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Penguins Notebook: Patrick active at trade deadline
Tuesday, March 12, 2002 By Dave Molinari, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
General Manager Craig Patrick made his most celebrated deal less than 18 hours before the trading deadline in 1991, and seems to negotiate a personnel move or two at the deadline just about every year.
Some border on the breathtaking, like when Patrick pried Ron Francis, Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings from Hartford 11 years ago. And, in the process, filled every significant hole in the lineup of a team that would win the Stanley Cup 2 1/2 months later.
Others, from the Penguins' perspective, would best be buried -- as deep as possible -- in the archives of regrettable transactions. Getting Alek Stojanov from Vancouver for Markus Naslund in 1996 isn't what got Patrick into the Hall of Fame, and shipping Stu Barnes to Buffalo for Matthew Barnaby in 1999 didn't earn him any lifetime achievement awards, either.
Still, most deadline deals tend to be a bit more, well, forgettable. That Mike Needham-for-Jim McKenzie swap with Dallas in 1994 didn't exactly alter the balance of power in either conference. Same with the one that sent Patrick Lalime's rights to Anaheim for Sean Pronger in 1998. And who could forget when the Penguins got Josef Beranek from Edmonton for German Titov two years ago? Just about everyone, probably.
Still, precedent suggests that Patrick -- and many of his peers -- will pull off some sort of trade before the deadline, 3 p.m. next Tuesday. And Patrick is among those who believe that at least part of the reason so many teams are active at the deadline is the deadline itself.
"Why do you think the Writers Guild waits until the last minute to make their final deal?" he said. "When deadlines are there, people wait to make the best deal. That's just the way it is.
"Timing is everything, and usually, an artificial deadline creates [an urgency]. There are times during the season when two teams are willing to make a change for whatever reason, but when you get this close to a deadline, people wait for the deadline, usually."
Trivia question
What is the fewest points the Penguins have earned on home ice in a single season? Answer at end.
Playoff road
While the Penguins' prospects for getting into the Stanley Cup playoffs don't seem to have been upgraded significantly since the Olympic break ended two weeks ago, they might be a bit better than they appear at first blush.
That's because, of the nine road games they have left, no fewer than five are against teams with some of the worst home records in the NHL.
That includes all three teams -- Anaheim (12-15-3-2), Los Angeles (13-12-5-1 before last night) and Atlanta (10-17-6) -- on the road trip that begins tomorrow. The others are Florida (9-19-1-4) and Tampa Bay (13-14-3-2), which the Penguins will visit early next month.
A look at the remaining opponents of the six teams competing for the final two playoff berths in the Eastern Conference:
Book on Hedberg
The trade was made a year ago today, and had the look of a classic low-impact deal: An exchange of end-of-the-road defensemen, with a career minor-leaguer thrown into the mix.
And while picking up Bobby Dollas didn't do much for the Penguins -- just as adding Jeff Norton hardly put San Jose over the top -- that career minor-leaguer worked out OK. He became the Penguins' No. 1 goalie shortly after joining the team, and might well hold that job for a number of years.
And while Johan Hedberg hasn't consistently played at the spectacular level he reached during the stretch drive and playoffs last year, he has snuffed any concerns that he was a one-year wonder.
Indeed, there's no evidence that, even though opposing shooters have had a year to study him, anyone has put together a book on how to consistently beat him.
"They've watched tapes on him, so there's no secrets," Coach Rick Kehoe said. "You know the tendencies of some of the goaltenders, but that doesn't mean you're going to score on them."
For his part, Hedberg contends that he hasn't detected any pattern in the way opponents attack him, which reinforces the belief that there's no consensus on any vulnerable areas he might have.
"Some nights, people come in and don't shoot a shot that's higher than my knees," he said. "Some nights, they come in and everything is high. Maybe they've got different books."
Teams fairly even
Thanks to a spate of serious injuries to key players and a lack of NHL-caliber depth in the organization, the Penguins have drifted toward the bottom of the NHL's great middle class this season.
That's quite a drop for a club that came within seven victories of winning the Stanley Cup a year ago, but the hard reality in today's NHL is that it doesn't take much for a team to make a dramatic move up -- or down -- in the standings.
"The difference between [a Stanley Cup contender] and a team that doesn't make the playoffs isn't that great," defenseman Andrew Ference said. "There are the superstar players that will completely change the dynamics of a team, but overall, most teams are on a pretty even playing field."
Trivia answer
The Penguins earned just 18 points at the Civic Arena during the 1983-84 season, when their home record was 7-29-4.
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Penguins -- Home: Phoenix, Philadelphia, Washington, New Jersey, Montreal, Buffalo, Toronto; Away: Anaheim, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Montreal, Florida, Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, New York Rangers, Boston.