Apr 8, 2017 5 min read

Have the Penguins forfeited yet?

I know the first round playoff series with the Columbus Blue Jackets hasn’t started yet, but based on what I heard in the local media, the Penguins’ chance of repeating as Stanley Cup championship ended when it was announced Kris Letang would have surgery on a disc in his neck and be out four to six months. The consensus seemed to be that they had little or no chance of beating the Blue Jackets.

Why?

Because Letang is their most important, irreplaceable, indispensable player. A least that’s what I keep hearing.

No he’s not. Sidney Crosby, however, is.

This is not to diminish Letang’s contributions or his talent. He might be the best puck moving defenseman who also actually plays defense in the NHL. The Penguins might not have won the Cup last season without him.

Give Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella a call and tell him he has the choice of facing the Penguins without either Crosby or Letang. There is no way he’d choose Letang over Crosby.

Survey the coaches and general managers on the other 14 playoff teams and give them the same choice. All would tell the Penguins to sit Crosby and dress Letang.

In 2014 Letang played 13 playoff games. So did Crosby. But he was playing with an injured wrist and the Penguins lost in seven games to the New York Rangers in the second round.

In 2011 Letang played against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Crosby did not. The Lightning won the series 4-3. Evgeni Malkin also missed that series.

Would the Penguins’ chances be better with Letang? Of course. But they’re not doomed without him.

It would be a smart bet to take the field against the Penguins if they were 100 percent healthy based solely on history. No team has repeated since 1998. And if they don’t repeat, expect to hear a lot of experts saying they knew all along the Penguins couldn’t win without Letang.

• This just in: Ben Roethlisberger has not changed his mind and is sticking with the plan that he announced on Friday. He still plans to be playing for the Steelers in 2017.

• The Pirates did their fans no favors by playing the home opener as scheduled on Friday. I’m pretty sure the wind chill factor at game time was 24 degrees. The temperature never got out of the 30s and it snowed during the game.

Fans were given a choice of eating the cost of the ticket or sitting in the cold for three hours. That’s why most home openers are followed by an open date on the schedule, but you can’t do that if the opener is on a Friday. Here’s a suggestion, don’t have the home opener on a Friday.

• It was a tough week for Phil Simms.

He was yanked from his job as lead NFL analyst on CBS and replaced by a rookie, Tony Romo, who had just been released by the Dallas Cowboys. What does it say about the demands and difficulty of the job when a guy who’s never worked a day in broadcasting becomes the top football analyst for a network?

• There’s a great video floating around that shows the differences between soccer coaches and hockey coaches.

A European soccer coach is hit in the forehead by a paper airplane. He barely flinches but then when he looks down and sees the airplane on the ground he begins to grab his head and look for somewhere to do a soccer writhe.

On the same video, Washington Capitals coach Barry Trotz gets hit in the head with a puck. He rubs his forehead, shrugs his shoulders and gets back to coaching with a large gash where the puck hit him. The video cuts back to the soccer coach who is still looking like a guy ready to writhe as he’s consoled by other coaches.

I’ve never liked soccer. I just haven’t been able to get past the writhing.

• Twenty-five years ago there were 15 50-goal scorers in the NHL. The Penguins had two of them – Mario Lemieux (69) and Kevin Stevens (55). Rick Tocchet just missed the mark with 48.

This year there will be none. That should give a little perspective to the 43 goals Crosby had scored coming into this weekend.

• Lemieux won the scoring title in 1992 with 160 points. He did it in 64 games. That comes to 2.67 points per game.

He was pretty good.

• You should feel good about all the lives saved Friday and Saturday by those new nets at PNC Park.

• When did cornhole become a popular tailgating game and why would anybody over the age of eight want to play it?

• The new animated right field scoreboard at PNC Park should be a big hit with the kiddies.

I don’t know how I got through baseball games without all the exciting extras now available at the ballpark. We had to be content with, you know, just watching the game.

• Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers had a chance at finishing with 100 points in the regular season. He was at 97 prior to Saturday’s game. Twenty-five years ago there 22 players scored 100 or more points.

• The NHL won’t send their players to South Korea for the Olympics next year. Good. Let the kids play.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday sports column for the Observer-Reporter.