Pittsburgh Penguins
Poor Finish, Missing Playoffs Should Provide Enough Motivation
By Bob Grove

The 2001-02 season should have been eminently forgettable for the Penguins. The unconventional coaching change. The devastating injuries. The depth problems. The anemic power play. The disturbing finish. No playoffs.

But so thoroughly miserable were those seven months that they permeated the longest off-season any Pittsburgh team has had in 12 years. Defenseman Ian Moran, a member of the organization since 1990, was haunted by the Penguins' 6-19-3-3 finish over the final 31 games and the 0-8-1-1 conclusion to the last 10.

"The last month was just awful," he says. "It was almost like we forgot how to win. We played every game, we were doing everything not to lose instead of playing to win, which is a terrible way to play.

"So I used watching the playoffs as motivation: 'If we're going to get back there, what can I do to make myself better?' Looking at most of the guys, everybody either put on muscle or lost body fat. That's the thing you want to see. You want to see that they were motivated over the summer."

Goaltender Johan Hedberg, who played a team record 66 games last season, took some time off immediately after Pittsburgh completed a 27-point drop in the standings–the biggest dive in the league. But his respite didn't last.

"Then you get an itch back, you think about last year and you just want to improve on it. You cannot be happy or just accept what happened last year," said Hedberg, who will be backed up again by Jean-Sebastien Aubin. "I think this organization has bigger expectations than that, and so do we. When you get a lot of time off. . . you come back with a different mentality, and usually it's a better one. We're going to have to come back and fight for it."

Thus the trip from the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001 to the Entry Draft Lottery in 2002 promises to provide the Penguins a rich pool of motivation for the season that begins Oct. 10 here against Toronto. Translating that emotion into a return to the Stanley Cup playoffs will be difficult, but coupled with a return to health of Mario Lemieux and Martin Straka, that intangible may be a powerful force for Pittsburgh in 2002-03.

Limited to just 24 games last season by a hip injury, Lemieux worked through the early stages of training camp without hip or back pain. His determination to play 60 to 70 games this season was plainly evident to everyone around the team.

"It feels great to be able to work out. It's a nice change for me," said Lemieux, 37, who has led the NHL in average points-per-game in each of his two seasons since returning to the game in December 2000. "Hopefully, my back will stay healthy and I can do a lot of great things like I did a couple of years ago."

Lemieux's game, or course, will benefit from the league's initiative to crack down on obstruction, and his presence on the power play will rejuvenate the Penguins' special teams. Pittsburgh converted just 14 percent of its power play chances last season—the team's worst performance in 35 years.

"You can see in his eyes he's really got that drive," says general manager Craig Patrick. "Thank God he's healthy. Now we have to keep him that way."

Straka played only 13 games last season because of a broken leg and broken orbital bone, and he will miss the start of this season after suffering a compressed vertebra and torn ligament in his back during a freak off-season weightlifting mishap. But doctors last month were encouraged that Straka would be able to avoid surgery, and the Penguins are hoping for his return to the lineup later this month or in early November.

Adding Lemieux and Straka to a group of forwards that already includes centers Jan Hrdina and Randy Robitaille and right wings Alexei Kovalev and Aleksey Morozov should give coach Rick Kehoe enough firepower to cope with the loss of center Robert Lang and surpass last season's total of 198 goals—Pittsburgh's lowest output in a full season since 1969-70.

Hrdina (24) and Morozov (20) delivered career highs for goals last season and can reasonably be expected to match or improve upon those numbers. Kovalev, whose agent was negotiating a long-term contract over the summer, has emerged as one of the league's most productive scorers since coming to Pittsburgh. And Robitaille, the team's best forward over the last two months of last season, displayed enough skill that Lemieux mentioned him as his possible left winger.

"I like to get the puck on the move," says Robitaille, "so I can come off the boards and create some speed. If that's where they want to play me. . . it doesn't hurt to look over and see Mario there."

Hoping to crack the Penguins' top six at forward were veteran right wings Alexandre Daigle and Alexander Selivanov, who were given camp tryouts. Daigle, a spectacular underachiever since being drafted first overall by Ottawa in 1993, left hockey two seasons ago but says he's rediscovered his love for the game. "He's showed his speed, his skill and his smarts for the game," Patrick said of Daigle, who had four points in his first two preseason games and seemed destined to make the roster.

Overseeing a modest budget that doesn't freely permit financial solutions to sticky problems, Patrick made several other off-season moves to add experience to a roster that simply lacked it too often last season. He signed three veterans—defenseman Marc Bergevin and left wings Steve McKenna and Vladimir Vujtek—while claiming defenseman Dick Tarnstrom on waivers from the Islanders.

Those moves won't change the balance of power in a talented Eastern Conference, but they helped forge the Penguins' most competitive preseason in years. "We need a couple guys to come in and show us, 'I want to be the guy,' " said Kehoe, who ran his own training camp for the first time.

It was unclear where Vujtek fit into the roster, but McKenna returns to the Penguins as a fourth-liner who isn't afraid to mix it up. Checkers like left wings Dan LaCouture and Ville Nieminen and right wings Shean Donovan and Eric Meloche will benefit from a greater freedom to forecheck and the return of center Wayne Primeau from a knee injury that limited him to 33 games last season.

The influx of veterans made it more difficult for young players like Meloche, Kris Beech, Toby Petersen and Milan Kraft to regain their roster spots from last season, but Meloche made a strong bid in the preseason. "I'm one of those role players who will do anything to stick around," he said. "I can't go out there and not play hard, because then I stink."

The addition of Bergevin and the offensive-minded Tarnstrom gave Kehoe 12 defensemen with NHL experience in camp. With Darius Kasparaitis gone, the Pittsburgh defense will remain among the league's most anonymous units, although Rick Berry and perhaps

No. 1 2000 pick Brooks Orpik promise to provide a physical element.

Joseph Melichar returns as the team's steadiest defensive defenseman, having finished in the top 10 among NHL rookie defensemen in hits and blocked shots last season despite missing 22 games with injuries. "I'm not satisfied. I can do a lot of things better," he said.

Michal Rozsival, who led the Pittsburgh defense with a career-high 29 points last season, spent time during the preseason as Melichar's partner. They were joined by Moran, Jamie Pushor, Janne Laukkanen, Hans Jonsson and Andrew Ference in the battle for roster spots. It's not a defense that will overwhelm opponents, but then again not many people outside Pittsburgh are expecting much from the Penguins this season.

"Everybody's talking about the moves the Rangers made, Philly having Hitchcock as a coach, the strides the Islanders made last year. But in all honesty, you look around our locker room and guys are hungry," says Moran. "People forget that when we were healthy two years ago, we lost in the conference finals. We're supposed to be the weakest team in the division this year. . . I'd love to surprise some people."

PSR senior writer Bob Grove has been covering the Penguins since 1981 and is author of "Pittsburgh Penguins: The Official History of the First 30 Years." He currently serves as a regular co-host on the Penguins Radio Network.