Defenseman Letang is Penguins' unsung star

BY FRANK SERAVALLI
Daily News Staff Writer
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/flyers/
April 10, 2012

NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 15: Kris Letang #58 of the Pittsburgh Penguins skates with the puck in front of Marian Gaborik #10 of the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on March 15, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)

PITTSBURGH - For the Pittsburgh Penguins, one player - more than any other - is vital to their on-ice success against the Flyers.

He is a 24-year-old Canadian with a sparkling resumé that includes a Stanley Cup, multiple All-Star appearances and statistics that stack up with the best in his position in the NHL.

He missed a significant chunk of this season with postconcussion symptoms. He returned for a bit, dazzled to pull the Penguins out of a funk, and then was forced to sit out again later because of fogginess. His team struggled mightily without him.

His name is not Sidney Crosby.

In fact, many think the Penguins learned how to win without Crosby, who missed 107 games over the last two seasons and five against the Flyers alone. Instead, it's a lot tougher to explain Pittsburgh's marginal 18-13-0 record without Kris Letang this season.

The Penguins' two-pronged attack of Crosby and Evgeni Malkin deservedly garners the spotlight on a nightly basis. Quietly, some think Pittsburgh will go only as far as Letang - their horse on the back end - will take them in the playoffs.

"When he's out, we miss him, there's no question about that," Penguins forward Arron Asham said. "He's just as talented as any one of those guys [pointing around the locker room]."

To say the least, it was a tough season for Letang. Injuries are the only thing that have kept him out of the Norris Trophy race as the league's top defenseman. Even with the concussion and knee injury, which caused him to miss 31 games, Letang was nearly a point-per-game player, with 42 in 51 contests.

He finished second among defensemen in points-per-game to Ottawa's Erik Karlsson. Letang has 21 points in 28 career games against the Flyers.

But to single out Letang as simply an offensive dynamo would be to shortchange him.

"I've really seen his overall game develop," Penguins assistant coach Todd Reirden said on Saturday. "We have quite a bit of depth, both here and in [AHL] Wilkes-Barre, but none have the unique package that he does.

"He's a unique package of being able to add in the offensive zone, whether it's on the power play, or just getting a shot through most of the time. Then he's able to be able to defend with his feet. His pride with defending has changed quite a bit.

"His feet are great. His stick-on-puck is arguably one of the best in the league. When it comes time for him to play physical, he's got a great center of gravity down low. He can win battles down low against bigger, power forwards, and that's something that goes unnoticed."

Reirden, the former NHL player who heads the Penguins' defense under Dan Bylsma, said Letang's game has changed thanks to a daily video session that has quickly become a tradition. Letang and Reirden review game film together "for at least an hour" daily.

Even though plus/minus is a flawed hockey statistic, Letang finished this, his fifth full season, as a plus-21 playing against each opponent's top line nightly.

"The video has allowed him to slow the game down," Reirden said. "He's studied how to make himself better. Then he watches the top defensemen around the league."

Asham said Letang will "skate you into the ground." Letang averaged 24:50 in ice time this season, which Reirden said is "just a normal game for him." For the Penguins, any sense of normalcy is fleeting when Letang's familiar No. 58 is not meandering the blue line.

Pittsburgh lost six straight from Dec. 29 through Jan. 11. Letang returned on Jan. 19 and, not surprisingly, the Penguins went on to win five consecutive games; they had another 11-game streak from late February to mid-March.

"We saw our numbers on the power play drop quite a bit without him," Reirden said. "The minutes he can play are effortless. He takes a lot of pressure off our other guys."



Contact Frank Seravalli at seravaf@phillynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @DNFlyers. Read his blog, Frequent Flyers, at www.philly.com/frequentflyers.

Crosby regaining his hockey instincts

By Shelly Anderson
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
April 10, 2012

PITTSBURGH, PA - APRIL 7: Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins handles the puck against the Philadelphia Flyers during the game at Consol Energy Center on April 7, 2012 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

Skating over the blue line, Sidney Crosby still finds himself pondering a little about what comes next.

That makes him just a mite envious of his Penguins teammates who have played all season and are performing heavily on instinct.

"They go in and they don't have to worry about stopping in the [defensive] zone," Crosby said. "They have to think about it, but it's becomes more [a habit]. I miss that. I miss it feeling automatic."

Only a well-trained eye could pick up on that rustiness. Crosby has been out most of the past 15 months because of concussion and neck problems, but he has stormed back in his latest, second comeback.

He enters the first-round playoff series against Philadelphia, beginning Wednesday at Consol Energy Center, with 25 points -- six goals and 19 assists -- over 14 games since returning to the lineup.

Where many might see an impressive average of 1.79 points a game in that month-long stretch, Crosby sees room for improvement, especially with goals.

"It's more of a timing thing for me," he said. "I want to make sure I take advantage of [scoring opportunities]. When you get to the playoffs, you're not going to get five, six a game. It could be two.

"I've been trying to focus on every little detail and make sure I improve. Sometimes it just takes time, but it hasn't been from a lack of effort. I knew coming in that it's a little tougher jumping in in March than it is jumping in in November. It's a different style. The games are different, faster-paced."

Crosby first returned to the lineup this season on Nov. 21, to great fanfare after he had been out since Jan. 5 -- more than 10 months spanning two NHL seasons. He had two goals, two assists in a 5-0 win at home against the New York Islanders. His numbers wilted a bit -- no goals, eight assists -- over the next seven games before recurring symptoms again forced him out of the lineup.

Back to watching. Back to waiting. Back to wondering when he would feel normal for good -- his version of normal being one of the best hockey players, if not the best, on the planet.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/penguins/sid-regaining-his-hockey-instincts-630697/

For more on the Penguins, read the Pens Plus blog with Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson at www.post-gazette.com/plus. Shelly Anderson: shanderson@post-gazette.com and Twitter @pgshelly.


Related: Ron Cook - Flyers Crumble When Crosby At His Best -
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/ron-cook/flyers-crumble-when-crosby-at-his-best-630686/

Extra cash won’t change Cutch

By Dejan Kovacevic, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/?_s_icmp=nav_sports
Monday, April 9, 2012

PITTSBURGH, PA - APRIL 08: Andrew McCutchen #22 of the Pittsburgh Pirates hits a walk-off RBI single in the 9th inning in front of Brian Schneider #23 of the Philadelphia Phillies during the game on April 8, 2012 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

Andrew McCutchen is an extraordinarily wealthy young man, you might have heard. That six-year, $51.5 million extension he signed with the Pirates a couple of months ago launched him into a spending bracket most of us can't fathom, much less attain.

As McCutchen loosely acknowledged Sunday morning, "It's a heck of a lot of money. A lot more money than I'd ever be able to spend on my own."

Must be nice, huh?

But here's another way to think about all that cash: If McCutchen takes 500 at-bats a year over the life of the extension, he'd be paid $17,167 for every time he steps into the box.

That can exact a price of a different kind.

It can bring pressure.

It can have a player squeezing his bat to sawdust.

"Really? You think so?" McCutchen offered through a playful smile when I raised the topic. "You think that's me?"

Um, well, no.

And if it recklessly crossed my mind ever so briefly in seeing McCutchen go 1 for 7 and bounce into two double plays through two games of this opening series with the Phillies ... well, all was set right by Sunday afternoon: The Pirates' best player went 3 for 4 with a double, a walk and, oh yeah, a walkoff single slammed off the center-field fence in the ninth.

Pirates 5, Phillies 4.

The outcome was a thing of beauty, a second walkoff in as many days and two of three from a National League power armed with great arms.

But it was no prettier than the final at-bat alone, one that Pedro Alvarez adroitly said, "just shows the kind of player Cutch is."


Read more: Kovacevic: Extra cash won’t change Cutch - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/columnists/s_790471.html#ixzz1rYTVVSRZ

Don’t rip Penguins, or else

By Larry Brooks
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com
April 8, 2012

Pittsburgh Penguins' Evgeni Malkin (71) and Sidney Crosby (87) sit on the bench during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Philadelphia Flyers in Pittsburgh Saturday, April 7, 2012. The Penguins won 4-2. (AP)

As If there had been any previous doubt, this week’s events demonstrated once and for all the Penguins are the NHL’s version of Made Men, not only untouchable but protected by the authorities against insult.

The league responded to John Tortorella’s withering verbal attack on the Pittsburgh organization, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin as if the Rangers coach had bellied up to the bar and told Mario Lemieux to go home and get his shine box.

The NHL whacked Tortorella in the pocketbook is what they did, because if there’s one thing the league can’t allow, it’s calling attention to the Most Favored Nation status granted the Penguins and their owner.

The irony is that’s exactly what the league accomplished by overreacting to Tortorella’s colorful verbiage with its $20,000 fine approximately 14 months after the NHL had allowed Lemieux to skate away free of charge after the owner issued a statement on his team’s website in which he condemned the league for its response to brawls between the Islanders and the Penguins at the Coliseum.

Lemieux threatened to walk away from the NHL the way he once threatened to take his team to Kansas City. He said the league had failed. The league said it would take no action against the owner.

The “arrogance” of the Pittsburgh ownership to which Tortorella referred is a sense of entitlement bestowed upon it by a league that appears more invested in protecting the Penguins than opponents who might be injured as a result of reckless plays that somehow always are deemed accidental or not worthy of NHL sanction.

On its own, the Brooks Orpik knee-on-knee hit delivered to Derek Stepan in the final minutes of Thursday’s game in Pittsburgh probably was not worthy of a suspension.

The fact is, however, it was not a stand-alone incident. Orpik initiated a similar, perhaps even more malicious, knee-on-knee hit against Brad Richards in the neutral zone midway through the first period of a game at the Garden on Nov. 29, a play in which neither a penalty was called nor supplemental discipline issued.

Malkin is notorious for his slew-footing escapades on which he never is cited, all the way back to the 2008 playoffs against the Rangers. Matt Cooke got away with a leg sweep on Richards in the second period of a game at the Garden on Jan. 19. Aaron Asham injured the Bruins’ Johnny Boychuk leg-on-leg April 3, two days after another one of those “accidental” collisions against Philadelphia that just happen to follow the Penguins from city to city.

Pierre McGuire, meanwhile, saw nothing.

Better for the NBC’s between-the-glass future employment prospects in either the broadcast industry or in an NHL front office to remain silent rather than cast a critical glance at the Penguins, much less record anything other than an audio love letter their way.

It always has been inexplicable NBC would have wanted Mike Milbury, someone whose idea of analysis is invariably to dive straight to the bottom and engage in character assassination and attack on an individual’s manhood, as its representative.

But the network never one time flinched until this week, when Milbury had the audacity to defame Crosby, Malkin and the Penguins the way he has built a TV career defaming Jaromir Jagr, Alex Ovechkin, Daniel and Henrik Sedin ... uh, maybe there’s a pattern?

The network, and by extension, the league, was fine with years of ridicule and personal attack over its own airwaves, but when Milbury dared to similarly bottom-feed on the Penguins and Crosby in a radio interview, no less, whoa boy, enough was enough.

An apology was coerced and Milbury conveniently will not be among the participants in tomorrow’s joint network and league conference call (“Uh, Mike, did you mean it when you called Crosby a ‘punk’ before you recanted?”) designed to publicize the coverage of the playoffs.

The 11th Commandment: “Thy shy not speak ill of the Favorite Son.”

Everyone is on notice from the league. The problem for the league though, is everyone has noticed the double standard as applied to the Penguins by a league that was silent when Lemieux, coolly detached two days after an event, attacked the operation but reached into Tortorella’s pocket for $20,000 when the coach, white hot 20 minutes after an incident, did the same.

As far as the smell test goes, the league has passed.

It smells, all right.

larry.brooks@nypost.com

Malkin's feats thrill team

By Ron Cook
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
April 8, 2012

Pittsburgh Penguins' Evgeni Malkin (71) celebrates his 50th goal of the season, in the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Philadelphia Flyers in Pittsburgh Saturday, April 7, 2012. (AP)


It turns out there was a good reason the Penguins' power play looked so putrid Saturday during a five-minute major penalty given to the Philadelphia Flyers' Zac Rinaldo for checking defenseman Zbynek Michalek from behind into the boards midway through the first period.

"We were killing ourselves looking for [Evgeni Malkin]," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said.

Getting Malkin his 50th goal was the Penguins' No. 2 mission going into the game. No. 1 was getting out of it with everybody healthy against a team that likes to play it rough and tacitly had threatened violence against Penguins star Sidney Crosby earlier in the week.

The Penguins accomplished both goals in their 4-2 win.

They will start the playoffs against the Flyers this week with all hands on deck, including 50-goal scorer Malkin.

Does that have a nice ring to it or what?

"That's a huge number," Bylsma said.

Malkin didn't get No. 50 during that long early power play, but he did become the ninth player in Penguins' history to reach it when he took a drop pass from defenseman Kris Letang and blistered a shot by Flyers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky at 19:48 of the second period for the game's final goal. Crosby is one of the other eight along with Jean Pronovost, Pierre Larouche, Rick Kehoe, Mike Bullard, Mario Lemieux, Kevin Stevens and Jaromir Jagr. Crosby, who scored 51 goals in the 2009-10 season, knows how hard it is to reach.

"When you get close to 50, the games start to go and start to narrow down," he said. "You obviously think about it. It's a great number. To do it coming off the injury that [Malkin] did makes it even more impressive. I think we're all really happy for him."

Happy?

"Everybody is ecstatic," Bylsma said.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/ron-cook/cook-malkins-feats-thrill-team-630432/

Dedication paying off for Pens' Evgeni Malkin

By Rob Rossi, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/?_s_icmp=nav_sports
Sunday, April 8, 2012

Pittsburgh Penguins' Evgeni Malkin (71) celebrates his 50th goal of the season with teammate Sidney Crosby in the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Philadelphia Flyers in Pittsburgh Saturday, April 7, 2012. (AP)

Evgeni Malkin is an acknowledged cheater.

As a teenager, his mom said, Malkin would complain of a sore arm and quit tennis matches against his brother late in a decisive set when defeat seemed imminent.

Since joining teammates' card games on Penguins charter flights, he has bullied his way to wins. All is well if Malkin plays the proper hand, but somebody is at fault if he does not and teammates concede defeat rather than deal with his sharp jabs or sleight-of-hand deals, winger Matt Cooke said.

The surest sign of Malkin's willingness to put himself over, at least in the opinion of his dad, are the nights when he sabotages his girlfriend during games of Narde, a two-player board game similar to backgammon.

"If I lose, I hate everyone, everywhere," Malkin said Thursday night after he scored a goal and recorded an assist in a home win over the New York Rangers his sixth goal and eighth point in six games against the club with the best record in the Eastern Conference.

To be clear: Malkin is cool with cheating if it means not losing.

"Always," he said, flashing a grin, "and sometimes it's the same in hockey. You stay near the blueline, and the coach gets mad, but sometimes if you want to win you need a little bit to cheat."
This season has proven to be an ironic exception to that rule.

Malkin, 25 and in his seventh NHL campaign, won a second scoring title with 50 goals and 109 points and is the favorite to win the Hart Trophy (MVP) for which he twice has finished runner-up by refusing to cheat on a commitment to fitness he made about a year ago while rehabbing an injured right knee that forced him to watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

He has not skimped on the daily workouts that involve plyometric circuits, core compulsions, lung-burning cardio, kettle bells and traditional weights. What he started in July in Moscow with Penguins strength coach Mike Kadar continued through a postgame session Saturday.

Staying in supreme shape so that teammates could count on him to consistently produce not becoming only third Penguins player to lead the league in scoring more than once is what Malkin said he is most proud of this season.

That is a very Sidney Crosby-like thought, and it should not surprise anybody that Malkin expressed it.
"Geno is like Sid in the sense that he leads by example," Kadar said. "Also, if there is something in front of him, he wants to win at it.

"If you'd look at the stuff we did in the gym over the summer, it was always him wanting one more rep than the guy he was working with, but once we were done with the workouts, it was him back to being laid back and laughing. He's really funny in those spots, but when there is a competition, he gets serious. You can actually see the difference on his face.

"I think he knew he had to step up this season because we weren't sure about Sid's health."


Read more: Dedication paying off for Pens' Evgeni Malkin - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/penguins/s_790414.html#ixzz1rV9DYUYW

Highlights: Penguins 4, Flyers 2