I don’t think the pens will win the Cup by any means, but I think they will do just fine in the regular season despite their loses.
Why?
Well for one, the east sucks.
Second, they have Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc Andre Fleury, Orpik, Whitney, and Gonchar locked up for a while still, and unless they are completely hiding some crazy story that we are all missing, it seems like Staal will also be signed long term before his contract is up.
Not to mention young up and comers like Kris Letang and Alex Goligoski, As well as many young guys who will be solid 3rd and fourth liners in the NHL for a while.
Also there is the unknown impact of Janne Pesonen, who if he works out great, will be a linemate of Sid or Geno’s by the end of the season, but really, we can’t expect too much from a guy who has never played in the NHL.

The main thing they are missing of course is the guys to play with Malkin and Sid, and the chemisty between them. They filled the holes, but only for 1 year, and it is not expected that any of those guys will be resigned.
So it will be hard for them to mesh as a team, like the article pointed out.
However, as we saw 2 seasons ago, a team that has Sidney Crosby and not to many other supporting teamates is still a playoff worthy team.

As for the loss of Ty Conklin, as long as Fleury doesn’t get hurt again, they should be fine. Last season, during the games that Sabou simply as a backup, he played very well, it was when he was given the starters role that he played badly, and conversly, when Conks went from being the starter, to being the kinda starter, if he plays bad he’s out, starter/backup thing, then he played badly.

After this offseason, in which they locked up much of their young talent for a while, but also lost a few that were very important in their playoff success, Pens fans arent really expecting any more than a trip to the playoffs this season. We are much more excited for a season or 2 down the road, where hopefully we will have all the gaps filled , and have chemistry like we saw this last season.

And on kind of a side note, i think that since the only top line that is partially returning is Malkin and Sykora, who play awesome together, that Malkin will actually lead the Pens in scoring this season, not Sid like may be expected. I think it will take a month or so for Sid and Satan to get the kind of chemistry that he and Hossa were beginning to get by the end of the playoffs.

Posted by Kevin from Pittsburgh on 09/01/08 at 09:34 PM ET