It’s all about timing when it comes to entering the playoffs on the right foot.

With only 16 games left in the regular season, the Pittsburgh Penguins are picking a good time to elevate their game and make them—yet again—a force to be reckoned with as the second season approaches.

Sure, the Pens have the best group of centers in the game—but while Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Jordan Staal are hitting the top of their game, the rest of the team is right behind them.

With every new season comes a set of battles that will test every team. To win the Stanley Cup, a team needs to find a way to win despite plaguing troubles that will test players’ character. 

For the Pens, they started the season strong and were fighting for the top spot in the league. Analysts threw away any notions that the team could be faced with a Stanley Cup hangover.

But then, like any team, the Pens were faced with injury problems and individual and team slumps as the season progressed.

However, like the championship team they are, the Pens have fought through the bumps and are well on their way to another deep run in the playoffs.

They did this by slowly returning to beginning-of-the-season form.

First, this meant the Pens regained their health.

The beginning of the season meant a team full of healthy bodies—excluding Max Talbot, who was still rehabbing after surgery on a torn labrum in his left shoulder. As the season progressed, it seemed as if the Pens roster had been replaced by call-ups from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

With the help of the Olympic break, players nursing injuries—like Marc-Andre Fleury (fractured finger) and Talbot (groin)—were able to heal, and the Pens were finally able to submit a roster of healthy players. 

Obviously, a team that is healthy is crucial to start the playoffs. A healthy team has a better chance at winning games—which was exactly what the Pens were doing at the beginning of the season.

Things went a little bad after that, and the entire team went into an almost lulled state. The hockey was sloppy—and wins weren’t coming at a consistent rate from November through February.

That has completely changed following the Olympic break. Maybe the Pens really needed that break, but the team has been playing nothing but solid hockey since. It was like the hiring of Dan Bylsma all over again.

The Pens have been dominating all three zones in the rink. The penalty kill has been stellar, and the power play—once the weakest in the NHL—is now 20th. Overall, every aspect of the Pens game has shown solidity I hadn’t seen in a long time.

They’re truly playing beginning-of-season hockey—when they played like they had something to prove to the NHL world.

This had to do with the fact that the Pens did have something to prove to the NHL world. They were fresh off a Stanley Cup win.

That winning desire began to wear off after a while—and it looked like the Pens didn’t show up on certain game days. Their play overall was simply too inconsistent to feel comfortable with the team’s chances in the playoffs.

Not anymore.

They are now playing with a hungry stomach, ready to taste the champagne from Lord Stanley’s Cup for a second year. They are finally proving not only to every team—but to us, the fans—that they want to win again.

Most recently, the Pens have been able to conquer their biggest problem—the individual slumps.

Everyone was contributing at the beginning of the season in some form, but it didn’t take long before some players started going cold.  Those players include Ruslan Fedotenko, Kris Letang, Alex Goligoski, and Pascal Dupuis. I mentioned in a previous article that while the team was sitting in fourth in the East, it couldn’t rely on the production of the big guns come playoff time.

Then something clicked in the rest of the team. Again, maybe the team was battered from the injury problems earlier in the season, but the entire team has finally come alive.

Fedotenko has found his playoff form, Letang is skating with more confidence than ever—despite not finding the net with his team defense-leading 133 shots on goal— Goligoski killed his scoreless streak, and Dupuis is filling the net at alarming rates.

One concern that has been brought up is the health of the Olympians. All I can say is Crosby, Malkin, and Sergei Gonchar have not seemed to lose their form and have kept on track.  Brooks Orpik, however, has played with an extra something that I know came from his experiences in Vancouver. 

The biggest worry was Fleury, who went cold after not getting a good practice for two weeks. He has since proven that he can still bounce back.

Now with the acquisition of Jordan Leopold and Alex Ponikarovsky—players who will only help the team on its quest as repeat contenders for the Cup—the Pens are finding their groove.

And it couldn’t be at a better time.

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It was a pick that changed the face of the Pittsburgh Penguins. An early pick of a sure-fire core player. A pick that became a key to the Penguins‘ Stanley Cup victory of 2008-2009.

And the words of Gary Bettman changed the lives of Penguins fans everywhere:

“With the second overall pick in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, the Pittsburgh Penguins select Evgeni Malkin, out of Russia.”

Ahem. Sorry. I actually meant:

“With the first overall pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft, the Pittsburgh Penguins select Marc-André Fleury, from the Cape Brenton Screaming Eagles.”

I think it was actually a bit later than that.

“With the first overall pick in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, the Pittsburgh Penguins select Sidney Crosby, from Rimouski Oceanic!”

A little further…

“With the second overall pick in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, the Pittsburgh Penguins select Jordan Staal, of the Peterborough Petes.”

Cue rowdy applause. High fives in the Penguins’ board room. Analysts saying, “The Pens definitely got it right with this one,” and “The fans definitely deserved this.”

And the fans did deserve it. The Pittsburgh Penguins had had a top five pick for the last five years (Ryan Whitney being the first) and it was about damn time that the storied franchise stopped the bleeding.

Granted, Gary Bettman’s words may have not have been IDENTICAL every time, and the venues had changed, but otherwise it was becoming a familiar feeling for Penguins fans. The player who the analysts promised would turn the Penguins around immediately; who would finally lead them back to the finals.

And in 2008, he did. Well…They did. Looking at the Penguins’ roster from their run to the cup, their two best players were undeniably Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Their goaltender? Marc-André Fleury. Best 2-way forward? Jordan Staal. And best defenseman? Ryan Whitney, their fifth overall pick from the 2002 NHL Entry Draft.

In their cup-winning season of 2009, their core was almost identical, save that they had dealt Whitney for Chris Kunitz, who has, of course, become a new core player for them.

The point I am making here is that the Penguins lost to win. This Cup would not have come about without the five years of bottom five finishes.

The problem with the NHL Entry Draft is that it is almost a guarantee that if you lose enough, you end up with a franchise player. This is not fair to the rest of the teams in the league, and this is not fair to the fans. Do you think that a team with five consecutive bottom five finishes would survive in a smaller hockey market than Pittsburgh?

Another problem is that other teams are emulating this strategy. Take the Washington Capitals for example. While they are not nearly as notorious as the Penguins at this strategy, it still took three years of top five picks to give them three of their key pieces: Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Karl Alzner. 

Teams in the NHL are making one thing clear: if they know they aren’t going to make the playoffs, they have no reason to try and win. In fact, teams that do try and win at this point are punished by being assigned a lower pick than teams below them. No team with a brain and a draft pick would prefer finishing ninth over finishing 15th.

Just look at the Edmonton Oilers this year. I bet that if they could do it without losing fans, they would forfeit the rest of their games this year, just to win the “Taylor Hall Sweepstakes.”

And believe me, I understand the benefit of the current system. It promotes parity. It makes sure all teams are competitive.

My problem is that it can win teams Stanley Cups.

And, worst of all, at a time in which the NHL and its franchises are bleeding money, no self-respecting fan would pay to consistently go and see a consistent loser.

My plan to fix this is simple, though it may outrage some of the weaker franchises in the league: Turn the lottery into a real lottery .

Hear me out. We can leave every pick after No. 14 the way it is now. The teams that make the playoffs can be ranked with the current combination of season and postseason success. Rounds 2-7 can be entirely based on record. Pick location is less of a factor at that point anyway.

But for the first 14 picks, every team that doesn’t make the playoffs should have an equal shot at the 1st pick, and therefore the same shot at the 14th. This would take out the “losing to win” element of the game completely, unless you can honestly see a team in a playoff spot trying to lose their way out so they have a shot at first. In a league as competitive as the NHL, no team should ever be benefited by losing.

I understand that this would create serious complications, such as sacrificing the interests of the teams who are close to last place. It could theoretically turn them into subpar teams for years to come, and slow down the rebuilding process. This could theoretically lose them fans and money.

But one thing is for sure: the team will be playing their heart out in every game until the season is over. This is what would keep the fans around. If the fans are willing to show up at games for teams that lose under the current system, where they pretty much know that the team doesn’t care about the outcome, why wouldn’t they be willing to show up at hard-fought, competitive games?

Even teams that were perennial losers would eventually fight their way out, be it through a draft pick, or simply the team’s effort. 

The NBA tried this for a couple of years, and it actually proved effective, save for conspiracy theorists. In the 1985 NBA Entry Draft, the New York Knicks won the lottery and took a man named Patrick Ewing first overall.

However, people cried foul, and claimed that the NBA introduced this lottery system that year only in order to make sure that their most important franchise stayed competitive.

My solution to this for the NHL is also simple: announce this before the season. Going into the 2010-2011 campaign, announce that there shall no longer be any glory drawn from losing.

Be fair to the teams that actually try to make the postseason and fall just short. Stop defending the mediocre. The NHL has always argued that parity is the most important thing in their league, but they entirely neglected the fans along the way. The draft system needs to be redone before they lose the fans completely. 

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Ray Shero, Pittsburgh’s wizardly General Manager, said on March 1 following the acquisition of Jordan Leopold from the Florida Panthers, “I’m not really that interested in trading players off our team because I’m trying to strengthen it, not weaken it.”

This has been Shero’s mentality and when the Olympic “trade-freeze” was lifted Sunday at midnight, he waved his wand.

63 hours later, Jordan Leopold from Florida and Alexei Ponikarovsky from Toronto were turning in their jerseys to don the black and gold until, at least, the end of the season.  Toronto also sent over a 2010 sixth-round draft pick.

And what did Pittsburgh lose?

Not much, actually.

To be more specific, a 2010 second-round draft pick in the Leopold deal, Chris Peluso for the draft pick, and Martin Skoula and Luca Caputi in the Ponikarovsky deal.

Skoula went from sitting in the press box to top two defensemen when 90 percent of the Penguins defense was injured.  I would be lying if I said he didn’t contribute to the team, but with a healthy blue line in tow, he would be useless. 

Overall, Skoula was invisible; no glaring mistakes or plays come to mind when I think of him.

Caputi only played four games in the NHL this season and is easily the biggest loss of the bunch.  With 23 goals and 47 points, he was second on the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in scoring and impressed many when injuries forced him to be called up to the NHL.

The talent Caputi has shown in the AHL and NHL level made this deal tough for Shero, I’m sure, but other talent continues to brew in WB/S in Eric Tangradi, Dustin Jeffrey, Mark Letestu, and Nick Johnson.

Lastly, there was Peluso.  Peluso who, you ask?  Enough said, but for the record, he’s a senior defenseman at Bemidji State of College Hockey America.

These deals weren’t easy for Shero, but more importantly, no current Penguins had to move from the roster in order for the deals to take place.  On a team that has been successful so far in the season, that’s huge.  Looking back at the quote, any move that involved Penguins leaving would have weakened the roster.

In the end, Shero sacrificed a so-so defenseman and possible top six forward (if he develops as planned) for a solid, big-bodied scorer and an above-average defenseman. 

I definitely can’t complain with the result.  At least for now.

I’ve watched Leopold in two games as a Penguin and while he’s made me hold my breath a few times against Buffalo, he hasn’t screwed up and he’s made very smart plays in his end and the offensive zone.

I’ll have to wait until Saturday to make any assessment about Ponikarovsky.  So far, I’ve been pleased every time I saw him in Toronto.  He ended last season with 23 goals and 61 points and a very impressive +6 on a team swimming in the negatives.

Before the trade, Ponikarovsky was one of three Leafs with a positive +/-.  Again, very impressive.

Both Leopold and Ponikarovsky are going to need time to adjust to Dan Bylsma’s system, but I don’t forsee any problems in that department.  Bylsma’s system is one that keeps on giving if all players are working hard and doing their jobs.

It has worked miracles on players like Mike Rupp, Pascal Dupuis, and Jordan Staal, who have either reached or are en route to having record seasons.

If all goes as planned, these new Penguins should help the team make another deep run into the playoffs.

Prior to the trades, the Penguins had the same offensive squad that won the Stanley Cup last June save the loss of Petr Sykora and Miroslav Satan and the addition of Mike Rupp. 

Adding Ponikarovsky, a big winger with good hands who can score will only help the Pens, especially if he can find some chemistry with hometown buddy Ruslan Fedotenko while on Malkin’s line. 

I expect Ponikarovsky to really benefit from Bylsma’s system and hopefully learn it quickly with the help of his new linemates.

The team’s defense is another story.

The Penguins were dealt a major blow with the loss of shutdown defensemen Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill in the off season.  To stop the bleeding, Shero signed defensive defenseman Jay McKee and brought up Alex Goligoski from the Baby Penguins.

However, their performances overall have been slightly disappointing after very solid starts of the season.

With the Pens sitting 21st in the NHL with 2.88 goals against per game average, it became clear that something needed to be done with the defense.

It’s premature to assume that Leopold will be unable to do the job Scuderi did in the playoffs, but I feel that Leopold’s assignments in Florida against top forwards like Alex Ovechkin can only help the Penguins. 

If Leopold can ensure that he will play smart hockey in his own end, then he’ll be in good shape.  He doesn’t need to worry about jumping in the offense rush, but these past two games have shown me that he’s more than capable of doing that without becoming a defensive liability.

Overall, another fabulous job by Shero to show how to make a team better without trading away more talent than receiving.  Although any implications of the trade have yet to show, I have no reason to doubt Shero’s wizardly ways.

Why, you ask?

A look at the picture is all that is necessary.  He built a Stanley Cup-winning team last season and finalist the season before.  He knows what he’s doing.

In Shero I trust.

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