The 2010-11 season was not a very good year of hockey for the Pittsburgh Penguins. This was the season that Sidney Crosby took a cheap shot to the head and subsequently missed most of his prime age time of his career. It was also a year in which Tyler Myers fell on Evgeni Malkin’s leg rendering him out for the rest of the season. Dan Bylsma still managed to get the team into the playoffs despite his two studs being down and out. They even had a 3-1 series lead on the Tampa Bay Lightning in round one, until the goaltending flamed out.
Here’s a look at the obvious losses
While the Penguins were never going to win a Stanley Cup with both Crosby and Malkin down for the count they were still trying to build towards the future when they would have both players back. Two big free agent additions came on the back end. The Penguins signed both Paul Martin and Zbynek Michalek. The narrative surrounding both players after this season was they had a difficult time getting acclimated and had to pick up their game(s). The evidence doesn’t quite jive with those assessments. They were both effective and in Martin’s case, very effective.
Paul Martin’s proj. WAR% for his five seasons with the Penguins were 99, 98, 96, 93, and 97. He was an absolutely tremendous signing for the Penguins and the year people criticized him the most he might have been his most effective.
Zbynek Michalek wasn’t as effective as Paul Martin, but he was still a solid top four defenseman. He ended up playing two seasons with the Penguins and was not a player holding anybody back. When Shero asked Martin and MIchalek if they wanted to stick it out in Pittsburgh Martin elected to stay and Michalek chose to go back to Arizona where he spent five seasons previously.
The real issue with the defense? Brooks Orpik
Somehow Martin and Michalek were under fire, but not a player who actually deserved scrutiny. I maintain that Orpik was one of the most overrated players of this era. They should have sold high on him and gotten an impressive haul back. His perceived value was way higher than his actual.
There were two more players who made their Penguins debut this season and it came via trade. Out was Alex Goligoski and in came James Neal and Matt Niskanen.
Neal was an up and coming forward who had one of the very best wrist shots in the game. He had a slow start in the regular season only scoring once in his first 20 games with the Penguins. His bad angle shot from the boards against Tampa Bay earned the Penguins a Game 4 victory in double overtime. It was the following season where Neal played his best hockey with the Penguins.
Matt Niskanen was the overlooked throw-in with the trade. He was known at the time as the guy who fought Sidney Crosby that one time. He was a decent player when he arrived to Pittsburgh and then blossomed into a reliable top four defenseman at a very cost-effective AAV with cap hits of only 1.5M and 2.3M.
While 2010-11 was a lost season the team was building towards what should have been a highly competitive team with the return of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
Thanks for reading!
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