It honestly goes back further than just since the Pens were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, hell it goes back to last offseason. The 2013 playoffs saw the Pens squeak by a up-and-coming Islanders team, followed by a complete dismantling of the Senators before getting spanked handsomely in four games by the Bruins. Last year should have been the time the Pens cleared house. Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin needed new contracts. Marc-Andre Fleury was coming off his worst performance since he lost that World Juniors for Canada that the majority of the nation has yet to forgive. Crosby, Kunitz, Neal and Malkin disappeared during the Bruins series and Kunitz, Dupuis, Adams, Cooke and Kennedy were all free agents. The remnants of 2009 were really disappearing from site.
Last summer should have been the time to clean up this team, but they didn't. I was supportive of keeping Bylsma then, but he should've been shown the door then. When Kris Letang continually turned down contracts, they should have traded him like they traded Jordan Staal the year before while they could have gotten top billing for him. They should have resigned Matt Cooke, simply to keep someone around who had the elusive "character and grit." But instead, they gave Letang an organization crippling contract. They signed Chris Kunitz, Pascal Dupuis and Rob Scuderi to multi-year deals in their mid-thirties, something that Ray Shero refused to do in years past. They gave Malkin more money the Sid, which, who really cares, thats not killing us. But they didn't fix anything. They didn't add any pieces to change this team.
The year went exactly as I expected, great regular season before crapping out in the playoffs. If you think the Pens deserved to win the Ranger series or were even good enough to win the Cup this season, you haven't been paying close enough attention. This team is an absolute TRAIN WRECK from top to bottom. If you don't think that is the case, just look at what has happened in the last 6 weeks:
- The Pens gave up a 3-1 lead to the New York Rangers to lose in the quarterfinals.
- They fired ONLY Ray Shero four days later, leaving the entire fan base stunned and wondering what exactly is happening in the offices above Consol Energy Center.
- They spent 3 weeks trying to find a new GM, when the eventually turned onto a 65 year old Jim Rutherford that took the Hurricanes from the top of the hockey world to the basement in just 5 years.
- They fired Dan Bylsma 3 weeks later than they should have, a year in the opinion of a lot of the fan base.
- They spent the last 2 weeks trying to find the next coach for this team, setting last night on Willie Desjardins only to be left out to dry after he turned them down to take the Canucks job.
- The coach the organization should want, and the ones all the fans want, they cannot get this year.
- The second choice of the fan base is someone who knows this organization, city, and has more grit and character than this team has had since the 1990s in Ulf Samuelsson. Where is he? Rebuked in favor of a minor league coached that just told Pittsburgh no.
Guys, if you don't see the serious problems after all of this, I recommend a new sport. The Pens are in deep trouble. They have a week until the draft starts. Two weeks until free agency. They yet to have a coach in place which will has left guys like Niskanen, Jokinen and Sutter sit around and wait to see what they want to do. They have no coach to entice players to come here. This is DEFCON 5. This has catastrophe written all over it. You need to be asking yourself, What the hell are ownership thinking?
But that may be the problem itself, ownership has no idea what to do with this. Last offseason they should have traded Kris Letang to get the pieces they desperately needed and freed up cap space, but David Morehouse wanted Letang as a marketing piece to make money. You know what makes money? Winning championships. You don't make hockey decisions off of making money.
The Pens should have fired Byslma six weeks ago, not Shero. If that was the case, the Pens would have had their new coach by now, been prepared for the draft and would have at least had talks with guys like Niskanen, Orpik, Jokinen and Sutter about coming back next year. But no, they fired Shero, only to spend three weeks looking for an "interim" replacement. Let's be honest, that's what Rutherford is. He's the interim guy because they didn't trust Jason Botterill and still don't for that matter.
Now, they spent the last two weeks looking for a coach. Despite saying all along ownership wanted an experienced NHL coach, they were ready to give the job to a guy who has 2 years NHL assistant experience and spent the majority of his career as a juniors coach. Well alright, he may not have the experience but he has won at every level he's been at and at the very least we have our coach to move forward. Then he turned us down today, and the process has to start all over again NEXT week.
Uhhhhh, what? Next week? No, you cannot wait until next week. You don't have that kind of time. The coach should have been in place yesterday, last week, hell two weeks ago. The Pens don't have the luxury of time to "wait til next week." They need their new coach NOW.
But that should not be the worst of all of this, want to know what is? The worst part is the fact that a minor league coach, a guy who spent the majority of his career as a juniors coach and the rest of the time in the minor leagues would rather coach the Vancouver Canucks than the Pittsburgh Penguins. Wow!... That's a punch in the gut and a reality check. But that shows where this organization is at right now. They know the GM is here on the interim. They know that they are likely here on the interim too, because everyone knows they want Mike Babcock. Plus, they will be expected to not only win, but win yesterday. There is no rebuild time, no just hold the fort down until next year, win now no matter what.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are in big trouble. We have a GM who has no business being here but is because he was essentially the lesser of two evils. We have minor league coaches with no NHL experience telling us "No, I'd rather coach the Canucks or the Hurricanes," than Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. We are a week away from a vital draft and two weeks from free agency with no coach in site. And we as a fan base are standing here watching all of this and seeing nothing for the investment that we put into this team. We have a team being run solely based around getting our money instead of winning Stanley Cups, regardless of what they're saying.
We have been duped and led astray for weeks now, I believe at the hands of President David Morehouse. He is too concerned with the marketability of this team than winning, even if he tells you differently. If he was more interested in winning, Kris Letang would have been traded last summer for the desperately needed pieces. Ray Shero would not have been fired, or at the very least we would not have been left with a GM that is only here on the interim. We would have our coach by now, our coaching staff. We would have begun talks about re-signing guys like Matt Niskanen or Jussi Jokinen, and looking at the pieces we need to add come July 1st.
But no... Here we are, no better off today than we were six weeks ago when Shero was fired and frankly, heading in fifteen opposite directions that don't lead down the road to success this year. Where is Lemieux? Where is Burkle? Why is every time something happens we get stuck getting half-assed answers from a former politician instead of the owners? Ask yourself that people, because that is where we are right now. It is a shame, not just for guys like Crosby and Malkin who are in their primes, but for us fans, who live and die by this team.