February 6, 2014

Pittsburgh Penguins Cruising

but Eastern Conference teams built for playoffs

Mainstream media will tell you that the Pittsburgh Penguins are headed for the Stanley Cup, but our media consultant, isn’t sure about that

Penguins cruising into the Olympic Break, but is this team built for a deep playoff run?

By: Josh King

The Pittsburgh Penguins have a luxury that many teams in the Western Conference do not. They play in a weak Eastern Conference. Before I get bombarded with emails from Penguin junkies- (fans and narrow minded sports fans that consume this town) if you take offense to that comment then you live in an unrealistic world.

If teams rosters stayed intact at this point, the Penguins will be lucky to escape out of the Eastern Conference semi finals. For fans that haven’t noticed the Columbus Blue Jackets emerging, take notice. The Blue Jackets potentially have a team capable of a playoff run. The 3rd and 4th lines are heads above Pittsburgh’s. Again that’s with the rosters staying in tact.

Matt Moulson has been rumored to be on the Penguins radar. Moulson is exactly the type of player that the Penguins need for this playoff run. They need a guy who can play on any line and contribute in more ways then just scoring goals. Moulson would be a ideal. As long as Malkin and Crosby are healthy this team will be a threat in the playoffs. But what if one, or both went down?

Looking closely at that possibility the Penguins can absolutely not afford to lose #71 or #87 for any period of time in the playoffs. The Eastern conference will be different come playoff time, rest assured. You can’t forget about the Detroit Red Wings being in the East now. That team who the Penguins are obviously familiar with from playing both the 2008 and 2009 Stanley Cup finals.

Detroit is well coached and in my opinion has the best player in the game, Pavel Datsyuk is the best two way player in the modern NHL. With Mike Babcock, coach of Team Canada, they very well could have the best coach in the league as well. We didn’t discuss Columbus in depth but in future articles we will.

Plenty of hockey talk to come, enjoy the Olympics. I’ll be covering the hockey around the clock and will be posting articles for fans to enjoy. The purpose of this column was to spread awareness about the beasts in the east so to speak. The Penguins are playing great but remember it’s regular season hockey. When Boston sweeps you 4-0 in the conference finals the year that you play the most dominant regular season hockey, it really points to the playoffs being the focus.

Pittsburgh does not have a collection of forwards skilled or deep enough to get out of the East.

A guy like Moulson can really do wonders for this team that will try to avenge recent playoff failures.

Follow media consultant Josh King on Twitter- @joshk65