CRANBERRY, Pa. -- It's tempting to think of these Penguins as deeper than their two recent Stanley Cup champions.
And I'll stress here: That's deeper, not necessarily better.
"I don't know," Justin Schultz came back when I brought this up after practice Monday at the Lemieux Sports Complex. "I mean, we were pretty deep those two years. We relied on a lot of guys. But yeah, this year, too, we've got a lot of guys who can do the job, no question. Time will tell, I guess."
Of course. We're still a couple days shy of the 2018-19 opener Thursday night against the Capitals, and the schedule calls for 81 more of those, plus playoffs. So very much can change, as those two championship seasons powerfully illustrated at times, not least of which was, oh, the wholly unforeseen acquisition and rise of Schultz himself in the winter of 2016.
Bryan Rust was a bit more careful on the subject.
"Well, I'll just say for this group here that we are pretty deep, top to bottom. There are a lot of guys here who can play," he'd say. "I'm not sure it's the deepest of the three, but it's deep. It's versatile, too. You look at all our guys who can play multiple positions, wingers who can switch sides, D-men who can switch sides, centers who can bounce out to either side ... that just adds to it. I'm going to say it's close."
Kris Letang wasn't careful in the slightest. He dismissed any comparison out of hand.
"The question ... I don't know, it'd be different if you're looking at different positions," he responded with a candor only he can deliver in this room. "I mean, those Cup teams had Muzz and Flower. That's deeper."
Yep. It's impossible for any of the NHL's 31 current teams to match goaltending depth like what the Penguins had with Matt Murray and Marc-Andre Fleury.
"Now you go to the D, and we had a lot of veterans, older guys who made up our depth," Letang continued. "Dales and Hainsey, guys like that. So we were deeper there."
For the purposes of playoffs, experience counts. And yeah, Trevor Daley and Ron Hainsey played pivotal third-pairing roles, and both were beloved by their teammates, most visibly in being the ones to whom Sidney Crosby first handed the Cup, if you'll recall.
"And up front," Letang proceeded, "Nick Bonino was great for us on the third line, but Derick Brassard is here now. And if you look at the centers now, I think that's what you're really asking about. Because I'll take Brassard over any third-line center in the league, and I'll take Matt Cullen or Riley Sheahan -- either one -- over any fourth-line center in the league. That's where it's just crazy."
But overall?
"No. Those teams won. We haven't played a game yet."
That's fair. I hate when he kills my column concepts.
• No issue here with Zach Aston-Reese going back to the AHL. Mike Sullivan legitimately loves the kid's game, and I've no doubt every word from the coach after their meeting yesterday was from the heart. He'll be back before long.
What's got me wondering, though, is how he'll ever fit without a top-six slot on the left wing. Aston-Reese is first and foremost a scorer. He's got the 200-foot game, and he's responsible in all zones, but his upside will come through crashing the crease and piling up goals. That won't ever happen on a third line, even here, and that won't ever happen if he'll never see meaningful power-play minutes.
Depth can be tricky, too.
• I brought this up yesterday with Daniel Sprong, as well, musing that he might easily skate on a second or third line right away in a place like Montreal, Ottawa or Phoenix this season. To which he brought the following reply: "I want to be part of a team like this. I want to win. You always want to win championships. You want to be surrounded by people who push you, who make you better."
Until I'm blue in the face: There's nothing wrong with this kid's mindset. Not in any capacity. Just needs to adjust his game to the NHL.
• The Penguins had a little to say about Tom Wilson's latest cheap shot. I've got roughly two minutes of things to say:
• Scott Hartnell retired yesterday after 17 NHL seasons, half of which were spent horizontally on the ice, the other half ticking off Pittsburgh fans. The good news is that he'll apparently stay employed in hockey:
Scott Hartnell hangs up his skates and retires right when Gritty joins the league. Coincidence? I think not ? pic.twitter.com/RwlLibdSrI
— Josh Billinson?? (@jbillinson) October 1, 2018
Honestly, though, I'm much more on the Jakub Voracek-as-Gritty train, if you must know. Need to stay modern.
• Le'Veon Bell's agent leaked to ESPN that his client has chosen to report to the Steelers during the bye week prior to their Oct. 28 home game against the Browns.
How convenient, huh?
He shows up that week, still collects his full $835,000 weekly check without having to play a game, and he limits his season to 10 games to minimize his touches and protect his health for the future, something he openly acknowledges even while laughably claiming he'll be 'fully committed' to the Steelers upon his return and that he'd be open to discussing an extension.
Ugh. I'm sorry, but no player's that important to be worth adding under that circumstance.
Work out a wink-and-nod sign-and-trade. Move on.
• There might be more word on Vince Williams' hamstring today at Mike Tomlin's press conference, but Williams himself sure didn't sound upbeat when we spoke about it late Sunday night at Heinz Field. It wouldn't be welcome news if he can't face the Falcons. He hasn't been at his best through four weeks -- 29 tackles, no sacks, no forced turnovers -- but the last thing this all-over-creation, can't-communicate defense needs is one of its brighter voices out of the mix.
That said, it was intriguing to hear Tomlin use the term "make plays" in describing what his defense lacked against the Ravens.
• By the way, just so that this doesn't get overlooked: The Steelers now rank 30th in the 32-team NFL in total defense, allowing a sickening average of 420.5 yards per game. Only the Buccaneers (440.5) and Chiefs (470.0) are worse.
Wait, there's more: The 1,682 yards and 12 passing touchdowns the Steelers have allowed through four games are the worst in franchise history, and the 14 total touchdowns and 116 points are the worst since 1968, the year before Chuck Noll was brought on to resurrect the dead.
These are figures that get people fired. And if it really is Tomlin who's the de facto defensive coordinator rather than Keith Butler, he'd do well to disguise that.
• None of this matters, absolutely none of it, if Ben Roethlisberger doesn't get it going soon. We all get guilty of over-analysis when the quarterback struggles.
• The almost-certain reason that any coach gets fired at any level of the Pirates' system is that he's perceived as not listening sufficiently to the analytics they're given. I won't take a stance, specifically, on the firings of Jeff Branson and Jeff Livesey yesterday, though I strongly suspect that the power regression of Josh Bell didn't help either case. But I do want to stress -- and I'm not guessing here -- that these moves are almost always based on who applies the analytics and who doesn't.
• Here's guessing Joey Cora's awesome with the analytics, right?
• Reminder: The Brewers are based in a market two-thirds the size of Pittsburgh. Their ownership and front office never refer to Milwaukee by any disparaging or diminishing terms. They just make the very best of the market they've got because they're run by smart people who prioritize winning, who produce quality talent internally and, through both of those, have built a longstanding trust with their fan base.
Congrats to the National League's eminently deserving Central Division champions.
Division Champs. #OurCrewOurOctober pic.twitter.com/OLDtrpo0iu
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) October 1, 2018
• Proud to have cast my ballot last night for National League Manager of the Year as a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America. We're not supposed to divulge our selections until a winner is announced, but suffice it to say I didn't overthink it.
• I'm generally not big on single-event attendance as some broader barometer of interest, but it'll be genuinely interesting to see if the Riverhounds can meet their now publicly declared goal of selling out Highmark Stadium -- capacity 3,800 -- for the first USL playoff game in the facility's history Oct. 20, against a still-undetermined opponent.
If they can't, for whatever reason, that'd be troubling.
This edition of the Hounds is by far the best the city's seen since Highmark opened in 2013, currently 15-4-12 and tied for second in the Eastern Conference, and with depth that would have been unimaginable even a year ago. That's to the credit of Tuffy Shallenberger for making a big-time coaching hire in Bob Lilley and, of course, to Lilley and assistant Mark Pulisic for building it up pretty much from Kevin Kerr on out, then to the players themselves for executing an entertaining yet disciplined and successful brand of soccer.
But the only sellout so far this summer was on the Fourth of July, as it's been every year, and that's not going to cut it in a stadium that still needs to expand to 6,000 seats to meet league requirements.
Playoff tickets go on sale Thursday.
• Best wishes to Agnus Berenato, the former Pitt women's hoops coach, battling cancer again.
Berenato, now at Kennesaw State, always made a powerful impression on me by walking through the media room before every postgame press conference to shake the hands of each individual reporter and say, 'Hi, I'm Agnus. Thank you for coming to cover our team.' Every time I was in that room, that moved me. Not because I wanted to be thanked, obviously, but because of how hard she was fighting for her athletes to get the attention she felt they deserved.
She'll get plenty of support in this round, too.