Lineup Challenges For The Penguins

With the trade deadline over, the next question is "what to do with all of the talent that Shero has collected?"  In 2008, the Pens had two top pairings at forward with Crosby paired with Hossa and Malkin matched up with Sykora.  The other spot on each line seemed like a revolving door with Gary Roberts, Ryan Malone, Pascal Dupuis and others rotated through.  In 2009, the challenge for Shero was to find wingers for Crosby since the Miroslav Satan experiment didn't work out.  He succeeded by bringing in Chris Kunitz and Bill Guerin to give the Pens a true top line and brought in Craig Adams to provide much needed depth.  In addition, Dan Bylsma's decision to take advantage of this depth and move Max Talbot to the second line with Evgeni Malkin and Ruslan Fedotenko proved to be stroke of genius and helped propel the Pens to their third Stanley Cup. 

This year, the challenge will be different.  Now that the Pens have added Alex Ponikarovsky to give Malkin a true scoring threat to work with and did not trade Ruslan Fedotenko to the surprise of some, myself included, it seems as though the top two lines are set.  The question then becomes "who's going to be watching from the press box as a healthy scratch?"  Let's look at the possibilities.

If you assume the top two lines stay as projected,

#1  Kunitz-Crosby-Guerin

#2  Ponikarovsky-Malkin-Fedotenko

and if you assume that the 3rd line remains as it should,

#3  Cooke-Staal-Kennedy

that leaves a logjam for the fourth line spots with Pascal Dupuis, Max Talbot, Mike Rupp and Craig Adams all fighting for time and Eric Godard still on IR.  With no heavyweight on the ice, one would assume that Mike Rupp would fill that role and I can't imagine Max Talbot watching from the rafters if he is even close to healthy. 

Since Bylsma is remphasizing his puck pressure system, one might think that Dupuis would get the last spot over Craig Adams.  However, I would point out that Bylsma likes to mix his lines at certain times and Adams can play center or wing which allows Talbot to move up to his old spot on the second line.  That's why I'd bet that Pascal Dupuis is the odd man out once the playoffs begin. 

On defence, the Pens have a similar challenge.  By adding Jordan Leopold, the Pens effectively moved Jay McKee down the depth chart and into the press box and moved Martin Skoula out of town.  That leaves the Pens with these defensive pairings:

#1  Orpik-Gonchar

#2  Eaton-Letang

#3  Leopold-Goligoski

This would leave Jay McKee as the odd man out which does seem kind of a waste for one of the team leaders in blocked shots and hits.  That being said, I wouldn't write McKee off just yet.  As Shero has said, he's more than happy to go into the playoffs with extra depth on defence given then kind of unexpected injuries that happen during the playoffs as with Sergei Gonchar last year.  Don't forget that last year Miro Satan and Phillipe Boucher were the odd men out in April and each ended the playoffs as big contributors with Boucher filling in while Gonchar was out and Miro Satan came up big during the Conference Finals against Carolina. 

In the meantime, I would expect the Pens to rotate guys in and out to make sure they're healthy especially with the expanded regular season due to the Olympic break.  While I think the Pens will start with Dupuis and McKee on the outside looking in, injuries aside, I wouldn't be suprised to see Goligoski and Fedotenko in the press box at some point during the playoffs as they both have been up and down.  So, while too much talent is a good problem to have, it will be interesting to see how the Pens handle the problem.