Well, as you all know from reading http://www.nhl.com/ and http://www.thehockeynews.com/, The Penguins are no longer the Penguins. I shall call the the SuperPens. Cheesy, but accurate. The SuperPens are probably the youngest best team out there. Don't believe me? Let me read you a list of all the good Penguins youngsters and their points. Sidney Crosby, 88. Evgeni Malkin, 64. Ryan Whitney, 43. Michel Oullet, 34. Jordan Staal, 29. Colby Armstrong, 21. Erik Christensen, 19. Ryan Malone, 18. Maxime Talbot, 14. Robert Scuderi, 8. Kristopher Letang, 2. Noah Welch, 2. Now, some of these point totals clearly aren't league leaders, or anything like that, but think of it this way. Crosby is in his 2nd season, along with Whitney, Ouellet, Armstrong, Talbot, Christensen, and Scuderi. Malkin, Staal, Letang, and Welch are all Calder eligible. Only Malone has played more than 2 seasons, and he is in his 3rd. Then, if you want me to break it down further, how's this. Staal and Talbot's point totals are low, but each of them have around 4 short-handed points. Armstrong and Scuderi have also scored short-handed. Crosby, Malkin, Whitney, and Oullet have all scored more than 15 power play points. Here's something even more shocking. If you consider a true veteran as someone who has played more than 7 seasons, than the SuperPens only have 5 in Mark Recchi, Sergei Gonchar, Eric Cairns, Mark Eaton, and John Leclair. Then again, Eaton doesn't exactly count, as at least 2 of those 7 seasons were with 20 games or less. But doesn't that make you think, if they don't make it to the Finals this year (they probably won't as they are in the same conference as the Sabres), then they've got to do it next year. Seriously.
EastSide Hockey Manager
Pittsburgh- Speaking of the Penguins, I may have just acquired J-P Dumont, after the Predators put him on waivers despite a 63-point year. Mark Giordano, Shane Hnidy, and Dan Carcillo safely made it to WB/S, and I will probably try to send Tommi Santala down there if I do get Dumont. Season only started yesterday, am 1-1-1.
Rimouski- I am expected to be the best QMJHL team after a 14-40-13 season. Ouch. To make things worse, I started out 1-6-0. Kris Letang has helped those losses go back to 2-1 and stuff like that with his defense, and after I figured out that Patrice Cormier was playing defense, and I had no 4th line left wing, I quickly switched Oliver Fortier to LW, Cormier to center, and an actual defenseman to defense.
Prince Albert- Started the season 2-1-0, quickly tailed off to 3-4-1. No word on Martin Hanzal coming back yet.
Oshawa- Thanks to John Tavares and Ziga Pance, this is my only good CHL team. I am at 4-3-1.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton- Bryan Young was released by the Oilers while he was with me, and then I signed him to an AHL contract. I also offered contracts to Kyle Brodziak, J-F Jacques, and Drew Stafford. None of them have done anything yet. Started out 3-3-2.
See you later!
P.S. Forgot to mention that Marc-Andre Fluery rocks! He is another Penguin who should be good for a long while.