Commentary
Pens on critical list again PITTSBURG _This year’s marketing slogan is “Hockey is Life.”
Life isn’t so good for the Penguins these days.
Monday’s giveaway of Alexei Kovalev brought a predictable reaction. One newspaper called it “criminal,” while another wondered why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman would authorize such an obvious salary dump.
Those perspectives, by the way, came from the New York papers, who recognized that the Rangers’ acquisition of one of the game’s best players for a bundle of unwanted spare parts had a bad smell.
If Penguins fans aren’t used it to, they’d better be.
It was just a couple of years ago that the Penguins traded Jaromir Jagr to Washington for three supposed prospects, only one of whom is currently playing in Pittsburgh. That player, Michal Sivek, isn’t playing very well.
The Penguins did a masterful job of spinning the Jagr deal, claiming that he was a locker room problem who had to be moved.
But if Jagr had been making $2 million a year instead of $9 million, he’d still be with the Penguins, no matter how big a pain in the neck he was.
The motivation for trading Kovalev was purely financial. The shorthand is this: He’s eligible for arbitration next year and free agency the year after that. He would be looking at a salary somewhere between $7 million and $9 million next season.
So the Penguins dealt him. By including useless defensemen Janne Laukkanen and Mike Wilson, they got even more payroll relief.
That’s why the Rangers didn’t have to give the Penguins a single good player in the trade.
Taking those two bad contracts was part of the price the Rangers paid for Kovalev. No one at the Penguins is talking specifics about the team’s finances, but you’re left with the impression the situation was dire.
Mario Lemieux went public last week with his concerns, shortly after the ownership group had a meeting. The feeling lingers that they were told the team might not be able to get through the season without some significant and immediate financial relief.
The Penguins exist on hope these days. They’re hoping a new collective bargaining agreement will include a salary cap and put a damper on salary escalation.
They’re also hoping for a new arena that will give them new sources for revenue.
Both are possible but neither is guaranteed.
Word is that NHL owners are committed to reform and they’re willing to sacrifice an entire season if that’s what it takes to make radical changes in the system.
It’s the boldest talk since the baseball owners steeled themselves for a showdown with the Players Association in 1994.
They talked about how they were at last to ready to take the most drastic steps to fix the system.
They did.
They sacrificed the World Series. They assembled teams of replacement players and were hours away from bringing the no-names north to open the season.
There were problems, though. Canada doesn’t allow replacement workers, which meant baseball couldn’t operate in Montreal or Toronto. The owner of the Baltimore Orioles made his fortune as a labor lawyer and refused to hire strikebreakers.
The owners lost in court, lost at the bargaining table and came back with essentially the same agreement they had before.
The result of baseball’s tenacious commitment to labor reform: millions in lost revenue, an angry fan base and hard feelings with the television networks.
So there’s no assurance the NHL will get what it wants in a new labor agreement, no matter how entrenched the owners claim to be.
The new arena is far from a sure thing. There’s a greater need for an arena than there was for a new football stadium but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
It’s a new world and a new economy. The city and county are tapped out and the state’s finances are a mess, too.
Even if a financing plan were in place, the Penguins would still play at least three more seasons at their current home, the one that they say is killing them now.
It’s a bleak picture. The Penguins didn’t even get good prospects for Kovalev; they got marginal players who can fill secondary roles in the NHL now.
It was more important to get the immediate financial relief, which speaks volumes about their current plight.
This franchise has been in trouble for much of its existence, as evidenced by two trips to bankruptcy court.
Make no mistake about it: The Penguins are on the critical list again.
John Mehno can be reached at: begin johnmehno@lycos.com johnmehno@lycos.com end
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