BLUE LINE
Dropping The Gloves with Chuck Fletcher
By Tony DeFazio

For the past few months, Chuck Fletcher has been the busiest man in Pittsburgh sports, yet few know who he is. As the assistant general manager for the Penguins, Fletcher handles contract negotiations as well as player development and scouting. Fletcher is the son of longtime NHL Hall of Famer Cliff Fletcher, who led the Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup as their General Manager in 1989. PSR Editor Tony DeFazio caught up with Fletcher in the middle of a busy summer.

PSR: Did the Penguins accomplish everything they wanted to this off-season?

Fletcher: We wanted to add some scoring depth, particularly on the wings, which we've done with Petr Sykora. We wanted to add a veteran defenseman with both savvy and puck skills, and we feel we did that through Darryl Sydor. We wanted to solidify our goaltending situation and we feel we've done that in Dany Sabourin and Ty Conklin. So we feel we've improved our depth and we've addressed three areas in particular that we wanted to address.

PSR: How much do veterans like Sykora, Sydor, Roberts and Recchi actually help the younger guys?

CF: The key thing for any veteran player, or any player, is that you'd like that player to lead by example on the ice. There are probably only certain times during the year where you need something said in the room or that type of verbal leadership. The tangible thing that we wanted to see were veteran players that can still play, still contribute, and bring a work ethic and a professional approach to the rink every day. Mark Recchi obviously has exemplified that his whole career, Gary Roberts is a relentless worker on the ice and Darryl Sydor and Petr Sykora are players with success on the ice and a lot of team success. Those are all players that have done it, and won, and seen a lot of ups and downs along the way. Just the way they carry themselves hopefully will make a big impact.

PSR: Three of the guys we've talked about are over 35 (Sydor, 35; Recchi, 39; Roberts, 41). How do you know the tank's not empty on players in that age range?

CF: When you see a veritable slip in the performance and a clear downward trend in their stats, their ice time and their ability to play on a consistent basis, then you get concerned. But in the case of all three of these players, if you look at Mark Recchi, he was one of our top performers all of last season and he logged a lot of ice time. Gary Roberts scored over 20 goals and was physically pounding players in the playoffs, so there's not a lot of concern there. A guy like Darryl Sydor, in the first round of the playoffs last year for Dallas was logging over 20 minutes a game and being used in every situation… We're very confident in the case of all three of these players that there's a lot left in the tank.

PSR: Was there anything about the contract negotiations with Sidney Crosby that surprised you at all?

CF: Nothing surprised me with Sid because he's such a bright guy. He thinks everything through and he analyzes everything. We've seen it time and time again, on and off the ice, he can see outside of himself. He sees the big picture - he looks at the team's perspective, he looks at the perspective of his teammates, he looks at the perspective of the fans and takes everything into account before he makes his decisions. It's just remarkable really, to see a young man like that, probably with the ability to extract a lot more than he did from the team, find a way to satisfy all parties. And he took the lead in it. I guess it is surprising in the sense that he's a 19-year-old young man, and I just remember when I was a 19-year-old I didn't have any of that savvy or any of that maturity or poise. It's just remarkable the way he carries himself and the way he analyzes issues, and how prepared he is in every facet of his life. From his scheduling, to his off-ice commitments, to his contract, to how he prepares and practices and gets ready to play the game of hockey. That's why he's the youngest captain in the history of the NHL, and that's why he's our franchise player and also the flag-bearer for the entire NHL.

PSR: There's a lot of excitement about this team - are people within the franchise talking openly about winning a Stanley Cup?

CF: It's a bit presumptuous to talk about winning a Stanley Cup. The thing we have to do is continue to get better every day -find a way to get more competitive and find a way to win more games. We feel we are more competitive going into next year than we were going into this past season. Our young players had a tremendous amount of regular season success, and then we were all able to witness firsthand how quickly a great regular season run can come to a crashing halt in the form of a first-round playoff defeat. So those are all valuable lessons and the important thing is that we have an open mind and we learn from them and try to get better. And we feel all the young players can get better from that experience - both the success and the failures last year. As an organization, you just try to add to that veteran corps and continue to prepare these young players for the battles that lay ahead. So we're excited about the future.