Goaltending Remains Playoff Question For Penguins
Aubin, Hedberg, Snow Mostly Untested
By Bob Grove

We have, over the years, come to expect the unexpected from the Penguins. After all, this is the team that once named its coach the morning of the season opener. This is the team that twice plunged into bankruptcy, the team whose owner, on game nights, can sometimes be found in a penalty box but never in a luxury box.

In a comfortably relative sort of way, then, it was business as usual as the Penguins played out the last weeks of the 2000-2001 regular season without any degree of certainty about who might be playing goal for them when the Stanley Cup playoffs open later this month.

"He's going to have to play well. He's going to have to make saves," Kevin Stevens said recently, succinctly outlining the job description for Pittsburgh's playoff goaltender - whomever it might be. It was entirely conceivable that coach Ivan Hlinka might not identify his goaltender until after the final regular season game in Carolina April 8.

"We'll have to wait and see how everything plays out," general manager Craig Patrick said late last month.

Rushing headlong into the playoffs, where the importance of solid goaltending can never be overstated, the Penguins were the only National Hockey League engaged in such a debate.

Twenty-three-year-old Jean-Sebastien Aubin played the majority of games over the final two months of the regular season, although he lacked the consistency he displayed last season and publicly fumed over the local goaltending debate that led up to the NHL trading deadline March 13.

"All I can do is go out and play my best," shrugged Aubin, who has never played in the Stanley Cup playoffs and has never won more than one playoff game in one year as a junior or a professional.

Veteran Garth Snow, 31, left the lineup Feb. 7 with a severely strained groin, and the Penguins were careful not to rush his recovery. Snow, who helped Philadelphia to the 1997 Cup Finals, might be fortunate to have more than two games under his belt before the regular season ends - not exactly the workload a goaltender prefers heading into the playoffs.

Further complicating the picture was the March 12 acquisition of 27-year-old Swedish goaltender Johan Hedberg from San Jose. Hedberg was a ninth-round draft choice of Philadelphia in 1994, was traded to the Sharks four years later for a seventh-round choice and had spent this season with Manitoba of the International Hockey League, where he was one of the league's best goaltenders.

Hedberg hadn't played a single minute in the NHL until the Penguins played him during a Florida road trip last month, yet Patrick refused to rule out Hedberg getting the call in the playoffs. The last time something that radical happened was 30 years ago, when a guy named Ken Dryden left Cornell University, played six regular-season games and then led Montreal to the 1971 Cup.

"It's quite possible. We've been watching him since he came over to North America (in 1997)," Patrick said. "We like his quickness, his style. He's technically really sound the way he plays. We're anxious to see what he can do."

While the goaltending questions remained, the sentiment in the dressing room was that Patrick this season has recast the Penguins as a bigger, tougher team that is better suited for the rough waters of the Eastern Conference playoffs ahead.

"We have a little more size, definitely a more physical team. Maybe if anything was lacking in the playoffs last year, we needed a little of that," said defenseman Bob Boughner. "In those areas, I think we're covered. When we get down to the nitty gritty in the playoffs, winning all those big battles along the boards, we've got the right personnel."

Gone from last spring's playoff team are goaltender Ron Tugnutt; defensemen Jiri Slegr, John Slaney and Peter Popovic; and forwards Tyler Wright, Rob Brown, Matthew Barnaby and Pat Falloon. Defenseman Michal Rozsival, who saw limited playoff action last spring, is unlikely to play this spring.

New to the roster are goaltenders Snow and Hedberg; defensemen Bobby Dollas, Frantisek Kucera and Marc Bergevin; and forwards Stevens, Billy Tibbetts, Wayne Primeau, Dan LaCouture, Steve McKenna, Krzysztof Oliwa and a guy named Mario Lemieux. Defenseman Andrew Ference might also see his first Stanley Cup playoff action.

"We think we have all the elements we need," Patrick said. "We're bigger, we're stronger, we've got the grit factor we may not have had as much of in the past. I think that's going to be a big component of how successful we are going forward."

The return of Lemieux and Stevens gives the 2001 Penguins three of the 12 most prolific playoff scorers in NHL history. On a points per game basis, Lemieux (1.74) is second only to Wayne Gretzky while Stevens (1.16) is sixth and Jaromir Jagr (1.08) is 12th.

"I'd take my chances with Mario and Jaromir in the lineup against any team in the whole playoffs," said Stevens, who has rediscovered some of his lost scoring touch and played a physical game since returning to Pittsburgh. "You know how fired up people get, the emotions. . . it's going to be tough to knock those two out.

"I think it's going to be tough to knock us out in a seven-game series. I can't wait. I haven't been in the playoffs since I left here. For me personally, I shake just thinking about it."

Even in the challenging environment of the playoffs, scoring won't be a problem for the Penguins. In addition to Lemieux and Jagr, who was gunning to become just the fourth player in NHL history to win four consecutive scoring titles, Pittsburgh is counting on better playoff production from Alexei Kovalev, who scored just one goal last spring. Kovalev is counting on that, too.

"I was working so hard to prepare for this season because I played a lot last year and I knew I was going to play a lot this year. I was trying to prepare myself not to get tired," he said, "because last year when I got to the playoffs, I was exhausted. I had never played that much during the year. This year I've been really prepared."

The Penguins obviously must be prepared to play a better brand of defensive hockey than they've displayed for much of the regular season. The acquisitions of Bergevin, Dollas and Kucera should help, if only because they are veterans who play a simple game. In some ways, the Penguins have to adopt a similar mindset.

"Sometimes you might have 10 times better players, but maybe you don't have better success," said defenseman Darius Kasparaitis. "I think it's team effort and team commitment we have to have to be successful in the playoffs.

"We have to play simple and not make turnovers in the neutral zone. The penalty killing has to be better. The defensive game has to be better. We have to play hard defensively and play with patience, use the other team's mistakes."

The Penguins did not do many of those things late in the regular season as the playoffs approached. But that didn't necessarily worry Patrick.

"Sometimes, the mindset takes a little while to set in, but it's probably not going to happen until the first playoff game," he said. "We know that success in the playoffs is weighed heavily on how well the team plays defensively. It's not any individual players playing to the best of their ability, or just the forwards. Everybody's got to play a good solid system."

Added Jagr, "Maybe we don't realize yet it's a crucial situation. When you realize it's a tough situation, there is no other way. A lot of players change their mind and they're able to do it.

"In playoffs it's a different story. You play Game 6 or Game 7, you realize you have to win, and of course you play a little bit scared. You don't take much risk and you're just waiting for the mistakes and trying to play good defense. That's what we're going to have to do. We'll find out if we're good enough sooner or later."

But first, they've got to settle on a goaltender.