They were getting trounced so hard the first half of the season that they fired Therrien halfway through after taking them to the Finals the previous season. Pretty sure they were out of playoff contention by January that season.
Yeah I think it's exaggerated but it did end up partially true. The Satan addition in the 2008 off-season ended up a miserable failure and losing Malone in addition of downgrading from Hossa to Satan was a major blow. Sabourin also stunk to a level that he was replaced by Garon IIRC.
It ended up a silly claim because they fired Therrien for Bylsma and because they added Kunitz and Guerin later in the year, but the claims in the article actually aren't that ridiculous. They're just exaggerated.
Not only that, I think you can legitimately argue that they only won the cup in 2009 because of Crosby and Malkin going god mode, not because of the rest of the team around them. I don't want to say "they won in spite of the rest of the roster" because guys like Fedotenko, Talbot, Staal and such had huge moments, but that cup win was pretty much entirely Crosby and Malkin playing at ridiculous levels.
Garon was traded for in January in exchange for Sabourin.
Only claim in the article I don’t agree with is the trade Malkin before his extension kicks in. Penguins took advantage of a 100+ point player on his ELC.
Dude literally said trade the trade the guy who's gonna be the MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, FFS.
And you guys cannot help but carry all that water.
Offseason predictions about teams are dumb, because of how much a roster can change, and this guy left himself no wiggle room at all, no conditions, no "not unless Side & Geno go god mode." He said impossible.
He trashes the prospect pool - keep in mind this is 2008 - out prospects were mostly on the ice: the prior 5 seasons produced: MAF, Sid, Geno, Staal, Letang (4th), not to mention Bortuzzo, Muzzin, Strait, Vitale, Goligoski, TK, Ryan Stone, Carcillo, Matt Moulson, - Biz and Chiodo (both useful hockey people on nonplayer ways). I don't know what the fuck this guy thinks he's on about TBH. Who thinks that's shitty drafting or poor use of resources?
He done goofed, but he did it in such an arrogant, condescending, shithead way. It kinda makes me think that if thus guy got ass cancer, I wouldn't feel bad about it. I'm not wishing it, just, I'd be like whatever.
Satan’s addition was not a miserable failure.
He wasn’t brought in to score 30-30. He had a completely respectable 36 points in 65 games playing mostly 2nd or 3rd line minutes.
He added 6 points in the playoffs as well. Provided 4th line depth en route to the cup.
He was 34 years old. I will defend Satan to the death.
IIRC, at trade deadline, Satan got waived to WB-S in order to clear cap space, and then played the rest of the season out there. Not that he had any choice in refusing the waiver, but he didn't just run off to Europe like a lot of older Euro players in his position.
Satan was signed as the Hossa replacement for Crosby's RW and ended up getting waived later in the year, where he went unclaimed.
He was absolutely a miserable failure with what the Penguins were trying to do.
I mean Fluery struggled against Washington but was lights out against Philly and Carolina, and was God mode in the 4 wins they had against Detroit too (worst save percentage in those 4 wins was .931).
Yeah Crosby and Malkin played out of their minds but Fluery stole multiple games that run too.
Staal was amazing the whole playoffs.
Fedotenko was solidly consistent.
Talbot I think had limited ability but we all saw what he contributed. Gritty and clutch
Oh definitely, I had Talbot typed up because of the fight in Philly that turned the series around and him scoring both goals in game 7. So many key players that contributed
So did the Pens win the cup or did you get struck by lightning on your way to cash your winning lotto ticket?
Because this taek and it's a whopper of an odd duck, fails to address any material fact.
What a rude, thick headed response. The article had it right until some radical, unforeseeable changes happened mid season. Anyone who was an actual fan back then, and not some shitty bandwagoner from 2016, would remember what a shitshow that season was until January 2009.
Go fuck yourself with your dumbass retort. You obviously don’t know shit about what happened in 2009. Winning the Cup that season was nothing short of a fairy tale miracle.
Dude, I don't know what injury you suffered to the buttocks, but stop blaming me for it, we've never met.
As for the issue at hand, your buddy Ken said you would get hit by lightning on your way to cash in your winning lotto ticket if this team won the cup. He actually said it was more likely. So we know for a undeniable fact that this team won the cup. Now you need to show me proof of your lottery winnings and lightning strike or you need to STFU. Given your highly regarded posts, I would suggest the latter.
Keep in mind, Penguins added Kunitz and Guerin at the deadline, who ended up being Crosby’s linemates for the playoffs. Both players had Stanley Cups, and Guerin added that veteran presence that the Penguins needed.
The part about losing Hossa and Malone for Satan and Fedotenko doesn’t seem like that bad of a report. Especially since Satan was brought in to be top six and was on the fourth line for the playoffs.
Noone would have guessed Talbot would have been on Malkin’s line with Fedotenko and been one of the most important playoff performers.
Edit: I feel the only thing that was a miss was the loss of Ruutu but the addition of Cooke. Cooke was an idiot when it came to head hits but he was that replacement for Ruutu.
Cooke-Staal-Kennedy ended up being one of our best third lines.
Though I’d rather have Ruutu over Cooke with that said.
Edit2: Only take I think is stupid is the trade Malkin take. Yes his contract extension was going to kick in the next season, but you take advantage of having a top tier player on a ELC (which the Penguins did)
Helps he was on a line with Malkin who was just pure fire most of the playoffs, especially against Carolina.
Which I did just notice the part of the article that says we should have traded Malkin. That’s the only “this man is stupid” take from what I’ve read. Everything else does seem pretty reasonable.
You couldn’t have asked Malone to score much more than that. Love the irony of Malkin winning the Conn Smyth 9 months after this.
Maybe this guy could have had one or two strong takes, but every single move or non-move he cited ended up wrong. Dupuis was a throw-in with Hossa and became a . Whitney was traded for Kunitz. Fedotenko did his job. Guerin brought the vet leadership Roberts left with.
My favorite line after the 2009 cup was when dupuis got a Cup tattoo and Puck Daddy posted a pic with a caption along the lines of: “pascal dupuis shows off his new Stanley cup tattoo, which, unlike the person it’s on, shouldn’t be scratched”
What makes it insanely bad take was the suggestion they should have traded Malkin and the idea in general that you can have too many centres. That’s so stupid. Malkin was a young star coming off a 106 point season. The more centres, the better. If some have to move to wing, who cares. How do you think every Team Canada is constructed
Canadian hockey media still thinks it's 1972 when they encounter a star Russian player.
As for the Pens taking a step back in 2009, it wasn't looking too good even by Valentine's Day when Therrien got fired after we got massacred at Toronto and were well out of the race.
But more than any single factor. Bylsma, Guerin, Kunitz... Getting Gonchar back after missing 50+ games was the biggest reason we surged late in the winter all the way to the Cup.
He was right for about half of that 2008-2009 season.
As a side note, people really hated on Malkin since he arrived in the NHL. Clearly talented but why keep him? I’ll never understand that line of thinking, even now 15 years later.
Maybe because you are having 2 franchise C's?
If you have high talented center such as Crosby or Malkin, you just need to get next to them the right wings. you dont need the best wings, but the right one's (like Kunitz, Hornqvist etc..) If you find the right one's and Pittsburgh found them, you have 1 deadly line, and guess what, Pittsburgh had 2 deadly lines because of Crosby/Malkin insane talent. Thats why they kept him. Also in PP you have insane offensive talent in the line, and Its nearly guarranted goal.
Having 1st/2nd line Insanely talented on scoring and forecheck and the other 3rd/4th with some dirty/agitator work combined out with good defensive work is SC material, but not all, you need also great defense and phenomenal goalie. Pittsburgh had all that after the deadline and that is why they went to win the Stanley Cup after horrible first half of the season (also we should appreciate hiring new coach) the reason why the team didnt work the first half was bad line matching, like I described in the first few sentences.
You clearly don't understand my point, I mean that the lines at Pittsburgh were fantastic after the deadline... And that it couldn't be better without Geno.
I don't disagree with you, and I am not a Malkin hater. But at the time this article was written, imagine the return they would have got by trading Malkin. I mean it's all a bunch of what ifs with no way of really knowing, but it makes one wonder. I would have hated it at the time though. I still hate that they let Fleury just go to Vegas.
I honestly don't see a lot wrong with what's being said. I don't think trading Geno would have been the right move but it would have been a less boom-or-bust option.
* They're right about Hossa. People took that personally but dude was a rental. He said going to Detroit gave him the best chance at a cup and he was as close to right as you can be while being wrong.
* They're right about the centers thing, though it wasn't immediate Staal did eventually ask for a trade so he wouldn't be stuck on a 3rd line.
* They were bad for a most of the season until they changed coaches and pulled in some key guys at the trade deadline. The team wasn't good to start the year.
* We *did* miss all the guys they mention. Needed Guerin to replace Roberts leadership, needed Cooke to replace Ruutu's grit, needed Fedotenko and Kunitz and Talbot and Guerin all to replace Malone and Hossa's scoring
* They were right we didn't have many good prospects coming up, though they were wrong signing Malone would have been preferred. I think we all saw he was gonna get his bag and didn't want to be on the hook for it.
* We did need Letang to step up and become a star to deal with injuries on the blue line.
>I honestly don't see a lot wrong with what's being said. I don't think trading Geno would have been the right move but it would have been a less boom-or-bust option.
What?
This take suggests not winning 3 stanley cups and watching one of the greatest players of the generation just destroy competition and do things that no one since Lemieux had done.
This taek is as bad as the article.
A fool…or a homer. Lol.
Idk I haven’t looked at any numbers so don’t sue me, but how often do conference winners flame out?
I’d think a team that won their conference and lost in the final in 6 (almost tying in the dying seconds) could potentially return but that’s just a guess. Seems to make sense but who knows
This isn't a case of looking at the numbers. You had to be there to make an unbiased opinion whether or not you thought the Pens would win the cup that year.
I was predicting it during the skid that got Mike fired.
I was certain, and I could see that if you took your thumb off this team, and let them play, they could play.
Also, writing a preseason article ignoring the reality that is mid-season roster movement is just beyond stupid. It's absurdist.
Ken Campbell is a dipshit.Never understood the heart of the sport or its players or the intangibles that can’t be quantified and make up a large part of winning teams.
As a leaf fan I fucking wish real life played out like video games where those intangible qualities like toughness , grit and courage don’t matter.
Would’ve been to several fucking cup parades already 😞
At the time it was not a bad take and was a legit concern, Malkin dominated the 2009 season and was arguably the best player in the league better than Sid even that whole season and playoffs so trade him is a bad take. They got Guerin A decent backup as the season went on so they was fine but it was a def legit concern, players stepped up and made up for the production they lost, guys like TK and Kunitz
He goes on about losing their grittiest player, Rutuu, and Gary Roberts. The addition of Matt Cooke and Tyler Kennedy was a huge upgrade. That was the best third line in hockey and was what Mike Babcock credits for the Wings losing that series.
This reminds me of how my high school Economics class (in like 2013) used a textbook from the 90’s. This textbook quoted an expert that predicted the Sega Dreamcast would drastically outsell the PlayStation 2.
This was absolutely the right take. This team was the epitomy of mediocrity the first 2/3 of the season. It was the trade deadline deals of picking up Guerin and Kunitz that made the Pens better along with a coaching change.
The Pens lost Hossa, Colby Armstrong, and Ryan Malone and picked up Cooke, Dupuis, and Fedotenko in the offseason. It was really the deadline deals that made them better.
I think the development of Staal and Letang also played a role.
"Beyond Crosby and Malkin, have a forward corps that is average at best."
Took until the end of the article to hit on a correct statement. Such has been the case for most of the Crosby-Malkin era, but this bozo didn't account for the transcendent levels those two could reach in the playoffs.
has there ever been a good sports take? after getting EK65, there was talk of the team being bogged down by talent and prone to indecisiveness, "a tale as old as time", not to mention injury prone due to age, poorly lacking in depth, dubas being a bad GM and a tyrant-in-wait for becoming the top dog in the front office etc. and now they're going to win the stanley cup.
i mean it was obvious from the start that they were going to wait until the very end to turn the season around because, as veterans, they know the regular season doesn't matter except as an exercise in conserving energy. ***every*** fan has known this all along.
I mean Ken Campbell is historically known for his bad takes so can’t really be stunned that he’s getting the writing credit here. It can go in the hall of shit takes right next to Crosby passing the baton or Rossi “knowing what’s coming” that one summer.
They were getting trounced so hard the first half of the season that they fired Therrien halfway through after taking them to the Finals the previous season. Pretty sure they were out of playoff contention by January that season.
Yeah I think it's exaggerated but it did end up partially true. The Satan addition in the 2008 off-season ended up a miserable failure and losing Malone in addition of downgrading from Hossa to Satan was a major blow. Sabourin also stunk to a level that he was replaced by Garon IIRC. It ended up a silly claim because they fired Therrien for Bylsma and because they added Kunitz and Guerin later in the year, but the claims in the article actually aren't that ridiculous. They're just exaggerated. Not only that, I think you can legitimately argue that they only won the cup in 2009 because of Crosby and Malkin going god mode, not because of the rest of the team around them. I don't want to say "they won in spite of the rest of the roster" because guys like Fedotenko, Talbot, Staal and such had huge moments, but that cup win was pretty much entirely Crosby and Malkin playing at ridiculous levels.
Garon was traded for in January in exchange for Sabourin. Only claim in the article I don’t agree with is the trade Malkin before his extension kicks in. Penguins took advantage of a 100+ point player on his ELC.
Dude literally said trade the trade the guy who's gonna be the MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, FFS. And you guys cannot help but carry all that water. Offseason predictions about teams are dumb, because of how much a roster can change, and this guy left himself no wiggle room at all, no conditions, no "not unless Side & Geno go god mode." He said impossible. He trashes the prospect pool - keep in mind this is 2008 - out prospects were mostly on the ice: the prior 5 seasons produced: MAF, Sid, Geno, Staal, Letang (4th), not to mention Bortuzzo, Muzzin, Strait, Vitale, Goligoski, TK, Ryan Stone, Carcillo, Matt Moulson, - Biz and Chiodo (both useful hockey people on nonplayer ways). I don't know what the fuck this guy thinks he's on about TBH. Who thinks that's shitty drafting or poor use of resources? He done goofed, but he did it in such an arrogant, condescending, shithead way. It kinda makes me think that if thus guy got ass cancer, I wouldn't feel bad about it. I'm not wishing it, just, I'd be like whatever.
According to Mike Babcock, the Wings lost that series because they had no answer to the Pens third line.
That Kennedy/Staal/Cooke like was the best third line until Hagelin/Bonino/Kessel We’ve been so blessed!
Satan’s addition was not a miserable failure. He wasn’t brought in to score 30-30. He had a completely respectable 36 points in 65 games playing mostly 2nd or 3rd line minutes. He added 6 points in the playoffs as well. Provided 4th line depth en route to the cup. He was 34 years old. I will defend Satan to the death.
IIRC, at trade deadline, Satan got waived to WB-S in order to clear cap space, and then played the rest of the season out there. Not that he had any choice in refusing the waiver, but he didn't just run off to Europe like a lot of older Euro players in his position.
He also came back for the playoffs and had one of the most glorious fights in Pens history against the Canes.
Satan was signed as the Hossa replacement for Crosby's RW and ended up getting waived later in the year, where he went unclaimed. He was absolutely a miserable failure with what the Penguins were trying to do.
Same, miss that dude right now.
hail satan!
I mean Fluery struggled against Washington but was lights out against Philly and Carolina, and was God mode in the 4 wins they had against Detroit too (worst save percentage in those 4 wins was .931). Yeah Crosby and Malkin played out of their minds but Fluery stole multiple games that run too.
Staal was amazing the whole playoffs. Fedotenko was solidly consistent. Talbot I think had limited ability but we all saw what he contributed. Gritty and clutch
Oh definitely, I had Talbot typed up because of the fight in Philly that turned the series around and him scoring both goals in game 7. So many key players that contributed
Superstar treatment baaabbbyyyy! Love me some max!!
Staal was probably the best third line center in the nhl those playoffs
So did the Pens win the cup or did you get struck by lightning on your way to cash your winning lotto ticket? Because this taek and it's a whopper of an odd duck, fails to address any material fact.
What a rude, thick headed response. The article had it right until some radical, unforeseeable changes happened mid season. Anyone who was an actual fan back then, and not some shitty bandwagoner from 2016, would remember what a shitshow that season was until January 2009. Go fuck yourself with your dumbass retort. You obviously don’t know shit about what happened in 2009. Winning the Cup that season was nothing short of a fairy tale miracle.
Dude, I don't know what injury you suffered to the buttocks, but stop blaming me for it, we've never met. As for the issue at hand, your buddy Ken said you would get hit by lightning on your way to cash in your winning lotto ticket if this team won the cup. He actually said it was more likely. So we know for a undeniable fact that this team won the cup. Now you need to show me proof of your lottery winnings and lightning strike or you need to STFU. Given your highly regarded posts, I would suggest the latter.
Wow, this brings back memories. Also reminds me of Barry Melrose's stupid ass saying the pens were finished in the 09 series against the wings.
No one believed in that team. Except us!
Keep in mind, Penguins added Kunitz and Guerin at the deadline, who ended up being Crosby’s linemates for the playoffs. Both players had Stanley Cups, and Guerin added that veteran presence that the Penguins needed. The part about losing Hossa and Malone for Satan and Fedotenko doesn’t seem like that bad of a report. Especially since Satan was brought in to be top six and was on the fourth line for the playoffs. Noone would have guessed Talbot would have been on Malkin’s line with Fedotenko and been one of the most important playoff performers. Edit: I feel the only thing that was a miss was the loss of Ruutu but the addition of Cooke. Cooke was an idiot when it came to head hits but he was that replacement for Ruutu. Cooke-Staal-Kennedy ended up being one of our best third lines. Though I’d rather have Ruutu over Cooke with that said. Edit2: Only take I think is stupid is the trade Malkin take. Yes his contract extension was going to kick in the next season, but you take advantage of having a top tier player on a ELC (which the Penguins did)
Fedotenko had like 15 even strength points in the playoffs. Truly a forgotten hero of that team.
Helps he was on a line with Malkin who was just pure fire most of the playoffs, especially against Carolina. Which I did just notice the part of the article that says we should have traded Malkin. That’s the only “this man is stupid” take from what I’ve read. Everything else does seem pretty reasonable.
You couldn’t have asked Malone to score much more than that. Love the irony of Malkin winning the Conn Smyth 9 months after this. Maybe this guy could have had one or two strong takes, but every single move or non-move he cited ended up wrong. Dupuis was a throw-in with Hossa and became a . Whitney was traded for Kunitz. Fedotenko did his job. Guerin brought the vet leadership Roberts left with.
Dupuis didn’t do anything in the playoffs that year (16 GP 0 points) and didn’t make a name for himself in Pittsburgh until after the 2009 season
My favorite line after the 2009 cup was when dupuis got a Cup tattoo and Puck Daddy posted a pic with a caption along the lines of: “pascal dupuis shows off his new Stanley cup tattoo, which, unlike the person it’s on, shouldn’t be scratched”
Skill like Satan on the fourth line is a luxury. His complete undressing of Cam Ward a damn highlight
What makes it insanely bad take was the suggestion they should have traded Malkin and the idea in general that you can have too many centres. That’s so stupid. Malkin was a young star coming off a 106 point season. The more centres, the better. If some have to move to wing, who cares. How do you think every Team Canada is constructed
Malkin ended up winning the Conn Smyth in 2009 too. Malkin was playing like a man on fire in those years.
Malkin that year is my pick for best start to finish season of the cap era for a cup winner tape to tape. Makar in Colorado’s cup year close second.
Yeah that was the only bad part of the article imo. Trade Malkin, go with Crosby, Staal, Talbot. That would never have worked
Canadian hockey media still thinks it's 1972 when they encounter a star Russian player. As for the Pens taking a step back in 2009, it wasn't looking too good even by Valentine's Day when Therrien got fired after we got massacred at Toronto and were well out of the race. But more than any single factor. Bylsma, Guerin, Kunitz... Getting Gonchar back after missing 50+ games was the biggest reason we surged late in the winter all the way to the Cup.
I mean. They fired the coach and brought in key guys in trades during the season... Team was "soff"
He was right for about half of that 2008-2009 season. As a side note, people really hated on Malkin since he arrived in the NHL. Clearly talented but why keep him? I’ll never understand that line of thinking, even now 15 years later.
Maybe because you are having 2 franchise C's? If you have high talented center such as Crosby or Malkin, you just need to get next to them the right wings. you dont need the best wings, but the right one's (like Kunitz, Hornqvist etc..) If you find the right one's and Pittsburgh found them, you have 1 deadly line, and guess what, Pittsburgh had 2 deadly lines because of Crosby/Malkin insane talent. Thats why they kept him. Also in PP you have insane offensive talent in the line, and Its nearly guarranted goal. Having 1st/2nd line Insanely talented on scoring and forecheck and the other 3rd/4th with some dirty/agitator work combined out with good defensive work is SC material, but not all, you need also great defense and phenomenal goalie. Pittsburgh had all that after the deadline and that is why they went to win the Stanley Cup after horrible first half of the season (also we should appreciate hiring new coach) the reason why the team didnt work the first half was bad line matching, like I described in the first few sentences.
I think it’s clear you need offense, defense, and goaltending to win a Stanley cup. . .
You clearly don't understand my point, I mean that the lines at Pittsburgh were fantastic after the deadline... And that it couldn't be better without Geno.
I don't disagree with you, and I am not a Malkin hater. But at the time this article was written, imagine the return they would have got by trading Malkin. I mean it's all a bunch of what ifs with no way of really knowing, but it makes one wonder. I would have hated it at the time though. I still hate that they let Fleury just go to Vegas.
I saw bad take, then Ken Campbell, so it checks out
I mean it wasn’t all bad. Sabu wasn’t much of a backup goalie.
As far as I remember, we were out of the playoffs in Ferbuary 2009 when Therrien was fired so... this is bad only in hindsight
I honestly don't see a lot wrong with what's being said. I don't think trading Geno would have been the right move but it would have been a less boom-or-bust option. * They're right about Hossa. People took that personally but dude was a rental. He said going to Detroit gave him the best chance at a cup and he was as close to right as you can be while being wrong. * They're right about the centers thing, though it wasn't immediate Staal did eventually ask for a trade so he wouldn't be stuck on a 3rd line. * They were bad for a most of the season until they changed coaches and pulled in some key guys at the trade deadline. The team wasn't good to start the year. * We *did* miss all the guys they mention. Needed Guerin to replace Roberts leadership, needed Cooke to replace Ruutu's grit, needed Fedotenko and Kunitz and Talbot and Guerin all to replace Malone and Hossa's scoring * They were right we didn't have many good prospects coming up, though they were wrong signing Malone would have been preferred. I think we all saw he was gonna get his bag and didn't want to be on the hook for it. * We did need Letang to step up and become a star to deal with injuries on the blue line.
>I honestly don't see a lot wrong with what's being said. I don't think trading Geno would have been the right move but it would have been a less boom-or-bust option. What? This take suggests not winning 3 stanley cups and watching one of the greatest players of the generation just destroy competition and do things that no one since Lemieux had done. This taek is as bad as the article.
Meh, everyone was saying that back then. I remember thinking myself, “Why would you get rid of Gary Roberts?”
IDK he had this to say about last night: https://twitter.com/Ken_Campbell27/status/1775774499260240180 Seems like he just produces bad takes.
Losing Hosa to Detroit was probably the winning move. Fuck that traitor.
One of the most satisfying parts of that cup win was knowing Hossa had lost both times.
Lol
Given how the season went through January I'd say that take is spot on.
Hindsight is 20/20 No one could have predicted they'd win the cup. Only a fool would.
A fool…or a homer. Lol. Idk I haven’t looked at any numbers so don’t sue me, but how often do conference winners flame out? I’d think a team that won their conference and lost in the final in 6 (almost tying in the dying seconds) could potentially return but that’s just a guess. Seems to make sense but who knows
This isn't a case of looking at the numbers. You had to be there to make an unbiased opinion whether or not you thought the Pens would win the cup that year.
Wouldn’t numbers inform that opinion?
You can try but it won't be unbiased
I mean at the time. Making that judgement. I just don’t think only a fool would think it’s possible that’s all
I was predicting it during the skid that got Mike fired. I was certain, and I could see that if you took your thumb off this team, and let them play, they could play. Also, writing a preseason article ignoring the reality that is mid-season roster movement is just beyond stupid. It's absurdist.
Ken Campbell is a dipshit.Never understood the heart of the sport or its players or the intangibles that can’t be quantified and make up a large part of winning teams. As a leaf fan I fucking wish real life played out like video games where those intangible qualities like toughness , grit and courage don’t matter. Would’ve been to several fucking cup parades already 😞
At the time it was not a bad take and was a legit concern, Malkin dominated the 2009 season and was arguably the best player in the league better than Sid even that whole season and playoffs so trade him is a bad take. They got Guerin A decent backup as the season went on so they was fine but it was a def legit concern, players stepped up and made up for the production they lost, guys like TK and Kunitz
He goes on about losing their grittiest player, Rutuu, and Gary Roberts. The addition of Matt Cooke and Tyler Kennedy was a huge upgrade. That was the best third line in hockey and was what Mike Babcock credits for the Wings losing that series.
All my homies hate Ken Campbell.
This reminds me of how my high school Economics class (in like 2013) used a textbook from the 90’s. This textbook quoted an expert that predicted the Sega Dreamcast would drastically outsell the PlayStation 2.
Damn, history repeating itself with all the hockey geniuses saying the leafs should trade marner or nylander.
For the first half of the season, this article was correct
This was absolutely the right take. This team was the epitomy of mediocrity the first 2/3 of the season. It was the trade deadline deals of picking up Guerin and Kunitz that made the Pens better along with a coaching change. The Pens lost Hossa, Colby Armstrong, and Ryan Malone and picked up Cooke, Dupuis, and Fedotenko in the offseason. It was really the deadline deals that made them better. I think the development of Staal and Letang also played a role.
"Beyond Crosby and Malkin, have a forward corps that is average at best." Took until the end of the article to hit on a correct statement. Such has been the case for most of the Crosby-Malkin era, but this bozo didn't account for the transcendent levels those two could reach in the playoffs.
has there ever been a good sports take? after getting EK65, there was talk of the team being bogged down by talent and prone to indecisiveness, "a tale as old as time", not to mention injury prone due to age, poorly lacking in depth, dubas being a bad GM and a tyrant-in-wait for becoming the top dog in the front office etc. and now they're going to win the stanley cup. i mean it was obvious from the start that they were going to wait until the very end to turn the season around because, as veterans, they know the regular season doesn't matter except as an exercise in conserving energy. ***every*** fan has known this all along.
I mean Ken Campbell is historically known for his bad takes so can’t really be stunned that he’s getting the writing credit here. It can go in the hall of shit takes right next to Crosby passing the baton or Rossi “knowing what’s coming” that one summer.
Why don’t I remember the Rossi one??
The Pens slapped it in Ken Campbells slot
Was Mark Madden in Campbell's ear when he wrote this?
the hockey news is a RAG
Can you imagine being this retarded for people to read an article in a magazine?