The Brief Summary Post—Or, How You Can Know You’ve Arrived as an NHL Star

• Your name is on the All-Star ballot.
• No one complains when you're named to the All-Star team.
• The national broadcasters–and other people in the game–regularly discuss you as a candidate for one of the major awards the NHL hands out in June.
•  Opposing General Managers mention your name when talking about how one of his elite players stacked up against you. 
• Opposing teams make it a point to figure out how to get you off your game and take away your time and space. 
• Your teammates expect you to play key minutes on the special teams units.
• Nobody really talks about any of the many things you do right or well.   A lot of people talk about every little thing you do wrong or could do better.
• When your teammates get hurt, you’re the player who’s expected to take on a bigger role and play more minutes at the same high level. 
• If you’re still young, everyone ticks off a list of all the things you’re not good enough at yet and even when they know you’re working on those things every day practice they still scream because they just know you should already be good enough to do those things.
• If you’ve previously, oh, dominated the NHL playoffs and led the league in scoring, fans wonder if you’re done and if you’ll ever get back to that level and they’re not satisfied until you’re back to or exceeding that level because you showed you could do it before and things like recovering from surgery or playing through the flu or playing with nagging injury soul have no impact because you are a star player and should be able to be a star no matter what. 
• Twitter explodes every time you make a mistake with proclamations about how overrated and overpaid you are and if you will ever realize your considerable potential and all the reasons you won’t realize your considerable potential.   Usually this involves talking about your lack of “hockey IQ” or “scoring sense” or some other quality you clearly just don’t have, in spite of the above noted achievements by people actually paid to work in NHL hockey.
• Your coach expects you to be one of his best players, game in and game out, and when you're not, he's going to let you know in no uncertain terms that you have to be better--even as he still throws you on the ice to protect a 1-goal lead or mount a comeback from a 1-goal deficit in the waning moments of the third period of a 3-2 game.
• You’re expected to be a plus player every night, not allow any shorthanded goals to be scored, always make tape-to-tape passes, always get each of your shots on the net, and if you’re a goalie, you better never misplay a puck behind your net or go for the pokecheck at the wrong time. 
• When you go a game without a point or allow more than 2 goals in a game, it's considered a slump.  If you dare to go 2 games sans a point or allow more than 2 goals in 2 consecutive games, people wonder if you're secretly injured/what in the world is wrong.  If such a circumstance would happen for 3 games in a row, it's believed you're on the verge of "major meltdown." 
• You’re considered a core member of a perennial Stanley Cup contender.

The Brief Letter to the (Right Now  Healthy Enough to Play) Star Penguins:

Dear Marc-Andre Fleury, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Jordan Staal and probably soon enough James Neal:

I’m sure you’ve noticed the price you’ve paid for your play.    You’re STARS in the NHL now!  And you’re expected to be PERFECT!

I am certain you’re happy to be NHL stars, and I’m also sure you actually aspire to perfection (it’s a key reason why you got where you are, no doubt).

So just wanted to send a note of encouragement to remind you that the price you have to pay (perfection is now the standard expectation) is worth it.

But you already know that.    How’s the view up there?

Oh, right.   You’re not worried about the view up there.   You’re back at practice trying to help your team get the only view that matters—the Stanley Cup held aloft their heads— in June.

Anyhow, congratulations on your arrival as NHL stars.   

P.S.  And remember the secret code for NHL stars:  to play as perfectly as you possibly can on the way to the postseason and you play that way even more in the playoffs.

P.P.S.  There’s actually another secret code.   You shouldn’t stop at stardom.  You should be superstars, and do the impossible of improving upon perfection.  

P.P.P.S.    Ah, shucks—you’re already trying to do that, even though you’re not yet perfect because you’re star athletes who are human, too, so I should probably let you do what you’re already doing and enjoy my view that lets me see you guys be stars in the NHL.

The brief address to the screaming masses (sometimes known as pundits, sometimes known as fans, sometimes known, sadly (albeit not in high-performing organizations) as the ones in the game who don’t get it):

They’re star players.   And they’re human beings.    Please let them get better at the things they still have to get better at and be happy that they’re working to get better at those things while still doing lots of other things that make them the core of a perennially contending team.

Signed: 

 A terribly annoying Hockey Consultant who is very easily annoyed when star players are expected to be perfect deities, rather than elite, high-performing athletes who perennially help their teams contend for championships

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?"

Enjoy It, Edmonton (Letting Childhood + Youth Be Exactly That)

The Pittsburgh Penguins are Hockey Consultant's favorite—and hometown—franchise. Aside from the seasons that ended with Cup victories, a few other seasons stand out to Hockey Consultant as "very special" seasons. And when Hockey Consultant gets a glimpse of the Edmonton Oilers of 2011-12, particularly their young forwards, she's reminded of one of her favorite seasons in Pittsburgh hockey history, 2006-07.

Back in 2006-07, the Penguins were still a line-up of children. Literally. Evgeni Malkin was a 20-year-old rookie center; Jordan Staal was an 18-year-old rookie center. Sidney Crosby was a 19-year-old sophomore player. Marc-Andre Fleury was in his first year of "consistent" starting for the NHL team. Kris Letang was a 19-year-old defenseman who briefly made the team out of training camp. Tyler Kennedy was a 20-year-old prospect playing his first full season of professional hockey in Wilkes-Barre. On that Penguins team, former first-round picks Brooks Orpik and Ryan Whitney were still early in their then-nascent NHL careers and were rightfully viewed as talented and inexperienced kids.

Flash forward one spring, and all those kids had the experience of winning three playoff series and playing in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Flash forward two springs. Going only by birthdate standards, the triumvirate of centers remained kids. Going only by birthdays, important but complementary 22-year-old players on that Cup run, Kennedy and Letang, were still just kids. The goalie wasn't yet 25.    

But as hockey people—and fans—understand well, something happens as soon as you win the Cup. You're never a kid again. You've proven you can win it once. So the old long-awaited goal and dream is now the every-day-of-every-year expectation.

You won it once?

When are you winning it again?

It can be easy for Hockey Consultant to forget how young the players on her favorite team remain. Jordan Staal—the third-line center of the Penguins when Crosby and Malkin are healthy—has already scored 100 goals in the NHL. Kris Letang and Tyler Kennedy have already played hundreds of NHL games. Evgeni Malkin is a former playoff MVP; Crosby is a former league MVP. All of these achievements—including scoring titles Crosby and Malkin both won—happened before any of these players turned 25.

But there's no way anyone in hockey, or any fan, will ever view any of those Pittsburgh young players as a kid.

Watching Edmonton play, though, Hockey Consultant sees a team rife with talented kids. While she doesn't see a Sidney Crosby, she can't avoid noticing how many talented kids populate the roster. Talented kids you can—as Hockey Consultant did with her Penguins back in 2006-07—look at and imagine what one day, will be.

So, even though the Oilers are not likely to make the playoffs this postseason, Hockey Consultant would advise fans across the league to pause and enjoy watching the Edmonton Oilers play hockey. Because it is fun to watch kids, as kids, play the sport. It is fun to imagine what some day, will be, without stressing out because right now, they're not producing as much as they can and will later and that's actually OK because that's kids being kids and they're developing and that's what they're supposed to do.

One of Hockey Consultant's favorite games can be seen on the web. The game is from October 2006. The Penguins have three teenagers score in this one game. Crosby would win the league scoring title that year. Staal would be a nominee for Rookie-of-the-Year. Letang would be returned to his junior team and captain Canada's entry at that year's World Junior Championships to a gold medal.

Two years later, all those players would forever be known as Stanley Cup champions.

With their names etched on the Cup, they'd never again considered kids whose development was expected to have a few curves here and there where productivity in games might be less than ideal as they figured out a few things. Having shown they could meet the standard of the apex of the sport, that standard and that level of play, across-the-board, became the everyday expectation.

Goodbye to commentators talking about the "kids" and "youth" and "potential" of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Hello, commentators talking about the "battle-tested" and "playoff experienced" of the young twentysomethings on the Pittsburgh roster. Hello to the reality of what the analysts said about how they'd need to be even better than they were before because every team now specifically game-plans to stop Pittsburgh's "battle-tested and experienced" youthful talent.

For Hockey Consultant, there's just something about that October game against the Rangers and the talent those teenagers showed when they scored the goals they scored. There's something about that special 2006-07 season that announced the Penguins were back as a force to be reckoned with. Something that said these kids were going to be scary. Along with just getting to go along for the fun ride of watching those kids learn how to win.

Edmonton is likely more than two years away from a Cup championship (the Pittsburgh group was accelerated by outside trades) and perhaps even from a season like the 2006-07 season was for the Penguins, but the journey of watching talented kids learn to be stars should be similar. And fun.

And, perhaps for Hockey Consultant, there's a reminder that though the experienced and accomplished and still young players that headline her favorite team's roster are never going to be kids again by NHL standards, there's still an echo and linger of youth in their games, too. Crosby has regularly picked one thing to improve at every offseason. Other players have followed the example of their captain and are continuing to find areas where they can improve, too. It's just that the improvement is expected and demanded, NOW, and a lot sooner than it ever used to be in terms of "perform in games, perfectly, now!" Gone, to some degree, is the sheer fun of enjoying as you watch kids figure out how to get as good as they are going to be.

But as a legitimate Cup contender with a finite amount of time to contend, well, the Penguins and everyone else simply understand that improvement has to happen. Because it's critical that Jordan Staal steps up offensively if Crosby and Malkin can't play. Tyler Kennedy has to score more goals, and really, really, really, Kris Letang seriously has to learn how to quarterback an elite power play. And ideally, of course, for Pittsburgh, all those things would have happened in games well before yesterday's games.

But when she watches the Oilers play, Hockey Consultant remembers there's magic in what you can enjoy when you just go along for the ride. And, as a fan before she was anything else, Hockey Consultant would tell any team with kids of any age or experience level : Go for the ride, and no matter how bumpy it is, enjoy it. Because youth and childhood last only for a season (in Pittsburgh's case) or a few seasons. So let the kids be kids—and enjoying watching the kids when the commercials call them, as they did for Pittsburgh back in 2007, "Boys against men".

Because, pretty soon, even if their birthdates say they're still kids, the playoff ads and announcers are going to be talking about how they once scored game-winning playoff OT goals or shorthanded goals in the Stanley Cup Finals or hat tricks in the conference finals and demanding and expecting that you reach that level again, and then, someday farther down the line, they're going to ask if your hands and feet will still allow you to do those things—

But for now, the Oilers are talented kids, and that's magic to watch.

So watch the magic. Enjoy the show. Let the kids be the kids they are for the season(s) when it lasts. And if you need a reminder, watch this magic show from 2006.

And remember how fun the journey was to see those same kids eventually do this.

Consulting Advice for the Reigning Jack Adams Winner: Get Elite Consistency from Elite Talent

As HBO’s 24/7 told us, Dan Bylsma’s reign as Head Coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins has pretty much been a “Steel City” dream.    Bylsma’s success story is clear:  He took over as Head Coach, and a few months later, he could add to his resume “Head Coach of a Stanley Cup champion”.   It was under Bylsma’s direction that the Penguins had the best penalty kill in the NHL in 2010-11 and still finished with 106 points in spite of the absence of former NHL scoring champions Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin for half a season.    Bylsma got All-Star level results from four talented players and still had a structure in place for the rest of the team—half of which, at one point, was composed of AHL players—to win tight games against other NHL teams.

In his coaching tenure, seemingly the only thing Bylsma has failed to do, quite honestly, is to have a power play that consistently produces to the level of the talent on the ice.    When the team was still healthy last year, there was actually a darkly comical moment when Bylsma was wearing a microphone during the team’s “Inside Penguins Hockey” weekly show.   Bylsma’s power play, featuring three All-Star players, was practicing a 5-on-3, and Bylsma actually stopped and asked Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang:  “Which one of you is putting the puck in the net?”   The players, not wearing microphones, had some sort of discussion among themselves, but Hockey Consultant was darkly amused that the Head Coach actually had to stop and ask which of his All-Star players would deign to achieve the objective of the practice exercise and shoot the puck to score a goal on the power play. 

Yet, for Hockey Consultant, that scene stirs the one piece of feedback she’d have for Dan Bylsma that’s not about the power play.   It’s about managing superstar players who have more skills than anybody else and, at times, go off the deep end and try to do too much themselves.  Before Malkin’s 2010-11 season ended with a knee surgery, he regularly tried to do “too much” and didn’t have success at the MVP level he’d proven capable of in prior seasons.  The tale of Kris Letang’s two seasons—looking like the best defenseman in hockey before the All-Star break and not close to that same level after the All-Star break—is, incorrectly, blamed on Sidney Crosby’s absence.  Hockey Consultant observed that the issue was not Crosby’s absence, in and of itself, but that Letang changed his game when Crosby and Malkin went down and started trying to run the entire show himself (failing miserably, because an elite defenseman can’t defend well if his main focus is on attempting to supply the missing offense of two centers who are former NHL scoring champions).

Hockey Consultant is aware that the issues of Malkin and Letang trying to do too much could be due to their ages:  They are experienced, but still young (and they weren’t born with the same preternatural maturity of a Sidney Crosby).  You could say it’s on the players to learn the game and make the simple play and play within themselves.    You could say that—and Hockey Consultant would agree, wholeheartedly—it is something the players have to learn, and that it’s going to be learned, at times, like it or not, through painful experience of what doesn’t work when they run around trying to control a game in and of themselves.

But Hockey Consultant has an additional take, and her additional take is this.   Pittsburgh’s Head Coach, who has proven capable of letting superstars do their thing, putting role players in positions to succeed, and having AHL players come into his lineup and play within his system without missing a beat, still has plenty of room for growth when it comes to getting elite consistency from elite talents.   He knows how to provide the atmosphere for the elite talent to grow, but he still has to work to do in learning how to manage the players to get them to, well—

Stop doing too much.

Make the simple play.

Your talents are awesome.  Take that risk.  Don’t take that one.

And when they start doing that—to stop it and correct it, immediately.  The way Bylsma stops and corrects and seemingly fixes everything else.    He’s got to learn how to do it with players who have elite talent but who, too often, because they try to do too much, fail to have elite consistency.

Perhaps it’s trust.   Letang doesn’t try to do too much when Orpik is his defense partner.    When Malkin trusts his linemates—even Max Talbot in the 2009 playoffs—he doesn’t try too hard to do everything.  But when Malkin and Letang don’t have that trust, they run around, trying to do everything, and in so doing, failing to consistently perform as elite talents. 

It’s on the players, of course.   Ultimately, it’s on the players to perform.   

But the Coach is paid for a reason.   Teams have coaches for a reason.  Hockey Consultant dares to suggest that if Head Coach Dan Bylsma can figure out the right conditions—and maintain them—and manage them—that he’ll soon have more people jealous of the team he gets to coach than he already does.  Because he’ll have two more consistently elite talents.  

And when those talents translate to the power play, well—there really will be nothing for Dan Bylsma to fix—except, of course, that is, climbing the mountain to achieve higher, year after year after year.

But for now:  Figure out when and why 71 and 58 start running around.   Stop and prevent those conditions if you can.  If you can’t stop all of those conditions (injuries will happen), do as much as you possibly can to manage those conditions.    But as soon as those elite talents start trying to do everything themselves, know this:  It’s their job to play within themselves, but it’s your job to make sure they know when they're not doing that and to help to provide the conditions where they know they must play within themselves. 

Coaching is always, on some level, a Catch-22.   But fix that—and really, the power play, too, but that’s a whole other topic for a different day and it was 2-for-its-first-2 so Hockey Consultant will lay off for a week—and Dan Bylsma, truly, is the coach that can get results from any level of player, no matter what.

On Inconsistent Brilliance—or Why It’s Still Better to Have Superstar Talent than No Talent at All

Hockey Consultant didn’t actually get to see the opening games of the NHL season.  (Sadly, Hockey Consultant recently moved and is annoyed with her limited options for Internet and cable service and still does not have the ability to view games online or on TV, though hopefully that situation will be rectified soon.)  In lieu of actually watching the games, Hockey Consultant utilized her smart phone to listen to an opening game and follow evening long chatter on various online forums and, of course, Twitter.

Hockey Consultant found herself very annoyed as she wondered about how two former All-Stars had actually played.   Some people complained that former Conn Smythe winner Evgeni Malkin and finished-sixth-in-Norris-Trophy-votes-in-his-age -23-&-4^th-NHL-season Kris Letang played horribly.   Both, it was clear, had shifts that resulted in taking penalties that should not have been taken.      Yet, there was another side to how these two players had played, as seen in other chatter:  Fans of the opposing team marveled at the talent of both players.  In between moments of “What-the-heck-was-that?!”, said negatively of chances that weren’t finished and giveaways, there were other moments of “What-the-heck-was-that?!” said in regard to brilliant plays that less talented players just can’t make.

Hockey Consultant did see one thing, though, which is why she prefers to view herself as a consultant (one who, on rare occasions, notices things that could be useful).    When the game was on the line—admittedly in the regular season way of a shootout—the Penguins had two All-Star talents capable of closing out a win.

That’s the thing about players with superstar talent, the kind that the two players apparently having very “mixed” games had.   Even when they have “off” nights and do terrible things that they don’t do on nights when everything is “on”, any competent GM or coach (note:  not a journalist, not a blogger, and not a fan) still wants those players on his team.   Because those players—even on an off-night—gave the Penguins something they would not have had if they didn’t have players with those talent.

Those kinds of players—even on their “off” nights where mistakes happen—still do more to help a team win than lose.   And when evaluating their games, as 24-7 showed us that GM Ray Shero and Head Coach Dan Bylsma regularly do, you might give them a middling grade of 3.  But you might bump those grades to 3.5 given how they came through in the shootout.   And you might also note that even on nights where their games were around a 3 level—they ultimately had key contributions in a victory on the road against one of last year’s elite teams. 

And you might be best off remembering that, for the most part (there will be occasional horrific games for even the best of players), what Hockey Consultant would encourage any frustrated GM or coaching staff to remember if they ever sought her advice for dealing with the reality that even superstars don’t always play at “level 5” (A+) level every night.   That superstar talent is what every team in the league covets because, well, that kind of talent can still end a game with one save, or one shot, no matter what happened the rest of the game.

So, consider this Hockey Consultant’s friendly reminder:  If your team has superstar talent, it means you’ve got a better shot at winning the game with one or two plays.   You’re never out of it.   You can always come back.

And those players you’re mad at for being inconsistent?

They’re superstar talents because they can play better—and there’s every chance they will.

So look forward to them playing better.  And, by the way, enjoy the win you got when your two superstar talents had “less than perfect” and even “inconsistent” games and still delivered a win for your team.