years ago or so with drafting Syd, Geno and MAF, which to me would suggest they aren't that good at building championship teams.

However, win another cup this year, that's 3 with those players, that's starting to look pretty respectable. But it's far from as impressive as what LA and Chicago have accomplished with less being handed to them (not that those teams also didn't get nice draft gifts, but certainly not as nice as the Pens).

[Sylvanfan]

Pittsburgh for the most part has been a deadline buyer for a lot of years which has depleted the draft pick stock to a certain extent. So they have had to go the NCAA free agent route to find players to an extent that other teams would have used draft picks to acquire.

I do think teams like the Rangers and Penguins and Blackhawks do have a bit of a leg up on other teams when it comes time to sign college free agents. Most players will jump at the chance to play with top end players or live in New York. So I think they have recognized it and allows them to be a bit more liberal in trading draft picks for immediate help.

But I can't say I'm convinced that this is a strategy that every NHL team should be looking to duplicate.

[Oil Stain]

The defining philosophy isn't necessarily educated players, but skill over grit.

Rutherford has rebuilt the Penguins the same way he built the Hurricanes.

Big time emphasis on skill over brawn.

Look at that D-core in the playoffs.
Dumoulin
Hainsey
Maata
Schultz
Cole
Daley

Justin Schultz is the player on that defence with the most penalty minutes through the regular season. JUSTIN SCHULTZ.

Let that one sink in.

Up front its the same thing. Sheary (5'7") was a good signing for them. They have been fortunate that a couple of old draft picks in Guentzal and Rust happened to pan out at the same relative time.

I mean clearly its working for the Penguins. I find this philosophy is really enjoyable to watch as well. Up tempo, offensive style. What's not to like for a neutral fan?

I don't think it's necessarily the perfect model. I mean the Hurricanes struggled for years after winning the Cup despite the same philosophy.

How Rutherford has went from hero to zero and back to hero really shows that the difference between genius and incompetent is a fine line at the NHL level, and good fortune can have as much an impact on success as anything else.

[CSharp]

Any team would be already good if they had a generational franchise player to build upon, let alone two or even 3 on a team at the same time. Pens are lucky twice that they can get Lemieux and Jagr, then Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, and Staal. You look at the Oilers right now, they got their generational player and all of a sudden you add in Draisaitl and they've built a team around those two players.

The Flames had Iginla, Regehr, and Kipper. They came close, but Sutter was always a centerman or two short. I think teams like Detroit, Chicago, and the Sharks always had the brains to pull off some of the best draft choices. The Pens - all they have to do in the past was to tank hard when it's time to tank. Luck also played a good part in it as well.

[NiklasSundblad]

For all their luck with lottery wins, they were able to add Kessel because they don't round out their roster with highly paid 4th liners. Think about the kind of room for improvement we could have without Stajan, Bouma and Brouwer, in the lineup sucking up cap space.

[GranteedEV]

People really don't give Guentzal, Kessel, Hagelin, Dumoulin, Daley, Sheary, Rust, Schultz, Bonino etc enough credit. The Pens under Rutherford specifically are a team that doesn't fill their ancillary roster with mediocrity, which as Brad Treliving has shown - is very easy to do. Now with the injury to Letang and more recently Schultz, have they needed Malkin and Crosby to be Malkin and Crosby? Yes, without a doubt. But when healthy they are truly impressive.