It is being deemed “radical” what the NHL has done in terms of realignment for the 2012 season.  I personally don’t think anything “radical” needed to be done.  The NHL could have just moved Winnipeg to the Western Conference’s Central Division and Columbus to the East, maybe, and I emphasize the maybe, shifting around some of the East’s teams so that Columbus wasn’t in the South East, which would have been a little silly.

But instead they decided to be “radical”.  Starting in 2012, the NHL will play with four yet to be named conferences as follows:

Conference D:
New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Washington and Carolina

Conference C:
Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Buffalo, Florida and Tampa Bay

Conference B:
Detroit, Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago, Minnesota, Dallas and Winnipeg

Conference A:
Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado

Each conference will send its top four teams into the playoffs with the playoffs starting out with games among the top four teams in each conference.  After that the teams will be reseeded leading to the very real potential for an all Western or all Eastern Stanley Cup Final.  It think that is bad but hey, what do I know right?  I thought this could have been solved by moving just two teams.

Anyway, the Penguins are now in what I would call potentially the toughest of all the conferences based on the teams as they currently are.  They will have to contend with Washington, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Carolina for one of the top four places in that conference.  And let us not forget the New York Rangers too.  Year in and year out that is six quality teams vying for four spots and you know the Penguins are going to get shut out at least once in the near future from the playoffs based on that.

Once good thing about this realignment is that the regular season now means a lot more than it has in the past.  You don’t have 15 teams competing for eight spots.  You have seven or eight teams competing for just four.  You don’t have to just be better than the bottom half of the Eastern or Western Conference but better than the bottom half of your, essentially, division.  Yes, I know they are calling them conferences, but they are more like divisions to me.

Really, ok, that is fine.  No more coasting in to eighth place on the last day of the season.  Now play hard all season or be left behind.  Although the loser in this could be the teams that are not perennially good and the New York Islanders look to not be making any playoff appearances any time soon based on their lot in “Conference D”.  I think that hurts the game if you ask me.  I mean, we are not talking about a conference with only one or two perennial powers but, again, a conference with the Penguins, Flyers, Rangers, Captials, Hurricanes and Devils in in.  Seriously?  If I were an Islanders fan, and I am not because I actually know a thing or two about hockey, I would be screaming bloody murder.

It is what it is though.  I liked the current set up and didn’t think, again other than two moves, that it needed changing.  But hockey seems to be a sport with fickle women in charge of it.  They realign more that a car with a bad front end.

I think the answer to that question I asked in the title is a tried and true quote. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

I couldn’t even comment after the Penguins blew a sure win in New Jersey on January 30th because if I did I might have said something I would later regret. The next night, watching the defense and backup netminder Mathieu Garon cost the Penguins a victory I was even more furious. Then watching the team’s absolutely pathetic performance against Montreal on February 3rd I was ready to hurl something large through my nice flat screen television and uttered how my seventeen month old daughter understood the fundamentals of hockey better than the Penguins appeared to.

Then last night, for 40 minutes I watched a Penguins team that seemed to have just completely given up after first falling behind 1-0. Then they fell down 2-0. And finally it was 3-0. Against the Tampa Bay Lightning who are boasting a roster full of Pittsburgh Penguin rejects nonetheless!

But I will tell you what gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, this team might be ready to do something other than stink up the joint. Evgeni Malkin, who after last night’s game makes me believe that he might be more worthy of the Captain’s C than someone else currently wearing it, took the team on his back. He had some help from other players, but the third period was his period just like that third period against Detroit all those games ago was Jordan Staal’s.

This time it was Malkin’s turn to stand up apparently in the locker room and, down 3-0, proclaim to the team that everything was ok because he had the Lightning right where he wanted them.

2:25 into the third Malkin (23) scored to cut the score to 3-1. But it was not until 14:06, with time running down that the rest of the team chipped in as Mark Eaton (2) scored to trim the score to 3-2. Malkin was on the ice for that goal although he did not figure into it. Then it was Sykora (20) on the power play from Malkin that tied the game up at 16:31 to send the game to overtime.

In that frame it was Jordan Staal and Geno that worked hard 4 on 4 to get the puck out of the corner into the net. Malkin (24) had the game winner with 0:16 remaining.

The defense came around too after a terrible first period where they allowed 14 shots to allow only 5 in the second, 3 in the third and just two in the overtime.

The problem is Malkin cannot do this every night. The team needs to respond without being forced to do something by arguably the team’s best player. The team needs to come out and be a professional hockey team, finish checks, putting pucks on net and doing all the little things they are paid to do from the opening drop to the final horn. And I do not honestly know that I have seen that sort of professionalism and determination in this team yet or ever will this season.

Sure they won. But they beat Tampa Bay. A team that is worse than the Pens are right now. Many of the teams ahead of them in the standings have games in hand on Pittsburgh and that just makes the chances of another Stanley Cup Playoff appearance that much more remote with a team that is winning at only a 40% clip since the All-Star Break.

Some people say that things will get better once Gonchar gets on the ice for a game. I say if Gonchar is all this team needs to start winning then that doesn’t say very much about the caliber of this team that one man can turn them into a winner from a looser. They had better start winning before Gonchar’s return to prove they are worth having another shot at the big prize.