DK'S GRIND

Kovacevic: East-heavy slate will expose all

Dejan Kovacevic
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Faceoff drills at the Penguins' practice Thursday in Cranberry. - DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS

CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Flyers definitely don't stink.

As James van Riemsdyk told me a few days ago in Philadelphia, "We're getting stronger, more confident, and I think everyone can see that."

Yep. The Penguins sure saw it out there.

I'm sharing this not so much because the commonwealth's archrivals will face off again Friday night at PPG Paints Arena, completing the most hyperextended home-and-home series in NHL history, but more because the Flyers are currently stuck outside the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

As are the Maple Leafs.

Both by less than a single victory.

And you know what that means?

"Yeah, this is going to be work," Jack Johnson replied when I raised this Thursday after the team's return practice at the Lemieux Sports Complex. "There are a lot of good teams in this conference. In the whole league, really. And I guess that's kind of what they wanted with all this parity, the salary cap and all that. Look at the standings."

All right, then ...

... so, yeah, like that: Thirteen total points separate the top 10 teams. And I purposely kept the Rangers inside that crop since they're young, they're playing better, and they've got games in hand on the pack.

The only teams I see up there as drop-dead playoff certainties are the Capitals, Bruins, Lightning and, of course, the Penguins. To the latter, there's no way they come this far while missing so many pivotal players only to collapse upon those players' return.

Still, predicting that and producing it are separate concepts. And the Penguins' 20-4-2 record against the West, wonderful as that's been, won't be of much use moving forward. Of their final 32 games, 28 will stay within the East, including each of the next 11. And their record against the East is a blah 11-10-2.

That'll mean elevating further. Partly because the East is simply stronger -- home to 10 of the league's top 14 teams -- but also because the Penguins' relentless, defense-first approach still seems to catch Western teams off guard for reasons no one can explain. "The difference between conferences isn't that great anymore," as Mike Sullivan told me in Boston a couple weeks back, but their style has no chance of surprising anyone in the East. If anything, it's a style most have adopted, albeit with variations.

"We do have to be better," Marcus Pettersson told me Thursday. "Honestly, I feel like our hardest hockey ever since I got here last year has been inside the East, especially our division. You've got to be on your toes every night and collect as many points as you can."

Patric Hornqvist saw it much the same:

• It'll be outstanding having Justin Schultz back, even if it takes him time, as it has in the past, to find his footing. But let's remember that Chad Ruhwedel, regardless of his role or label, just took a regular shift for two months on what's become the NHL's most consistently sound defensive team. That's a valuable piece to hold in reserve.

• Pettersson's five-year extension virtually cements Schultz's exit at year's end, but that absolutely shouldn't have Schultz on the block. Leave well enough alone. Besides, trade value for rentals isn't worth anywhere near as much as keeping such a player for a meaningful playoff run.

• No defense pairings were showing in practice, but I'll give it a go:

Johnson-Letang
Pettersson-Marino
Riikola-Schultz

Only reason for Schultz on the third pairing is that he's got to have a fair chance at returning at a reasonable pace. Same goes for special teams.

Once Brian Dumoulin's back, try this:

Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Schultz
Johnson-Marino

The first two combos are kind of obvious, but the latter pair has formed a trusting relationship.

• Notice I omitted the Sabres from that list of Eastern contenders up there. That's because they do stink. Yet again. And this will be their ninth consecutive year out of the playoffs, which'll mark only the fourth time in NHL history any team's been that terrible for that long.

Cue Duane, an angry Buffalonian who's had enough ...

... and has since become a social-media and talk-show icon across Western New York.

Just in case anyone here ever thinks they have it rough. Imagine living in a city where the Sabres and Bills have known little more than collective torment for half a century.

• Best rivalry in hockey?

That's not in-state, but in-province. The Battle of Alberta, which pushes Penguins-Flyers for longevity and snarl, is currently atop the entire sporting world with all the ongoing mayhem between the Oilers and Flames, not least of which occurred a couple nights ago in Edmonton:

David Rittich going the full Jose Bautista with the goal-stick bat-flip is one of the great moments of the entire NHL season. But let the record show that, amid unending obituaries for fighting in hockey, these latest battles up there have been rooted in fighting. With eyes from across the continent being gained.

I'm not in favor of fighting in hockey, but I'd never pretend it hurts the sport's visibility, either.

• The safest bet related to Super Bowl LIV was always going to be that JuJu Smith-Schuster would make himself visible in Miami and, from there, that he'd be highly sought for interviews. He didn't disappoint, and neither did those clamoring for a chance to speak with him.

JuJu ranked 95th in the NFL this past season with 42 catches. He ranked 77th with 552 receiving yards. He had three receiving touchdowns. He was the third-best wide receiver on his own team, behind Diontae Johnson and James Washington, and that includes when all three were healthy.

I couldn't care less what he does with his own time, but I'm at least a little surprised that none of the shine's worn off his star after the season he just had. Be sure that'll start happening if 2020 is a sequel. Sooner or later, the production's got to match the popularity.

• Then again, we share a culture with Tim Tebow, so what do I know?

• The Chiefs have the edge on offense, the 49ers on defense and special teams, and that appears to be the flip-a-coin so many are forecasting for Sunday. I see Patrick Mahomes, an array of receivers and the very best version of the game's premier tight end, Travis Kelce, and I don't feel the need to go a lot further. Not with all else seemingly balancing out.

• We'll know within a week how Ben Roethlisberger's rehab's progressing and, in all likelihood, whether or not he'll be able to begin a throwing program in time to be ready for the 2020 season. That much is uncertain.

But that's it. The man's already stated, in the clearest terms, that he intends to come back, that he wants to come back. And yet, this angle on this subject never seems to fully fade -- media analysis, fans, etc. -- and I can't understand why. Maybe it's that Eli Manning's retiring, that Phillip Rivers looks set to leave the Chargers, and they, of course, came from the same iconic draft class. Maybe it's that Ben's career never takes a curve without drama. Whatever.

For one, he's got tens of millions of reasons to return.

For another, he's got to be drooling for a chance to quarterback a team with this kind of defense, never mind the promising young receivers.

For yet another, he's never, ever, ever indicated anything to the contrary.

• Worried about his elbow?

Not to play doctor here, but people who actually are doctors will attest that the elbow is among the clearest, cleanest body parts upon which to perform surgeries for athletes. That's why the success rate for full recoveries, even for pitchers, is now nearly universal.

So anyone speculating that he won't have the arm strength or anything to that effect is doing so with no basis for precedent at all. Again borrowing from baseball, some pitchers actually return throwing harder than before.

Ask me, and a year away from the wear and tear -- that alone -- will do wonders for him.

• Why does it take four people at a giant glass desk to analyze halftime of every game?

I'm not just talking NFL. I was watching Duquesne-Dayton hoops the other night on CBS Sports Network, and the halftime set was identical. Four people breaking down the Dukes, each limited to a few seconds at most.

No reason for sharing. Just wondered when four became the magic number.

• The Pirates aren't rebuilding.

They traded a 31-year-old center fielder who'd made publicly known that he wanted out. And on the day they did that, their new GM made publicly known he was looking to replace that center fielder and that he wasn't expecting anyone else to be moved out.

That's not a rebuild. That's not even knocking over the first domino.

It's selling off a valuable piece -- at close to peak value, I might add -- in exchange to what this organization needs more than anything, and that's elite-potential prospects. If Ben Cherington would've used Starling Marte to bring back another center fielder to play right away in Pittsburgh, then he should've been fired on the spot. Marte's situation offered a rare opportunity to begin addressing what's still going to be the most demanding aspect of his job. And that's what he seized.

• The best trades are made involving players being sent out at peak value. Which is precisely the opposite of how most casual fans see it, as they'd rather see someone get traded when they're doing poorly. If Marte was coming off a lousy 2019, his trade would've been universally applauded around here, even if Cherington hadn't gotten nearly as much in return.

• Why does Cherington's plan require a label?

Rebuild or not, who cares?

As he's explained it to me, his approach will basically boil down to this: He'll keep working toward building up a system, including at the major-league level, that makes players the best they can be. As such, he'll be operating from a position of strength, whether it comes to trading pieces or keeping them. If, in that time, the team fares well, he can press fast-forward and apply money toward the immediate cause. If it doesn't, he can weigh other options.

None of it has to be rushed. None of it has to be labeled anything.

Think of it this way: If Cherington vocally declares a rebuild's at hand, then puts up all his pieces for sale, what's he going to get for Chris Archer? Or Keone Kela? Or even Josh Bell, who slipped last season and finished on the shelf?

Seriously, what's the gain to Cherington from doing that?

To calm a few disillusioned talk-show callers?

See what those guys have got. See where they go. Let the players, to an extent, dictate that process.

• Whatever trophy the Browns won for being the NFL's Offseason Champion in 2019, feel free to shuttle it across Ohio to the Reds, huh?

Nick Castellanos for $64 million?

With Bobby Bonilla-style deferred payments as part of the contract?

Good luck with that!

• There's exactly one path for a lower-revenue team to win it all in Major League Baseball, and that's through acquiring and developing talent internally. There isn't a second one of any kind, let alone a shortcut.

I hate that. I hate baseball's economics. But that doesn't make the above any less accurate.

• Clarifying this over and over: I'd clamored for half a decade for Bob Nutting to find a better front office. That heightened, obviously, late last summer, when I'd never felt more forcefully that this needed to take place. When it didn't, I was deeply disappointed in his stewardship of the franchise and expressed a wish that, if he cared that little, he should sell the damn team.

And then, he fired everyone. He did that very thing.

I haven't had any change of heart of any kind. The position's been iron-clad and consistent throughout, that the main problem was the front office's inability to build a pipeline for talent. And then, he fired those people. They're gone.

If anyone can't distinguish that crystal-clear level of nuance, I'm afraid I can't help further.

• Only thing I hate in baseball more than economics is that we've reached the point in Pittsburgh where we can't discuss the Pirates without it sounding like politics. Everyone's taken a side, everyone's entrenched, and dialogue is dead.

• I don't hate hockey. It's awesome to have it back. See you at the rink.

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