Previewing Pens-Bruins: It's About Time

Gee, it seems like only a month ago that the Penguins were dispatching the Ottawa Senators.  I hope you all made as good use of your eight-day layoff as I did - I got engaged, so you probably didn't, but that's okay - and are well-rested headed into the Conference Finals.  The only thing standing between the Pens and a shot at the Cup are the Boston Bruins, a match up that just seems right.  You've got Jarome Iginla facing the team he spurned at the trade deadline, and you've got Jaromir Jagr hoping to torment his former team, but - beyond the tale of two Jaroms - you've got the cream of the Eastern Conference going head to head.  There will be no Cinderella story this year (like last year's Devils), only two heavyweights sizing the other up.

After the jump, my three questions and three statements for the Pens-Bruins series, and my predictions for the series.

Pens-Sens (Hey, it Rhymes!): Series Preview

The Pens survived a tougher-than-expected series against the Islanders thanks to a gritty performance by backup goalie Tomas Vokoun and timely goals from surprising sources: Paul Martin, Doug Murray, Tyler Kennedy, and of course Brooks Orpik, whose Game 6 OT winner was the best playoff moment Pittsburgh has known since Crosby lifted the Cup.  The Islanders series will ultimately fade from memory, but it was important test of the team's mettle, and that the Pens were able to hold on by the skin of their collective teeth is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you ask. 

For the glass-half-full crowd (myself included), the series was a much-needed gut check, a necessary spot of adversity that will keep the Penguins humble and committed to improving.  And hey, a playoff series win can never be taken for granted - we've learned that the last three seasons, when our playoffs were ended by teams we were "supposed to beat."  The pessimists among the Pittsburgh fan base, which seems to comprise ever single person I talk to, are concerned that the Pens showed a litany of weaknesses that just didn't seem to be there in the regular season.  The Islanders series should have been an ass-whupping to announce the team's championship intentions, and instead they showed their vulnerability and lack of composure.  To these minds, any positive things that were accomplished in this series were outweighed by turnovers, mental mistakes, and an inability to close the door.  These people are also very concerned about what we'll do with Marc-Andre Fleury, what's wrong with Evgeni Malkin, and whether Dan Byslma's the right  man for the job.

The second round series between the Pens and Sens, beginning tonight at Consol, will likely exacerbate these concerns and add new ones to the pile.  I've got three statements and three questions going into Game 1, as well as predictions at the end of this post.

Conspiracy Theories: Why is Vokoun REALLY Starting?

This week, two major events shocked the city of Pittsburgh: the Penguins decided to bench their highly-paid starting goalie, Marc-Andre Fleury, in favor of backup Tomas Vokoun, and the film Jack Reacher (2012) was released on Blu-ray and DVD.  What a coincidence that these two seemingly-unrelated things would happen so close to one another.

Or is it?

Let's look at the facts: Jack Reacher is set, and was shot entirely, in Pittsburgh, and stars Tom Cruise.  Tonight's Game 5 between the Penguins and Islanders will also take place in Pittsburgh, and will star Tomas Vokoun.  TOM Cruise?  TOMas Vokoun?  Come on.

Digging a little deeper, we find that Tom Cruise's birthday is July 3.  Tomas Vokoun's birthday?  July 2.  Oh, and what's that famous Tom Cruise film?  Born on the Fourth of July.  Is this sinking in?

Tom Cruise has long been associated with the Church of Scientology, a recently-created religion based in Florida that boasts hundreds of thousands of followers, but which remains veiled in mystery to the general public.  Vokoun was long associated with the Panthers, a recently-created hockey team based in Florida that boasts tens of dozens of followers, but which remains veiled in mystery to the general public.

Of course, Vokoun is from the Czech Republic, and Tom Cruise is as American as apple pie pizza, so it looks like my theory falls apart.  UNTIL you realize that the first Mission Impossible film, which Cruise produced and starred in, used Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic as a location - and whose idea was it?  Just guess.  According to the New York Times:

Mr. Cruise, whose movie is the first big Hollywood production to come here...wanted to to use Prague as contemporary Prague, an idea he thought would appeal to the Czechs, too. His fancy was caught by the Lichtenstein Palace, a newly renovated froth of curlicues and ornaments with a phalanx of elegant windows. 

Suuuuure - the Lichtenstein Palace caught Tom's fancy, not a 6-foot goaltending prospect who had just been drafted to the NHL a year prior.

According to the same article, Cruise was furious when Czech bureaucrats tried to gauge the production unit by jacking up location costs at the last minute.  Rumor has it he vowed never to return after that experience.  So imagine my surprise when the fourth installment of the Mission Impossible franchise, Ghost Protocol, featured scenes shot in none other than Prague.  What an amazing change of heart!  It's almost like Cruise had a reason to go back to the Czech Republic.  Maybe to confer with a certain netminder?

Could the Mission Impossible films be a front for the covert machinations of a Tom Cruise-NHL partnerships?  No, I'm sure they keeping making them because the public just keeps clamoring for a new Mission Impossible film. 

But back to Jack Reacher (out now on Blu-ray and DVD).   Here's the plot description, courtesy IMDb:

In an innocent heartland city, five are shot dead by an expert sniper. The police quickly identify and arrest the culprit, and build a slam-dunk case. But the accused man claims he's innocent and says "Get Jack Reacher." Reacher himself sees the news report and turns up in the city. The defense is immensely relieved, but Reacher has come to bury the guy. Shocked at the accused's request, Reacher sets out to confirm for himself the absolute certainty of the man's guilt, but comes up with more than he bargained for. 

Hmmm..."five are shot dead by an expert sniper."  That one's pretty easy: the expert sniper is John Tavares, who scored the game-winning goal for the Islanders (the team's fifth) on Tuesday - his shot basically leaving the Pens for dead.  The police (Pens fans and media) quickly identfy a culprit (Fleury), but Jack Reacher (Vokoun, natch) is called in to right the situation.  But not only that, he came to "bury the guy" - that's right, Vokoun is "gunning" (action movie term) for Fleury's job!  You couldn't script it any better - unless, of course, someone did script it.

According to the description, Reacher gets "more than he bargained for."  I haven't personally seen the film, so I can't guess what that entails.  But for Vokoun, couldn't more than he bargained for mean a contract extension?  That would probably only happened if he somehow usurped Fleury's role in net and led the Penguins to a deep playoff run.  I know what you're saying: that's the kind of thing that only happens in a Hollywood movie.  My point EXACTLY.

Jack Reacher's budget was estimated around $60 million dollars - right around the Pittsburgh Penguins' payroll this year.  The film grossed over $216 million worldwide.  Seems like a lot of money, but for Cruise, it was something of a bomb, one of his lowest grossing films of the last decade.  Four months after Jack Reacher's disappointing opening weekend - just enough time not to raise any eyebrows - the Penguins traded for Vokoun.  A good way for a movie to boost its receipts is to launch a successful home video campaign.  A good way to do that is to have a tie-in with another story that catches the public's interest.  And a good way to do that is to orchestrate a complicated goaltender controversy on one of the NHL's most visible teams, pretty much guaranteeing a successful crossover into that most coveted of demographics in Hollywood: American hockey fans.  "But Old Top," you whine, "to pull off something so convoluted and nefarious you'd need to have unlimited resources!"  Oh, like the kind of resources available to the world's highest paid movie star, who also happens to have the support of a religion estimated to have become a multi-billion dollar industry?  THOSE kinds of resources?

When Tomas Vokoun joined the Penguins, he switched his number from 29 to 92.  He claimed it was because Fleury had already claimed 29, and he decided to reverse the number.  What he didn't mention is that 1992 is his favorite Tom Cruise movie, A Few Good Men, came out in theaters.  You can call me a conspiracy theorist all you want, but maybe it's YOU who CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

I'm buying the Jack Reacher DVD today, and synching it up with Mike Lange's call for Game 5, just to see what kind of hidden messages I can find.  And to you, the American public, I recommend that, after watching Vokoun's inspiratoinal performance in net tonight, you go out and buy Jack Reacher on Blu-Ray or DVD.

Like you even have a choice.

Game 9: Mr. Pens Go To Washington

It's Super Sunday over here at BOSC.  We call it Super Sunday because that's when they play the Super Bowl.  Thank God for us that the Pens are playing the Caps at 12:30 to spare us at least a few hours of inane pregame football chatter.  While our chili simmers on the stovetop, tempers on the ice will be bubbling over between these fierce rivals.  Timely metaphor, right guys?

To be honest, the Pens-Caps rivalry feels less relevant now than it has since the pre-Ovechkin/Crosby years.    The Capitals, who were always thisclose to being a championship team, have been in a backslide since last season, and their identity as the Southeast team with the dominant scorers that no one wants to play looks to have been usurped by the Tampa Bay Lightning.  Of course, no one has been more emblematic of the Caps' regression to the pack than Ovie, who has had one of the most inexplicable falls from grace that I've seen from an NHL superstar.  Once clearly a top two player in the league, he is now dangerously close to "enigmatic Russian scorer" territory, and there's no clear reason why.  The Caps are on their third coach in as many years, and Adam Oates has led them to a disappointing 2-5-1 record thus far, maybe because he's instructed his players to pass the puck at every chance, and only to shoot if there is absolutely no other option.  (***ADAM OATES HUMOR***)

From Right to Left: Adam Oates, DAN LACOUTURE, Jaromir Jagr.

Regardless of their place in the standings, we fully expect the Caps to bring their best to the table tonight.  We expect Ovechkin to land a big hit at some point, and to spend every power play skating around the top of the left circle with his stick half-cocked, waiting for a one-timer feed to hammer past Fleury.  We expect Mike Green to make a couple nice offsenive plays and more than a couple embarrassing defensive lapses.  We expect the ghost of Mike Knuble to tip in some ugly, tide-turning goal.  

The Penguins enter the game riding high off of consecutive division wins against the Rangers and Devils in which we outscored our opponents by a combined score of 8-1.  Here are some trends to keep track of this afternoon and moving on:

• Crosby showed up yesterday against New Jersey in a huge way.  His snipe job on a 2-on-1 with Dupuis was incredible, but I preferred his assist on the Pens' final goal, where he muscled Krys Barch (cool name spelling, bro) of the puck behind the net and sent a perfect no-look pass to the point for Robert Bortuzzo's first NHL goal.  Sid loves playing against the Caps, and here's hoping he's locked in and ready to start climbing the league leaders board

• The platoon situation is paying early dividends.  After a rough showing from Fleury against the Islanders, Vokoun righted the shift with a near-flawless performance against the Rangers.  He was a black hole, sucking in every puck sent his way and giving up no rebounds.  Fleury was strong yesterday when he needed to be (which wasn't often), and the only goal he gave up was the result of his defense (in the person of, for some reason, Malkin) leaving him out to dry.  Vokoun will be between the pipes against his old team, and let's all agree to put the goaltending controversy to bed for a while and just enjoy the wonderful sensation of having an elite backup.

• The defense has been in flux, but seems to be taking form.  The entire corps looked great yesterday, allowing only 16 shots on net and blocking 14 in all.  By now, we know what we're getting from our top guys, especially Orpik (who has been blocking everything in sight) and Letang (who continues to outskate everyone on the ice), but it looks like it's going to be impossible to stem the youth movement encroaching on the sixth d-man spot, with Despres and Bortuzzo making strong claims to what was once (it seems so long ago now) Ben Lovejoy's spot in the lineup.  Both are huge (they're listed as an identical 6'4" and 215 pounds) and strong with the puck, and have made enough good plays to compensate for their to-be-expected rookie miscues.  More importantly, both seem to be at that point in their development where they need exposure at the NHL level more than anything else.  If one or both of them are going to be regular contributors to the Pens this year, it's out-of-the-pan-into-the-fire time.  If there's a silver lining to the Niskanen injury, it's that it has forced Bylsma's hand, pressing the young fellas into extended duty earlier than perhaps expected.

• Hey, speaking of, I wonder if either of these young fellas could man the point on the power play.  After Malkin's non-effort on the Devils' short-handed goal yesterday, I think the need for two defensemen at the point is unavoidable.  Bortuzzo's slapshot looked pretty healthy, or at least healthy enough to get through Marty Brodeur, and let's not discount.  The most glaring hole on the team - yes, more glaring than the need for a couple of top-six forwards - is the lack of a guy who can put a hard slapshot on the net.  This is kind of a useful thing to have on the power play, especially when you've got Kunitz screening the goalie, and Crosby and Neal fishing for rebounds.  If we can add this weapon to our arsenal simply by promoting one of our rookies into a quarterback role, the team will become much more dangerous.  It's certainly worth kicking the tires.  If not, something tells me we could talk the Isles into dumping Lubomir Visnosky on us.  Lu-bo-mir!  Lu-bo-mir!

Game 4: Winnipeg. Bench Fleury (Troll So Hard Edition)!

Tonight, when the Penguins suit up against the Winnipeg Jets, we can expect to see a familiar face in net for the black-and-gold.  A face with a permanent grin and an unfortunate soul patch.  A face that's become, well, a face of this franchise.

That face belongs, of course, to Marc-Andre Fleury. 

It's the wrong face.

When the Pens signed Tomas Vokoun this offseason, it marked the first time in his career that Fleury faced any sort of competition for goaltending supremacy.  Before now, he's had the comfort of knowing that his backup, Brent Johnson, posed no threat to his throne.

With Vokoun behind him, he might be hearing footsteps.  At least, he should be.

It's only three games into this shortened season, but it's time for the man they call "Flower" to plant himself somewhere new.

On the bench.

It doesn't take a genius to recognize that Vokoun is a better goalie in every measurable way.  You want to talk career save percentage?  Vokoun takes it, .917 to .909.  How about goals per game average?  Sorry, Marc-Andre, Vokoun outpaces you, 2.55 to 2.68.

But in the playoffs, when it matters, Fleury steps up his game, right?

Wrong.

Fleury's numbers actually go DOWN from his regular season averages, to a paltry .909 save percentage and 2.68 goals per game.  As for Vokoun?  His numbers improve in the playoffs, to a sterling .922 and 2.47.

Last time I checked, letting in fewer goals helps your team win.  And isn't that what we want?

In the playoffs last year, the "Flower" looked more like a wilting lily, allowing the Flyers to score at will.  He went from head of the class in the regular season to head case when it mattered.

A French-Canadian goalie who's a head case?  Holy Patrick Roy, Batman!

Pens fans spent all summer, and most of fall, making excuses for why Fleury couldn't get it done in that series.  He played too many games during the regular season, they screamed.  Funny, I never heard Martin Brodeur complain about playing too much.  Oh, and in case you hadn't heard, he's won three Stanley Cups and took the Devils to the finals last year, in his twentieth season.  If anyone has the right to feel exhausted, it's Brodeur, not Fleury.

The defense let Fleury down, they complained.  Well, now Zbyněk Michálek's been run out of town on a rail, having taken the fall for Fleury's shortcomings.  I hope you don't mind a little blood on your dainty petals, "Flower."

Why is the Penguins organization so reluctant to pin any modicum of blame where it belongs?  Could it be because they've invested a number one pick and a contract that pays $5 million a season for the next three years to this supposed "franchise goaltender?"  Because benching him, or better yet, trading him would be tantamount to admitting that we put our eggs in the wrong basket?

Like my dad told me about driving when I was 16, being a starting goalie in the NHL is a privilege, not a right.  Fleury seems to think he's entitled to his place in net, because he was the number one overall pick. 

Think again.

You think, if we had to do it all over again, we wouldn't have picked Eric Staal (#2) over Fleury?  Tomas Vanek (#5)?  How about Ryan Suter (#7), Zach Parise (#17), or Ryan Getzlaf (#19)?  Or Mike Richards (#24), Corey Perry (#28), or Shea Weber (#49)?  If we had a do-over, Fleury wouldn't even be in the top 10.

Talk about a bust.

As for Tomas Vokoun?  Well, you'd have to scroll pretty far down the draft board to find him.  He wasn't picked in the first round, that's for sure.

Or the second.

Or the seventh.

Try the ninth round, pick number 226 to be exact.  Think some of the teams that passed on him would like a do-over?

Vokoun had to work his tail off to earn a starting job in the NHL.  That's right, Marc-Andre, he earned his keep.  And his reward?  Two All-Star games and the respect of players, coaches, and fans around the league.

What has Fleury "earned" in his career?  A single, solitary All-Star berth, and a nickname that probably has Gump Worsley spinning in his grave.

But this isn't a career comparison, you whine.  Let's talk about this season then.  Fleury beat the hated Flyers in the season opener, a win which starts to feel pretty hollow when you realize the Flyers are a sorry 1-3 on the year.  His next game, against the league's perennial laughingstock, the Toronto Maple Leafs?  Five goals allowed, one embarrasing loss at home in what is supposed to be the new Hockey Mecca.

Hockey Mecca.  In that case, maybe Fleury is a false idol.

As for Vokoun, he has only seen action in one game, versus the team that won our conference last year, the New York Rangers.  Vokoun skated onto the greatest stage in the world, Madison Square Garden, and skated away with an impressive victory.

Vokoun earned that win, the same way he's earned everything that's come his way in a Hall of Fame caliber career.  Flower has had everything handed to him, and his sense of entitlement shows.

It looks like we've got a bad seed on our hands.  Maybe it's time to plant a new crop.

Maybe it's time to let Vokoun blossom in our net, tonight in Winnipeg, Sunday in Ottawa, and for the rest of this shortened season.

Sorry, "Flower," but the bloom has fallen off the rose.


(Note: Satire.)