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The Penguins still have the players who make up their core — such as goalie Marc-Andre Fleury — but can they pull off what the Chicago Blackhawks just did?
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Gene Collier: Penguins need wingers and good health to thrive in postseason

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Gene Collier: Penguins need wingers and good health to thrive in postseason

Watching the swift and smart and preternaturally resourceful Chicago Blackhawks skate with the Stanley Cup again this week triggered a predictable question up and down the three rivers:

Hey, weren’t the Penguins in these playoffs at some point?

Well, yes, but it was months ago, and only briefly.

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The more relevant question is: “What do the Blackhawks have that the Penguins haven’t, other than three Stanley Cups in the past six years, three consequent parades, at least one indestructible defenseman, relatively stable ownership, forwards, a proven coach, an experienced coach, and a logo so cool it has doubled as Griswoldian formal wear?”

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Plenty, it turns out, but what the Penguins have is The Core: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Marc-Andre Fleury are not only the core, but they also are the core in its prime, and, even though it’s not terribly likely the Blackhawks would send you Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, the almost-certain-to-be-traded Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith in a four-for-four swap were such a thing even possible, that doesn’t mean the Penguins can’t be a Stanley Cup contender with some reasonable additions.

“We didn’t need to see the finals to know it; we knew down the stretch that we need more skill on the wings,” Penguins general manager Jimmy Rutherford was saying Wednesday. “That’s a priority for us.”

Nor did the GM see anything about Chicago’s performance, or that of the formidable Tampa Bay Lightning, that cast a different light on what’s necessary to play this game toward the middle of June.

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“The Blackhawks’ core group have risen to the occasion over the span of these last three Cups,” Rutherford said. “Clearly Kane and Toews and [goaltender Corey] Crawford and Keith and some others have been really key players, but all three times they’ve had a different supporting cast.

“The conclusion I draw from that is that 1, we have the core guys to win a championship and 2, it’s my job and the job of everyone in hockey [operations] to try to get the right supporting cast so that we can build enough balance, speed and youth to have a complementary group that allows us to make the same run.”

A lot will be made in the coming weeks about Chicago’s dearth of cap room and long list of both restricted and unrestricted free agents, but the Penguins’ problems are much more daunting. Across multiple administrations, the franchise had drafted poorly, particularly when it comes to forwards. Now it faces a draft nearly bereft of quality picks (they have just one in the top 136) as a result of trading picks for no-impact forwards (David Perron, Marcel Goc, Daniel Winnik).

So if you can’t draft quality forwards and you can’t trade draft picks for quality forwards, the only thing left might be to deal for top quality forwards, even if it means hacking away at The Core.

NHL websites and other fonts of alleged intelligence are verily bursting with speculation that Malkin is the bait in this scenario.

“No, he’s not available,” Rutherford said flatly. “Based on my communications with him or with his agent, he does not have an interest [in a trade]. He loves Pittsburgh and he wants to win here. Like everybody else, he’s disappointed with us not reaching our goal. He played hurt. He actually played when most guys wouldn’t play. There’s no interest from either side [the club’s or the player’s] in moving him.”

If the exemplary work done by Chicago and Tampa Bay over the past two weeks persuaded Rutherford about anything, it’s that skill thrills like never before in the ever-changing on-ice politics of this great game.

“The Blackhawks played this year the way they played in the other years they won it,” Rutherford said. “There are other teams that have different styles and have built their teams differently, but what you saw in the finals was two teams who were highly skilled and had good speed compared to some teams who are very good in our league but who have tried to do it another way.

“I don’t think there’s one set way of doing it, but those were two highly skilled teams.”

Acquiring that level of skill is Rutherford’s primary challenge, but as his first full Pittsburgh offseason unfolds, he and his hockey ops cohorts are almost equally interested in finding new ways to keep skilled people out of the doctor’s office.

“We’re really looking into a lot of things to see if we can identify why we’re a team with injuries,” he said. “One of the things that’s been pointed out to us is that a couple of teams that didn’t have a lot of injuries really had a lot of rest periods throughout the season for their players. We talked about how hard players should train in the offseason. We’ve had guys take just a couple of weeks off, and it’s been pointed out to us that maybe that’s not the way to go. You have to let your body rest and recover.

“We’ve had experts in to meet with. We’re hiring different people as consultants. We’re meeting with a company this week that has done some tracking on soccer players in Europe. We’re trying to find a healthier way.”

To the degree to which they’re attainable, more speed, more skill and better health are most of what the Penguins need to return them to a place where they are, as Mike Tomlin might say, parade capable.

Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com and Twitter @genecollier.

First Published: June 18, 2015, 4:00 a.m.

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The Penguins still have the players who make up their core — such as goalie Marc-Andre Fleury — but can they pull off what the Chicago Blackhawks just did?  (Peter Diana/Post-Gazette)
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