If the Penguins do, in fact, trade Ian Cole, it will only continue the mojo leak that began last summer.
You can’t measure mojo. It’s not like Corsi or Fenwick or any of the analytics used to quantify hockey players. But you don’t need me to tell you that Matt Cullen, Marc-Andre Fleury, Trevor Daley, Chris Kunitz and Nick Bonino — and Cole, I would argue — are made of some special stuff.
You don’t replace those kinds of players, those kinds of people, easily.
Early returns would suggest some of their replacements are of the generic variety of hockey player. Not bad. Certainly not special. We’ll see about Matt Hunwick, whom the Penguins clearly identified during the offseason as Cole’s replacement next to Justin Schultz.
Maybe we should have seen the writing on the wall here, because the Penguins used giant block letters. They re-upped Schultz and Brian Dumoulin and signed Hunwick. They did not re-sign Cole, who was going into the last year of his contract, likely figuring he would be too expensive.
That created a situation where Cole would have to play the right side, with a different partner, to stay in the lineup, and he isn’t as good on the right side. When Hunwick returned from his concussion, he assumed his preordained spot next to Schultz. And now the Penguins — even if coach Mike Sullivan wants to frame it as fake news — are listening to offers on Cole.
It all makes sense but only has a chance to work if Hunwick shows some special qualities. Cole is a warrior, a leader, a lively personality. He blocks shots (sometimes with his face), kills penalties, delivers an occasional huge hit and even scored a memorable Stanley Cup final goal (Game 4, San Jose).
In other words, he has some unique qualities relative to the club’s other defensemen. He’s a very good defender on what is, at the moment, a bad defensive team. Losing him would qualify as yet another blow to the Penguins’ one-time bevy of vital non-star contributors — guys who brought something extra in the room and on the ice.
And that brings us to Patric Hornqvist, the epitome of such a player. If Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin represent the soul of this team, Hornqvist is the heart. We’ve seen it displayed so many times over the past few years, even in the regular season.
I think of Hornqvist willing the Penguins to a win over San Jose early last season. I think of him piping up during the second intermission the other night against the Flyers, after which the club played perhaps its most spirited period of the season.
Of course I think of him contributing to countless Penguins playoff goals over the past two years by way of his relentless, maniacal net-front presence. So many of the shots that used to die sad and lonely deaths against the likes of Tuukka Rask and Henrik Lundqvist stayed alive because of Hornqvist. So many of them wound up in the back of the net.
He scored plenty on his own, too, including a fairly big one in Game 6 at Nashville.
All you need to know, in the end, is that no less an authority than Cullen appraised Hornqvist this way: “He’s definitely the most intense guy I’ve ever played with.”
The Penguins can’t lose that.
They can’t lose Hornqvist, too. He needs to be re-signed as soon as possible. The Penguins cannot let him test free agency this summer.
Re-signing him could get complicated, and expensive, as Hornqvist already is making $4.75 million. He likely would fall between $5 million to $6 million per year, over a handful of years. It would necessitate other moves at some point. And he does turn 31 on New Year’s Day.
But signing 30-somethings isn’t necessarily a bad idea. The Kunitz deal turned out pretty well, no?
GM Jim Rutherford last week threw some cold water on the possibility of re-upping Hornqvist in-season. He didn’t rule it out, though.
“That would be something that’s a little uncharacteristic for me,” Rutherford told the Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey. “For the most part, I wait until the end of the season.”
Maybe, but Rutherford signed Olli Maatta in the middle of a season (February 2016). He signed Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray in-season (November 2014 and October 2016, respectively). He signed Bryan Rust, Tom Kuhnhackl and Scott Wilson in March 2016. So this wouldn’t exactly be a major break with precedent.
Listen, if Penguins could net a quality return for Cole — a third-line center, for example — I think most reasonable people would understand, even if their preference would be to keep Cole for another run.
But losing Hornqvist (assuming he doesn’t ask for something totally outlandish)?
That would be incomprehensible.
That would not be OK.
The Penguins have lost enough mojo already. They cannot lose Hornqvist’s special brand.
Joe Starkey: jstarkey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @joestarkey1. Joe Starkey can be heard on the “Starkey and Mueller” show weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
First Published: November 29, 2017, 8:53 p.m.