People flock from far and wide to the new Simon Despres statue on the North Shore. — Photo-illustration DALI KOVACEVIC
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
Welcome to Tuesday 12 Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 9 a.m. and offers you a chance to carry the conversation. Use the comments below to submit an entry. No more than one per person, please. Submit early if you prefer, and I’ll pick from that batch to get rolling.
UPDATE 9 a.m.: And off we go …
dsglass74: I understand your perspective on the Pens’ trades, but doesn’t the extreme focus on 2015 — as shown by the draft picks traded, as well as trading a 23-year-old for a 31-year-old straight up — concern you? The Pens have a window now, sure, but farm system depth can extend that window, and there isn’t much depth at all left in the system.
DK: One thing about Simon Despres, before he’s bronzed and sharing space alongside Mario Lemieux and Roberto Clemente in the Pittsburgh sporting pantheon, is that despite his youth, he’s eligible for unrestricted free agency after next season. I should have brought this up in the column you cite because it’s relevant: A decision was looming as to whether to pay Despres at an open-market rate, regardless of his age. His current contract pays an average of $900,000. By mere virtue of free agency, it was going to rise exponentially, even if he never got any better.
Put this another way: A player’s youth only matters if you intend to pay him at a given rate. Otherwise, he’s just a young player who isn’t worth it.
Be very sure that the Penguins considered this and decided that their own younger defensemen — Derrick Pouliot, Scott Harrington, Brian Dumoulin — figure more prominently and less expensively in their plans for the next handful of years.
Oh, and on that note, say this, too, for Jim Rutherford: Despite half the fan base screeching for him to trade any or all of those three young defensemen over the course of the season, they’re all still here. He gave up some draft picks, but the only first-rounder was for David Perron, which has proven to be more larceny than trade.
The foundation that was there in the minors remains there, unless you count the loss of Philip Samuelsson. I don’t. He wasn’t a top prospect.
Sounds to me, in all candor, like there are a whole lot of cross-pollinating memes at work in trying to pan this Despres trade. Upon closer examination, they fail.
Hail2Pitt: Do you view the deadline deals as a vote of confidence for Pouliot? And do you think this means they believe he is a defenseman they want playing in the playoffs?
DK: Not sure. I mean, there have been votes of confidence for Pouliot all around, not least of which was Mike Johnston declaring after the Columbus victory that Pouliot looked “just as good” in that game as the one in which he starred in Washington last week. Also, in the most recent Friday Insider here, it was mentioned that the front office has been borderline giddy about him of late.
But the trades themselves … I’m not seeing that. Pouliot will still have to earn his way into the lineup, and the fact is, given the enormous disparity between his style and that of Robert Bortuzzo, he surely had a better chance of sticking if Bortuzzo had been around rather than Ian Cole, who has a similar skill set. Looking at Cole, he might well be Pouliot insurance or, for that matter, Christian Ehrhoff insurance if Ehrhoff’s concussion remains an issue.
Either way, I can tell you that Pouliot’s confidence is just soaring right now, on and off the ice. I’ll have more about why that is in the next Insider.
chadcameron46: DK, after your time in Bradenton, what is your opinion on the relationship between Jung-Ho Kang and his new teammates?
DK: I liked everything I saw, Chad, from Kang, from his ever-eager translator who even followed him into a social circle to make sure he was understood, and to how the rest of the Pirates were handling his arrival. Those who follow me on social media will recall that, on my first morning there, I snapped a pic of Kang, Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez sharing a laugh in the indoor cage. (The pic wound up so dark I later knocked it out, but it was on Instagram for at least three hours.) That was pretty much emblematic of what I saw and, again, what I reported.
I also appreciated seeing, on my final day down there last week, Kang and Jordy Mercer walking off the field together toward the clubhouse. This time, there was no translator and, of course, no discussion as a result. But given that fuss stirred by Kang’s misquotes in the Korean press that he believed he was a superior shortstop to what the Pirates currently have — I very much believe Neal Huntington’s account of that story — it was a scene worth noting.
It won’t be much fun for any rookie trying to break into the majors, certainly not visibly. That’s not how baseball works. Rookies in general are expected to be seen not heard and all that stuff. But Kang is an unusual — no, unique — situation, and I liked everything I saw and heard on that front.
jcurtis2010: Hey, DK., love the website. Though I must say ever since I subscribed, I find myself up past 12 reading all your new columns and such.
With so much talk being centered on the Steelers taking a cornerback in the draft, shouldn’t the priority be some pass rushers? Though corner would be great, they can’t cover forever if there is no pressure on the quarterback.
DK: I’m not going to dispute that, and I’ll concede I’ve thought a lot about that, too. Infinitely more important, the Steelers have thought about it, based on the talk I had with Kevin Colbert a couple weeks back. He mentions corner and outside linebacker in just about the same breath. There’s no way he isn’t at least contemplating it, especially since both are considered positions of strength in this class.
The most powerful answer on this front will come way before the draft, that with how Jason Worilds‘ situation plays out. All the vibes I’ve gotten since season’s end — and I’m talking from both sides, first-hand — is that something will get down toward a multiyear extension. Even if, as expected, the Steelers let him test the open market, that could amount to little more than offering Worilds a chance to gauge his true value, something that couldn’t happen last year because of the transition tag. Now, he can achieve both by setting a price and fulfilling what I’m confident is his real wish to stay in Pittsburgh. That doesn’t mean the Steelers will like the first price they hear or that they’ll go cart blanche, but at least there will be a starting point for talks.
Janka: To DK, your article is good at making me understand why are these trades are beneficial for us. And that having a solid D core with skill is more important than being overly physical and sloppy with the puck. The only question that I still have is: Who will help out our top goal-scorers when they being targeted at every shift that they take? Who will be able to stand up for them and have their backs?
DK: Are you referring to fighting?
As Rutherford stressed yesterday, fighting just isn’t an issue in the playoffs. You can look it up. Teams aren’t willing to allow enforcers to risk power plays, so they usually don’t even dress. When they do, their first mandate is to, you know, play hockey and stay out of the box.
It’s still a very good issue you raise, though, because what does get tested in these situations is team toughness. If someone takes a shot at the captain, as we saw from Columbus’ Ryan Johansen early in the game Sunday, someone has to make balance. (Now, in that case, it was Despres crushing him later into the glass, but the point stands.) That doesn’t have to be Steve Downie, and it doesn’t have to be eye for an eye. It can be a simple matter of the entire group playing that much harder against the opponent’s star player, that sort of thing.
But I’ll emphasize again here: The Penguins aren’t about to be something they’re not. If they’re going to succeed in the playoffs, it’s going to be on speed, skill and puck possession, not being physical and certainly not by intimidating. Big Macs and Legos and all that.
JMo: DK, what are the chances of Jose Tabata getting the outfield bench spot over Andrew Lambo or Corey Hart? I know they both play first base, as well, but seems tough to pay a guy $4 million to play right field in Class AAA.
DK: And you’d let a contract mistake dictate the roster?
Oh, no way.
One area where Huntington has been unfailingly consistent from his very first spring training, when he cut Byung-Hyun Kim after a miserable camp and gulped down a quarter-million dollars of his new boss’ money, is that he’s admitted his mistakes. Both publicly and, more important, in action.
Lambo will the last outfielder, and Hart will be the backup/platoon first baseman. If Tabata hits really well, either this spring or in Indianapolis, it’s conceivable that he could claw his way into the picture. He’s always had talent. But the default mode is very much that he’ll be in the minors and that, if all concerned had their way, he’d be gone.
That bridge isn’t scorched, but it’s in tatters.
SDBurghman: As a columnist, what is your position on reporting injuries that you discover while around the team? The reason I ask is that after the NHL All-Star break, you insinuated in a Friday insider report that Crosby was legitimately hurt but you wouldn’t expand upon the injury. What dictates when you can and cannot report on certain information?
DK: Reporting injuries is no different than reporting everything else. If I know it, and I’m comfortable that the information was obtained through a reliable source and that info was not given out off the record, heck, yeah, I absolutely run with it. My only obligation in this line of work is to serve you, the reader. That’s it.
There are no rules about this, by the way, written or unwritten. If I know, for example, that Blake Comeau had a broken wrist, I’m not going to make a monkey of myself and refer to it as an upper-body injury. Let the people involved to that. We all saw Comeau crash into the boards and hold his wrist when he got up. After that, a lot of us saw the wrist in a cast. That’s a broken wrist.
In the example you reference, what I wrote was about Crosby’s injury that led to his taking a shot and missing the All-Star weekend in Columbus. I had a discussion with … well, let’s just say he was the most reliable source possible for this information … and afterward, I was plenty convinced he missed the event for a wholly valid reason. If this person — let’s call him, um, ‘Sid’ — had told me the nature of this injury and had done so on the record, heck, yeah, I’d run with it. But ‘Sid’ didn’t do that, so you as the reader got everything that I could ethically give you.
And I stress that’s not ethical by the standards set by the NHL, Penguins or any other team. They don’t set the rules of reporting. I’m talking about universal journalistic ethics.
PghGolfGirl: What’s the deal with all of the broken hockey sticks this year? They seem to be littered all over the ice every game. Have the players strength overwhelmed the stick’s technology, or is there another reason why broken sticks seem so much more prevalent this year?
DK: That’s those stupid composite sticks that somehow Easton and other manufacturers coax these players into using even though they’ll so often fail at the worst possible time. Your examples should be headlined by all those occasions you’ve seen a player ready to tee one up from the high slot on a power play, only to have the stick sadly crumble under them.
The explanation is simple: Hockey players love the equipment that performs magic, that takes their talent to another level. So if they go out in practice and feel all this extra whippy motion and see an extra 5-6 mph on the slapper, they’ll swear by it and hope for the best.
That said, I don’t think the problem is as prevalent as it’s been in the recent past. Manufacturers have been embarrassed by all the breakage, and they’re working to limit it.
Know who used a wooden stick pretty much his entire career?
Yeah, him.
And when he came out of retirement, he tried one of those whippy things for a little while before ditching it because, in his estimation, he couldn’t ‘feel’ the puck on his blade.
jrolewski: What are your thoughts on Pitt basketball next year? With a solid core that showed some promise this year, and only losing Cam Wright, will they realistically be a force to reckon with in next year’s ACC?
DK: Next year?
Hey, with as wildly unpredictable as these Panthers have been the past couple months, it’s probably just as safe to project that they’ll be a force in next week’s ACC. As in the tournament down in Greensboro.
Seriously, which team would you say they can’t beat?
Not that they should beat but that they can’t?
The No. 1 seed, need I remind, will be a Virginia team that Pitt played evenly once they got their legs loose. And the Panthers obviously beat Notre Dame and North Carolina. Nothing can be ruled out.
But beyond that, which is your focus, the future is, indeed, bright. The blossoming of sophomores Michael Young, Jamel Artis, Sheldon Jeter and Chris Young stands out. But James Robinson and Durand Johnson will be back as seniors, too. You’ll note I’m leaving out Josh Newkirk, who might just get left out altogether after his big regression. So another guard or two could be needed. And a little more size and bulk wouldn’t hurt, either. But overall, it’s a terrific starting point.
Much more on this topic when I cover Pitt’s home finale tomorrow night vs. Miami.
dave.hays: Tyler Glasnow. He has been so dominant at the Pirates’ lower levels. Why make him wait two more years when he might already be able to add wins this year or next?
DK: Glasnow, the 6-foot-8, 21-year-old righty who was just the organization’s pitcher of the year in the minors, looks to be an immense talent. I could go on and on about that, but suffice it to say his 1.74 ERA last summer was a sweetly symmetrical match for the .174 opponents’ batting average.
But we’re talking about high Class A. He’s never thrown a pitch in Class AA. There are a lot of levels to climb, a lot of hurdles, a lot of challenges. Throwing away a future that bright for ‘wins this year or next’ — and that’s exactly what you’d do by starting his big-league clock too early — makes no sense at all. None. That’s not how baseball works, either from the development standpoint or the asset management standpoint.
Besides, and this is hardly scientific, but in watching Glasnow at camp just now … man alive, he looks like he’s 15 or something. Seriously, I thought he was the bat boy.
CRW Yinzer: DK, where do you stand on NASCAR? Are you a fan, are you at all intrigued, or do you think its just a bunch of rednecks turning left for four hours? Even more important, do you consider it a “sport” and its participants “athletes?”
DK: I swear, I don’t know enough about it to even come close to an opinion on any of that. In fact, until you mentioned turning left, I wouldn’t even have known that’s the direction they take on the track.
Sorry, but my hands are full with the sports I cover, and there’s barely any time left over in the day to engage in others. If pressed, I’m sure I could name two or three NASCAR drivers and, of course, Chip Ganassi, but that’s about it.
Michelle: Dejan, I have always been interested in this question: For the trades that happened yesterday, it makes me wonder how players on the team (not traded) respond to losing teammates and friends? Surely, they realize this is a business first, but can it cause somewhat or a rift between the higher up and players if the players don’t feel like the trades were worth their while? Especially with the locker room guy Bortz was, can taking him and plucking two new faces there be a bad things in terms of “for the room.”
DK: As you’d imagine, Michelle, it varies with each situation. But for the most part, you nailed with the it’s-a-business-first sentiment. Go into any NHL room, and you’re likely to find that maybe three-quarters of everyone in there has been traded at some point in their careers. They know what it’s like. They know how uncomfortable it can be for the new arrival. The last thing they’d want is for that new arrival to feel unwelcome.
When Daniel Winnik showed the other day, teammates and staff were shaking his hand and exchanging pleasantries all day. (Actually, even us evil reporters will do that. We’re working with Winnik, and we want to begin to get to know him.)
Some teammates will be more popular than others, so their loss will be felt more profoundly. This usually applies to a captain, a veteran or that type. In the Penguins’ room, for instance, I’d say you’d see a really negative reaction if it were someone like Pascal Dupuis who was sent out the door. He’s meant so much to so many.
But Bortuzzo, with all due respect, doesn’t come close in this category. You mention him being a great locker room guy, and I’ve heard that from other readers. I have no idea where that originated. Bortuzzo is extremely friendly, accommodating and that sort of thing, but he was anything but part of the team’s leadership structure.
PittFan412: After the Steelers restructured some contracts and after cutting Lance Moore, the Steelers have some cap space for this offseason. What expectations do you have for the Steelers free agency this year?
DK: The cap was set yesterday at $143 million, and it would appear the Steelers are about $9 million under it. (I hear that’s considered an absolute tragedy by at least one national outlet, but that’s another topic for another day.) That still isn’t much of a gap, but it can still grow with other releases likely to come and, believe it or not, that Ben Roethlisberger’s extension almost surely will help the cap situation rather than hurting it.
Nothing should make any sports writer feel dumber than predicting the Steelers will be aggressive — or even awake — through free agency. It just isn’t how they operate. But enough hints have been thrown my way to make me believe, at least a little, that they’ll pursue the right corner if he comes available. They obviously won’t say who that is, but be sure there’s a target on one, maybe two guys.
The rest, I think, can be managed. But one corner … that’s not asking a ton.
barnerburner: Let’s pretend that Olli Maatta had some other long-term injury that isn’t going to shelve him for as long as the second shoulder surgery has, and the expected recovery time projects he can be back from IR in time for the start of the postseason. Assuming that everything else with the Penguins season still unfolded in the exact same way without him (same place in the standings, same roster composition, same perceived weaknesses as of yesterday morning), do you think Rutherford still makes either of yesterday’s defensemen trades?
DK: Great question, and I can confidently say it’s got a better answer because Rutherford brought it up himself, unsolicited, in D.C. last week: “I can’t say enough about how much the loss of Olli has affected us. It’s affected everything we’ve done, the moves we’ve made, the moves we’re still considering.”
Maatta is a big, big part of the Penguins’ future, and it’s worth repeating he should have been part of their present.
Hate to keep being a tease, but he’ll come up in this week’s Insider, too.
Thanks to all for participating!
March 3, 2015
Tuesday 12 Qs: Despres, Pouliot, Kang, Worilds
by Dejan Kovacevic • Five Qs at 5 • Penguins, Pirates, Pitt, Steelers
People flock from far and wide to the new Simon Despres statue on the North Shore. — Photo-illustration DALI KOVACEVIC
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
Welcome to Tuesday 12 Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 9 a.m. and offers you a chance to carry the conversation. Use the comments below to submit an entry. No more than one per person, please. Submit early if you prefer, and I’ll pick from that batch to get rolling.
UPDATE 9 a.m.: And off we go …
dsglass74: I understand your perspective on the Pens’ trades, but doesn’t the extreme focus on 2015 — as shown by the draft picks traded, as well as trading a 23-year-old for a 31-year-old straight up — concern you? The Pens have a window now, sure, but farm system depth can extend that window, and there isn’t much depth at all left in the system.
DK: One thing about Simon Despres, before he’s bronzed and sharing space alongside Mario Lemieux and Roberto Clemente in the Pittsburgh sporting pantheon, is that despite his youth, he’s eligible for unrestricted free agency after next season. I should have brought this up in the column you cite because it’s relevant: A decision was looming as to whether to pay Despres at an open-market rate, regardless of his age. His current contract pays an average of $900,000. By mere virtue of free agency, it was going to rise exponentially, even if he never got any better.
Put this another way: A player’s youth only matters if you intend to pay him at a given rate. Otherwise, he’s just a young player who isn’t worth it.
Be very sure that the Penguins considered this and decided that their own younger defensemen — Derrick Pouliot, Scott Harrington, Brian Dumoulin — figure more prominently and less expensively in their plans for the next handful of years.
Oh, and on that note, say this, too, for Jim Rutherford: Despite half the fan base screeching for him to trade any or all of those three young defensemen over the course of the season, they’re all still here. He gave up some draft picks, but the only first-rounder was for David Perron, which has proven to be more larceny than trade.
The foundation that was there in the minors remains there, unless you count the loss of Philip Samuelsson. I don’t. He wasn’t a top prospect.
Sounds to me, in all candor, like there are a whole lot of cross-pollinating memes at work in trying to pan this Despres trade. Upon closer examination, they fail.
Hail2Pitt: Do you view the deadline deals as a vote of confidence for Pouliot? And do you think this means they believe he is a defenseman they want playing in the playoffs?
DK: Not sure. I mean, there have been votes of confidence for Pouliot all around, not least of which was Mike Johnston declaring after the Columbus victory that Pouliot looked “just as good” in that game as the one in which he starred in Washington last week. Also, in the most recent Friday Insider here, it was mentioned that the front office has been borderline giddy about him of late.
But the trades themselves … I’m not seeing that. Pouliot will still have to earn his way into the lineup, and the fact is, given the enormous disparity between his style and that of Robert Bortuzzo, he surely had a better chance of sticking if Bortuzzo had been around rather than Ian Cole, who has a similar skill set. Looking at Cole, he might well be Pouliot insurance or, for that matter, Christian Ehrhoff insurance if Ehrhoff’s concussion remains an issue.
Either way, I can tell you that Pouliot’s confidence is just soaring right now, on and off the ice. I’ll have more about why that is in the next Insider.
chadcameron46: DK, after your time in Bradenton, what is your opinion on the relationship between Jung-Ho Kang and his new teammates?
DK: I liked everything I saw, Chad, from Kang, from his ever-eager translator who even followed him into a social circle to make sure he was understood, and to how the rest of the Pirates were handling his arrival. Those who follow me on social media will recall that, on my first morning there, I snapped a pic of Kang, Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez sharing a laugh in the indoor cage. (The pic wound up so dark I later knocked it out, but it was on Instagram for at least three hours.) That was pretty much emblematic of what I saw and, again, what I reported.
I also appreciated seeing, on my final day down there last week, Kang and Jordy Mercer walking off the field together toward the clubhouse. This time, there was no translator and, of course, no discussion as a result. But given that fuss stirred by Kang’s misquotes in the Korean press that he believed he was a superior shortstop to what the Pirates currently have — I very much believe Neal Huntington’s account of that story — it was a scene worth noting.
It won’t be much fun for any rookie trying to break into the majors, certainly not visibly. That’s not how baseball works. Rookies in general are expected to be seen not heard and all that stuff. But Kang is an unusual — no, unique — situation, and I liked everything I saw and heard on that front.
jcurtis2010: Hey, DK., love the website. Though I must say ever since I subscribed, I find myself up past 12 reading all your new columns and such.
With so much talk being centered on the Steelers taking a cornerback in the draft, shouldn’t the priority be some pass rushers? Though corner would be great, they can’t cover forever if there is no pressure on the quarterback.
DK: I’m not going to dispute that, and I’ll concede I’ve thought a lot about that, too. Infinitely more important, the Steelers have thought about it, based on the talk I had with Kevin Colbert a couple weeks back. He mentions corner and outside linebacker in just about the same breath. There’s no way he isn’t at least contemplating it, especially since both are considered positions of strength in this class.
The most powerful answer on this front will come way before the draft, that with how Jason Worilds‘ situation plays out. All the vibes I’ve gotten since season’s end — and I’m talking from both sides, first-hand — is that something will get down toward a multiyear extension. Even if, as expected, the Steelers let him test the open market, that could amount to little more than offering Worilds a chance to gauge his true value, something that couldn’t happen last year because of the transition tag. Now, he can achieve both by setting a price and fulfilling what I’m confident is his real wish to stay in Pittsburgh. That doesn’t mean the Steelers will like the first price they hear or that they’ll go cart blanche, but at least there will be a starting point for talks.
Janka: To DK, your article is good at making me understand why are these trades are beneficial for us. And that having a solid D core with skill is more important than being overly physical and sloppy with the puck. The only question that I still have is: Who will help out our top goal-scorers when they being targeted at every shift that they take? Who will be able to stand up for them and have their backs?
DK: Are you referring to fighting?
As Rutherford stressed yesterday, fighting just isn’t an issue in the playoffs. You can look it up. Teams aren’t willing to allow enforcers to risk power plays, so they usually don’t even dress. When they do, their first mandate is to, you know, play hockey and stay out of the box.
It’s still a very good issue you raise, though, because what does get tested in these situations is team toughness. If someone takes a shot at the captain, as we saw from Columbus’ Ryan Johansen early in the game Sunday, someone has to make balance. (Now, in that case, it was Despres crushing him later into the glass, but the point stands.) That doesn’t have to be Steve Downie, and it doesn’t have to be eye for an eye. It can be a simple matter of the entire group playing that much harder against the opponent’s star player, that sort of thing.
But I’ll emphasize again here: The Penguins aren’t about to be something they’re not. If they’re going to succeed in the playoffs, it’s going to be on speed, skill and puck possession, not being physical and certainly not by intimidating. Big Macs and Legos and all that.
JMo: DK, what are the chances of Jose Tabata getting the outfield bench spot over Andrew Lambo or Corey Hart? I know they both play first base, as well, but seems tough to pay a guy $4 million to play right field in Class AAA.
DK: And you’d let a contract mistake dictate the roster?
Oh, no way.
One area where Huntington has been unfailingly consistent from his very first spring training, when he cut Byung-Hyun Kim after a miserable camp and gulped down a quarter-million dollars of his new boss’ money, is that he’s admitted his mistakes. Both publicly and, more important, in action.
Lambo will the last outfielder, and Hart will be the backup/platoon first baseman. If Tabata hits really well, either this spring or in Indianapolis, it’s conceivable that he could claw his way into the picture. He’s always had talent. But the default mode is very much that he’ll be in the minors and that, if all concerned had their way, he’d be gone.
That bridge isn’t scorched, but it’s in tatters.
SDBurghman: As a columnist, what is your position on reporting injuries that you discover while around the team? The reason I ask is that after the NHL All-Star break, you insinuated in a Friday insider report that Crosby was legitimately hurt but you wouldn’t expand upon the injury. What dictates when you can and cannot report on certain information?
DK: Reporting injuries is no different than reporting everything else. If I know it, and I’m comfortable that the information was obtained through a reliable source and that info was not given out off the record, heck, yeah, I absolutely run with it. My only obligation in this line of work is to serve you, the reader. That’s it.
There are no rules about this, by the way, written or unwritten. If I know, for example, that Blake Comeau had a broken wrist, I’m not going to make a monkey of myself and refer to it as an upper-body injury. Let the people involved to that. We all saw Comeau crash into the boards and hold his wrist when he got up. After that, a lot of us saw the wrist in a cast. That’s a broken wrist.
In the example you reference, what I wrote was about Crosby’s injury that led to his taking a shot and missing the All-Star weekend in Columbus. I had a discussion with … well, let’s just say he was the most reliable source possible for this information … and afterward, I was plenty convinced he missed the event for a wholly valid reason. If this person — let’s call him, um, ‘Sid’ — had told me the nature of this injury and had done so on the record, heck, yeah, I’d run with it. But ‘Sid’ didn’t do that, so you as the reader got everything that I could ethically give you.
And I stress that’s not ethical by the standards set by the NHL, Penguins or any other team. They don’t set the rules of reporting. I’m talking about universal journalistic ethics.
PghGolfGirl: What’s the deal with all of the broken hockey sticks this year? They seem to be littered all over the ice every game. Have the players strength overwhelmed the stick’s technology, or is there another reason why broken sticks seem so much more prevalent this year?
DK: That’s those stupid composite sticks that somehow Easton and other manufacturers coax these players into using even though they’ll so often fail at the worst possible time. Your examples should be headlined by all those occasions you’ve seen a player ready to tee one up from the high slot on a power play, only to have the stick sadly crumble under them.
The explanation is simple: Hockey players love the equipment that performs magic, that takes their talent to another level. So if they go out in practice and feel all this extra whippy motion and see an extra 5-6 mph on the slapper, they’ll swear by it and hope for the best.
That said, I don’t think the problem is as prevalent as it’s been in the recent past. Manufacturers have been embarrassed by all the breakage, and they’re working to limit it.
Know who used a wooden stick pretty much his entire career?
Yeah, him.
And when he came out of retirement, he tried one of those whippy things for a little while before ditching it because, in his estimation, he couldn’t ‘feel’ the puck on his blade.
jrolewski: What are your thoughts on Pitt basketball next year? With a solid core that showed some promise this year, and only losing Cam Wright, will they realistically be a force to reckon with in next year’s ACC?
DK: Next year?
Hey, with as wildly unpredictable as these Panthers have been the past couple months, it’s probably just as safe to project that they’ll be a force in next week’s ACC. As in the tournament down in Greensboro.
Seriously, which team would you say they can’t beat?
Not that they should beat but that they can’t?
The No. 1 seed, need I remind, will be a Virginia team that Pitt played evenly once they got their legs loose. And the Panthers obviously beat Notre Dame and North Carolina. Nothing can be ruled out.
But beyond that, which is your focus, the future is, indeed, bright. The blossoming of sophomores Michael Young, Jamel Artis, Sheldon Jeter and Chris Young stands out. But James Robinson and Durand Johnson will be back as seniors, too. You’ll note I’m leaving out Josh Newkirk, who might just get left out altogether after his big regression. So another guard or two could be needed. And a little more size and bulk wouldn’t hurt, either. But overall, it’s a terrific starting point.
Much more on this topic when I cover Pitt’s home finale tomorrow night vs. Miami.
dave.hays: Tyler Glasnow. He has been so dominant at the Pirates’ lower levels. Why make him wait two more years when he might already be able to add wins this year or next?
DK: Glasnow, the 6-foot-8, 21-year-old righty who was just the organization’s pitcher of the year in the minors, looks to be an immense talent. I could go on and on about that, but suffice it to say his 1.74 ERA last summer was a sweetly symmetrical match for the .174 opponents’ batting average.
But we’re talking about high Class A. He’s never thrown a pitch in Class AA. There are a lot of levels to climb, a lot of hurdles, a lot of challenges. Throwing away a future that bright for ‘wins this year or next’ — and that’s exactly what you’d do by starting his big-league clock too early — makes no sense at all. None. That’s not how baseball works, either from the development standpoint or the asset management standpoint.
Besides, and this is hardly scientific, but in watching Glasnow at camp just now … man alive, he looks like he’s 15 or something. Seriously, I thought he was the bat boy.
CRW Yinzer: DK, where do you stand on NASCAR? Are you a fan, are you at all intrigued, or do you think its just a bunch of rednecks turning left for four hours? Even more important, do you consider it a “sport” and its participants “athletes?”
DK: I swear, I don’t know enough about it to even come close to an opinion on any of that. In fact, until you mentioned turning left, I wouldn’t even have known that’s the direction they take on the track.
Sorry, but my hands are full with the sports I cover, and there’s barely any time left over in the day to engage in others. If pressed, I’m sure I could name two or three NASCAR drivers and, of course, Chip Ganassi, but that’s about it.
Michelle: Dejan, I have always been interested in this question: For the trades that happened yesterday, it makes me wonder how players on the team (not traded) respond to losing teammates and friends? Surely, they realize this is a business first, but can it cause somewhat or a rift between the higher up and players if the players don’t feel like the trades were worth their while? Especially with the locker room guy Bortz was, can taking him and plucking two new faces there be a bad things in terms of “for the room.”
DK: As you’d imagine, Michelle, it varies with each situation. But for the most part, you nailed with the it’s-a-business-first sentiment. Go into any NHL room, and you’re likely to find that maybe three-quarters of everyone in there has been traded at some point in their careers. They know what it’s like. They know how uncomfortable it can be for the new arrival. The last thing they’d want is for that new arrival to feel unwelcome.
When Daniel Winnik showed the other day, teammates and staff were shaking his hand and exchanging pleasantries all day. (Actually, even us evil reporters will do that. We’re working with Winnik, and we want to begin to get to know him.)
Some teammates will be more popular than others, so their loss will be felt more profoundly. This usually applies to a captain, a veteran or that type. In the Penguins’ room, for instance, I’d say you’d see a really negative reaction if it were someone like Pascal Dupuis who was sent out the door. He’s meant so much to so many.
But Bortuzzo, with all due respect, doesn’t come close in this category. You mention him being a great locker room guy, and I’ve heard that from other readers. I have no idea where that originated. Bortuzzo is extremely friendly, accommodating and that sort of thing, but he was anything but part of the team’s leadership structure.
PittFan412: After the Steelers restructured some contracts and after cutting Lance Moore, the Steelers have some cap space for this offseason. What expectations do you have for the Steelers free agency this year?
DK: The cap was set yesterday at $143 million, and it would appear the Steelers are about $9 million under it. (I hear that’s considered an absolute tragedy by at least one national outlet, but that’s another topic for another day.) That still isn’t much of a gap, but it can still grow with other releases likely to come and, believe it or not, that Ben Roethlisberger’s extension almost surely will help the cap situation rather than hurting it.
Nothing should make any sports writer feel dumber than predicting the Steelers will be aggressive — or even awake — through free agency. It just isn’t how they operate. But enough hints have been thrown my way to make me believe, at least a little, that they’ll pursue the right corner if he comes available. They obviously won’t say who that is, but be sure there’s a target on one, maybe two guys.
The rest, I think, can be managed. But one corner … that’s not asking a ton.
barnerburner: Let’s pretend that Olli Maatta had some other long-term injury that isn’t going to shelve him for as long as the second shoulder surgery has, and the expected recovery time projects he can be back from IR in time for the start of the postseason. Assuming that everything else with the Penguins season still unfolded in the exact same way without him (same place in the standings, same roster composition, same perceived weaknesses as of yesterday morning), do you think Rutherford still makes either of yesterday’s defensemen trades?
DK: Great question, and I can confidently say it’s got a better answer because Rutherford brought it up himself, unsolicited, in D.C. last week: “I can’t say enough about how much the loss of Olli has affected us. It’s affected everything we’ve done, the moves we’ve made, the moves we’re still considering.”
Maatta is a big, big part of the Penguins’ future, and it’s worth repeating he should have been part of their present.
Hate to keep being a tease, but he’ll come up in this week’s Insider, too.
Thanks to all for participating!