Pittsburgh Penguins: A Farewell Letter To Rob Scuderi
A farewell letter to former Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Rob Scuderi as he packs his bags for a winter in Chicago.
Dear Robert Scuderi,
The time has come. You’re moving on to greener pastures. Chicago will be your new home. Your time in Pittsburgh was filled with highs and lows. The first time around, you helped win your first Stanley Cup and the Pittsburgh Penguins third.
It was great. Those were good times.
Your second time around you got paid. A huge contract for an aging defenseman that you could never live up to.
Sadly, you were also in a system that didn’t support your “stay at home” defensive style. It wasn’t a match made in heaven, but you were a veteran on a blueline of youngsters with a Stanley Cup winning pedigree and loads of experience.
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But it wasn’t all roses the second time around. You weren’t able to effectively move the puck to the forwards. To be clear, it was more like as you grew older you enjoyed spastically throwing the puck upwards into the opposing so the other team could easily retrieve it. You also enjoyed bashing the puck off the boards like a child in a tantrum, throwing toys against the wall.
Your stay at home style truly became stay at home. You got older. You couldn’t move so well. Fans would watch your defensive style of laying on the ice making snow angels while “blocking shots.”
Fans would watch you slide on your belly across the ice like an actual Penguin because when you slow down with age, apparently the only way to compensate is to sprawl on the ground and become as big as you can in order to attempt to take away any sort of puck movement. It didn’t really work.
Fleury will miss you the most. Since you were a penalty killer, time and time again you’d entertain Fleury in the crease.
He’d catch you out of the corner of his eye or right in his face doing the patented Scuderi Slide, increasing the difficulty of the save for him. You made Fleury’s highlight reel saves even better. Sometimes it was as if you were Sean Avery in disguise, attempting to be the goalie interfering pest that he was. Except with your own goalie.
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Plus, you were never one to shy away. Always vocal, like the time you lashed out at a team and a system that left you behind. It’s alright, veterans do that. They’re allowed to blast teammates and coaches without mentioning their own inadequate play.
It’s not your fault the previous guard threw piles of cash at you to come back. It’s not your fault you don’t fit the style of play the Penguins are trying to implement.
It’s not your fault the fanbase soured on you so badly that they’re trying to vote you into the All-Star game for a laugh.
You’re off to Chicago, where they’ve won three Stanley Cups in recent history.
You can take your Pittsburgh Penguins ring, and your Los Angeles Kings ring, and possibly ride the youth and talent there and snag a third ring.
Maybe all they are missing is “The Piece”.
Good luck, Rob.