Kovacevic: Hope of youth, of something new

"It's a little scary, you know?"

Marc-Andre Fleury had just plodded off the ice, peeled off his mask and plopped himself at his stall following the Penguins' exhaustive practice Sunday at Consol Energy Center, and our topic of conversation was the makeup of the forward lines. Specifically, whether enough of those forwards might feel inclined to pay the franchise goaltender an occasional visit.

"We're trying something different with four scoring lines, and that's exciting," Fleury kept on. "But you don't want it to be too exciting."

He grinned at that.

"You want to get good at the system, play both ways, be responsible. It doesn't matter how many scorers we have. We still have to take care of our zone."

When the Penguins fell in another first-round exit from the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring, this time to the Rangers in five, they had to face yet again the harsh reality that, even with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Fleury, they weren't close to being good enough. But what felt less clear than ever was what exactly led to that reality.



Was it that they were missing three of their top four defensemen, including Letang?

That's fair to cite.

Was it that Crosby and Malkin failed in the crunch, as many charged?

That's also fair, to a degree, though both quietly played through pain.

Was it that their supporting cast, specifically the scoring wingers, were lacking?

Well, yeah, of course. In fact, that one really stood out when weighed against the Rangers, who gushed speed through all four lines. New York wasn't getting a ton of goals from its wingers, but neither were they skating as if attached to anvils.

A few days passed after the Penguins' players had dispersed to their various corners of the planet, and Jim Rutherford, his nerves calmed, called for a meeting with the team's upper management. He didn't want to look back. He wanted to look forward.

And he wanted to look at forward.