Some Teams Have Real Problems

     (Seriously: The largest identified issues are superstars occasionally not playing like perfect superstars and a theoretical concern about the sixth, seventh, and eighth defensive slots?)

Hockey Consultant got concerned when she saw the box score of the Minnesota Wild game the other night. Minor league call-up Brian Strait got injured. Brooks Orpik was still out with an injury, and Kris Letang was serving the first game of a two-game suspension. Zbynek Michalek and Paul Martin both had to play—literally—half the game. And Hockey Consultant got concerned that the Penguins were going to have a really tired out top-4 defense by the time the playoffs rolled around. And she was really worried about the coaching staff not having a 6^th defenseman they could trust to play solid minutes.

So Hockey Consultant proceeded to compose (an unpublished) blog post comparing Pittsburgh's current top 4 defense to the defense that was 8-deep that won the Cup. Long ago, in a former life on a different blog, Hockey Consultant wrote about the "Trade-Offs of a Salary Cap Era". And she's beginning to think that Matt Niskanen is looking, now, the way Kris Letang looked back in 2008-09 (talented and ready to play a role on a Cup contender, but not yet as an over 20-minute-a night-player). So she's really wondering about what happens if one of the top four defensemen goes down and what if two of the top four go down in the playoffs. Back in 2009, the Penguins were eight deep and a young Alex Goligoski and an old Philippe Boucher could step in and play limited minutes as needed, and the 2011-12 Penguins don't yet run eight deep on defense like that.

Seriously. This is Hockey Consultant's concern about her favorite team.

Hockey Consultant can only imagine how many other fanbases would love to have these problems:

• We are waiting on two former NHL scoring champions to return to our division-leading team.
  
• We are waiting for a 24-year-old defenseman who's scoring at nearly a point per game and generally playing very well to eliminate the occasional but really irritating brain-cramp mistakes from his game so he's brilliant ALL the time, not just MOST of the time.
  
• We are waiting for two "slow starting" veteran defensemen to get over their seemingly slow starts (which is already happening, but we get impatient very easily).
  
• And, of course, some of us (or just Hockey Consultant) are very, very concerned about the sixth defenseman and very concerned about being eight deep on defense in the playoffs and if number 7 and number 8 could actually play solid minutes if something happened (like it did in 2009 when Alex Ovechkin ran into Sergei Gonchar's knee).
  

So, Hockey Consultant knows that the Penguins could go and "upgrade" their number 6 defensive spot at the deadline, especially with the salary cap space they should have given the (unfortunate) injury of Crosby now. She knows the salary cap era means that there may be trade-offs and the Penguins may have to take the chance that none of their top-4 defensive guys goes down with an injury.

But as she looks at her "concerns" a few weeks into the season, she has to laugh. While she still thinks the pyramid is the best overall framework to figure out a franchise, when it comes to the regular season (which is going to stretch on for several more months), if the biggest thing you have to worry about is the sixth defenseman, well, umm….

There's a framework for that. For a fan, it's called gratitude and thanksgiving and enjoy it. Even beyond the obvious of "Former NHL scoring champions Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby being healthy", there are teams that would love to have "24-year-old Kris Letang being consistently brilliant all the time" and "Former Conn Smythe winner Evgeni Malkin not trying to do too much when healthy" and "We really need to solidify our 6 through 8^th defensive depth for the postseason" on their list of "problems".

So, remember that phrase your parents and teachers loved to throw to you about "Real problems"? The 2011-12 Penguins may yet (and, in fact, most teams will at some point) experience "real" problems that they will need to overcome to win the franchise's 4^th Stanley Cup.

For now, though, in October 2011, let Hockey Consultant be clear in speaking to fans of her favorite team when she echoes the words of teachers and parents by posing the rhetorical question: "You realize some teams have real problems?"