Experience, Competence, and Maturity: Cliché Words That Matter (And Explain Why the Seemingly Inexplicable is Easily Explicable)

In addition to knowing who they are, the Pittsburgh Penguins have another advantage on their side when it comes to winning games without superstar talents.

For all people wince at the Penguins forwards sans Crosby and Malkin, there's something important to note about the players who play important minutes on the Penguins.

The first power play unit, even sans Crosby or Malkin, typically consists of players with years of experience working on NHL power plays and still includes players who have been on a power play unit of a Stanley Cup winning team.

The penalty killing units, sans the team's best defensive defenseman, Brooks Orpik, typically consists of players with years of experience killing penalties and includes players who have killed penalties for Stanley Cup winners.

If you examine the youngest players on the Pittsburgh roster sans Crosby and Malkin, they have actually been through "playoff wars". Jordan Staal is 23. Tyler Kennedy and Kris Letang are 24. Since coming into the NHL, they've been to the Stanley Cup Finals twice and won the Cup once. They've each played in four Game 7s. They've been on the winning and losing side of deciding games in the playoffs and know what it takes to win and what it means to fall short.

Including those experienced younger players, anyone who's playing an important role on the Penguins—please note, for the most part—remains one of those "veteran" or "savvy" to whom all the cliché words can be accurately applied. They are players who possess:

    Experience: They've done it before.

    Competence: They know how to do it.

    Maturity: They actually execute what they know how to do.

While not all of Pittsburgh players meet this test, look at the ones who are given big minutes when the star players disappear from the line-up. With Brooks Orpik out to start the season, the remaining to three defensemen Kris Letang, Paul Martin, and Zbynek Michalek played nearly half of several sixty minute contests. Letang's the youngest, but his experience dwarfs that of many older players. Look at the players populating Pittsburgh's "bottom six", experienced veterans like Pascal Dupuis, Matt Cooke, Craig Adams, and Arron Asham. Bluntly put, the Penguins don't have any kids who are "learning" how to play in the NHL. If Pittsburgh hands a prospect a job, it's because he's ready for the rigors of the NHL and likely ready to play a small role on a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.

See, the Penguins are in "win now" mode. It's why they lost Nick Johnson on waivers to Minnesota. It's why Eric Tangradi is still in the minors. It's why players who might be allowed to learn the game at the NHL level in another organization are still playing for Pittsburgh's AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre.

But it's also one of the reasons why the team continues to win without Crosby and Malkin. Because the players the GM the team has surrounded his stars with are ready to contribute to a winning team, now. Because they may get sick of all the injuries, too, but because they still know how to play, and play well, sans the services of injured superstars.

See, the Penguins have chosen to have a lineup of experience. And as much as Hockey Consultant hates clichés, there's truth in the fact that a team comprised of players who know what to do (experience) and how to do it (competence) and then just go out and do it game after game (maturity) translates to a team that wins much more often than it loses.

It's not always a matter of age. And, at some point, the players with the talent and will get the experience (so say the 2009 Penguins who wrested the Cup from a team that had all those cliché words in spades). But it is a matter of knowing what to do and how to do it and then actually doing what you know how to do.

So the Penguins make it a point to have competent adults, as opposed to learning-on-the-job kids, filling out their roster. Though it may cost a bit more—there's a reason Pittsburgh is a cap team—that cost paid for itself when the Penguins made the playoffs in spite of playing all but one game in 2010-11 sans the services of one of their top three centers. And, thus far this season, the cost of paying for NHL-ready grown-ups has enabled them Penguins to get off to a fast start despite, once again, being without the services of two former NHL scoring champions.