Penny-pinching Penguins still better than Rangers

Sporting News, The, July 19, 1999 by Larry Wigge

At about the same time the Rangers are spending more than $15 million to sign free agents Theo Fleury, Valeri Kamensky and Stephane Quintal, Penguins coach Kevin Constantine is calculating those figures and some others out loud. He admits he has trouble with the modern math.

"I'm certainly no math major," Constantine says, scratching his head, "but for us, if you add $5 million for corporate sponsorship of the Civic Arena, a $2 million better lease on the arena, a better TV contract and start from scratch without debt, hey, that still doesn't equal the $10 million or more dollars we lost last season.

"And that means I'm going to have to be an even better coach this season."

So you can imagine how Constantine and the Penguins must feel seeing a team shell out $15 million to three players in three days.

"Absolutely no guarantees it will work out," Oilers G.M. Glen Sather says. "It can be risky as hell.

"Look at Fleury. The Rangers were bidding against themselves. No one else was in the market for him. Not at $7 million a year."

The bottom line is the Penguins were 13 points better than the Rangers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference last season and nearly folded. Yet they're still better.

And the Wayne Gretzky-less Rangers' shopping spree isn't over. New York is still searching for a free-agent defenseman, a fourth-line center and a backup goaltender.

"A lot of teams spent a lot of money in free agency last summer and didn't get better," Mighty Ducks G.M. Pierre Gauthier says. "Lessons should have been learned--by most of us."

The Penguins went through the learning process the hard way, still paying off deferred contracts to more than a dozen players who haven't been with the team in years--including $32.5 million to Mario Lemieux, who now is the majority owner of the team.

"For the last six months," Lemieux says. "I was in the office from 9 to 5 with lawyers trying to put this deal together, trying to find investors to come in and help us out and keep the team in Pittsburgh.

"But I was around the team enough in the playoffs to see what you can do when you spend your money wisely and invest in the right players. Look at what players like Martin Straka, German Titov, Alexei Kovalev, Robert Lang and Jan Hrdina meant to this club. No one expected us to make it past the first round of the playoffs. And yet we might have made it to the finals if not for a couple of crucial injuries."

The Rangers' $39.9 million 1998-99 payroll finished 25 goals short of the Penguins' $23.8 million payroll. But the real lesson learned in this comparison is in the chemistry the Penguins have.

"Our players go to war for Kevin Constantine every night," Lemieux says. "That's something all the money in the world can't always buy."

Straka's 35 goals and 48 assists for less than $1 million was 21 points more than Gretzky had in leading the Rangers with 62 points.

Throw in 56 points by Titov, 20 goals by former Rangers center Kovalev, 21 goals by Lang and 42 points by up-and-coming rookie Hrdina, and well, you get the picture. The Penguins produced a winning chemistry the Rangers could be searching for all season with their mix-and-match roster.

Pardon the Penguins if they sit back and watch. Super Mario says he isn't in this venture to lose money. His next goal: a new arena filled with luxury boxes. But that's at least four years away.

The Red Wings proved last spring you can't buy a Stanley Cup--and the low-budget Penguins and Sabres again will show they can beat a team with close to a $50 million payroll when this season gets under way.

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