The Departed - Ruslan Fedotenko - 09-22-10
"The Departed" series on Empty Netters is a set of "eulogies" for former Penguins who have passed away... to other teams. Essentially, we look back on their time as a Penguin, examine their contributions to the franchise and as real eulogies occasionally do, exaggerate a bit. Today's eulogy is dedicated to Ruslan Fedotenko.
In the early days of the 2008 free agency period, the Penguins were reeling a bit. The salary cap forced them to trade Ryan Malone who had developed into the team's best power forward since Kevin Stevens. And a considerable bid to keep the services of trade deadline acquisition Marian Hossa was unsuccessful because Hossa
felt he had a better chance to win a Stanley Cup title with the Red Wings, the team which just defeated the Penguins for that very trophy one month earlier.
If you can imagine such a thing, the wings on the Penguins' top two lines were a bit of a question mark.
As Ray Shero invested quite a bit of his salary cap space into re-signing unrestricted free agent Brooks Orpik on defense, he had to find cheaper options on the wings. He looked within the Atlantic Division and found a pair of discarded Islanders in Ruslan Fedotenko and Miroslav Satan.
Due to the fact he was a former 40-goal threat (as well as his quirky name) Satan drew the most attention and generated the greatest hopes. But Fedotenko ended up being the one who contributed the most.
Fedotenko came to the Penguins as a question mark. He was a guy who always had the potential to play on the top two lines. He was a pretty key member of the Lightning when that franchise won its only Stanley Cup title in 2004. In fact, he scored both of Tampa Bay's goals in a 2-1 win in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final in 2004.
{youtube width="480" height="385"}colWBPtaIvc{/youtube}
{youtube width="480" height="385"}o9ewHQ3NgTU{/youtube}
After the lockout, he netted 26 goals while playing primarily on a line with franchise center Vincent Lecavalier. But for most of his career, Fedotenko had been inconsistent. Despite ample opportunity to establish himself as a producer, he only reached the 20-goal mark once in his career.
Regardless, Fedotenko came to the Penguins along with Satan and the plan was for him to replace Malone on Evgeni Malkin's line. There were elements to Fedotenko's game which were similar to Malone. He would go to the high traffic areas. He would work along the boards. And he would get "dirty" while looking for second-chance scoring opportunities. He wasn't and absolute banger and crasher like Malone, but he was hardly your stereotypical "soft" European.
Things didn't start well for Fedotenko under head coach Michel Therrien. He failed to score in his first seven games with the Penguins. But a game-winning goal in a 4-1 home victory against the Hurricanes Oct. 23 seemed to kick start things for "Feds." He would net a respectable 11 goals and 21 points in the first 39 games of 2008-09. Three of his goals were game-winners and he even managed to piece together a five-game scoring streak in December.
Easily Fedotenko's biggest goal during that span came in a wild 7-6 overtime win at Detroit against Hossa and the Red Wings. After Jordan Staal's hat trick in the third period helped the Penguins overcome a 5-2 deficit, Staal stole the puck from the normally reliable Pavel Datsyuk and fed it to Fedotenko who punched the game-winner by Chris Osgood:
{youtube width="480" height="385"}w1bNtD8CCA0{/youtube}
And while he was hardly Rick Tocchet, Fedotenko was surprisingly capable when it came to dropping the gloves. Unfortunately for him (and Colby Armstrong's nose), he was a little too capable during a meeting with the Thrashers, Jan. 6, 2009:
{youtube width="480" height="385"}0qrqsD5HZiU{/youtube}
His quick jab to Armstrong's beak won the fight, but it would end up costing Fedotenko. He broke his hand with that punch and would miss 15 games and potentially cost him a shot at a second 20-goal season. During that span, the Penguins struggled going 7-7-1. By the time he returned, they had slid into 10th place in the Eastern Conference.
Fedotenko came back to the lineup Feb. 14 (as did defenseman Sergei Gonchar who had missed the entire season to that point due to a shoulder injury) and was part of an embarrassing 6-2 loss at the hands of the lowly Maple Leafs. With the Penguins struggling to stay in playoff contention, management decided to fire Therrien and replace him with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach Dan Bylsma the next day.
Bylsma's promotion and the trades which brought in Chris Kunitz and Bill Guerin sparked the Penguins to a furious run which pushed them into a fourth-place finish by the end of the regular season. Despite that success, Fedotenko struggled down the stretch. He could only net five goals the rest of the season and even had a cold spell in he failed to find the back of the net in five weeks.
Despite his problems, he found himself entrenched on Malkin's left wing by the time the postseason began. After being relatively quiet in the first five games of the Penguins'f first-round series against the Flyers, he scored a key goal in Game 6.
Facing elimination, the Flyers stormed out to a 3-0 lead in front of their home crowd. Sensing his team needed a spark, Maxime Talbot goaded Flyers forward Daniel Carcillo into a fight which became more infamous for Talbot's post-bout "shush" message than the actual skirmish itself.
Almost immediately, the Penguins' responded. Off the faceoff following the fight, Malkin pushed the puck up the right wing and forced it into the crease. With Flyers goaltender Martin Biron scrambling to find the loose puck, Fedotenko, playing his typical game around the net, outworked defender Braydon Coburn and poked the puck into the open cage:
{youtube width="480" height="295"}rADhb-ckIaw{/youtube}
The goal put the Penguins on the board and kick started them into scoring four more unanswered goals in a comeback 5-3 series-clinching win.
Next up was the rival Capitals. Fedotenko was shutout in the first two games, both of which were Capitals wins. He scored key goals in the next three games, all of which were Penguins wins. He was shutout in Game 6, a Capitals win. He would pick up an assist on a goal by Craig Adams in Game 7, which was a 6-2 rout in favor of the Penguins.
He would pick up two goals in the Penguins' sweep of the Hurricanes in Eastern Conference final. That victory gave them a shot against the Red Wings once again.
Fedotenko would account for the Penguins' only goal in Game 1, a 3-1 loss at Detroit. He would only record two assists in the rest of the series. His second helper came on Tyler Kennedy's game-winning goal in a dramatic 2-1 win at home in Game 6. He was held off the scoreboard in Game 7 and hardly played a notable game. But at the end of the night, he had his second Stanley Cup ring secured as the Penguins held on for a 2-1 victory.
{youtube width="480" height="385"}PSLDgqz8NS4{/youtube}
Fedotenko was once again an unrestricted free agent in the offseason. The Penguins chose to bring him back partially because he had such a strong playoff performance. His 14 points (seven goals, seven assists) were the fourth-best total on the team.
But perhaps the first day of camp was a harbinger for what was to come in Fedotenko's second year in Pittsburgh. As the team took the ice at Mellon Arena, Fedotenko's name on his practice jersey was misspelled "Fedetenko." It was a rotten start to what would prove to be a rotten year for the Ukranian.
He actually started off pretty well with a goal and an assist in the second game of the season against his former team, the Islanders. But a pretty wicked hit by New York's Brendan Witt seemed to knock him off stride:
{youtube width="480" height="385"}juwZ608qVGw{/youtube}
He seemingly never recovered. Fedotenko could only muster six points in October He was even worse in November when he only scored four points. He struggled the entire season and simply failed to re-create any sort of chemistry with Malkin. At the trade deadline, there were hopes he would find something with fellow Ukranian Alexei Ponikarovsky who was acquired from the Maple Leafs. But he proved to be an even bigger disappointment.
But the playoffs loomed. And that's where Fedotenko would prove his worth, right? Afterall he was a "playoff guy" as so many, including us, liked to proclaim. How could you argue with Fedotenko's effort come playoff time?
Well Fedotenko gave the other side of that debate plenty of material to work with when the postseason began. After horrible effort in wild 5-4 loss at home n Game 1 of a first-round series against the Senators, Fedotenko was benched for the next thre games. He returned to the lineup for Game 5. The Penguins had a chance to clinch the series at home. After a goal by Sidney Crosby, they 3-2 lead with just under 11 minutes remaining. But 1:23 later, a turnover by Fedotenko in the defensive zone led to a tying goal by Peter Regin (9:37 mark):
{youtube width="480" height="295"}ZoVcO1rLI0A#t=8m30s{/youtube}
The game would go to overtime. Then another overtime. Then another overtime where Matt Carkner whacked a slapper from the right point by Marc-Andre Fleury for a 4-3 win which would send the series back to Ottawa. The Penguins would win Game 6, 4-3, in overtime without Fedotenko's services.
Fedotenko would return to the lineup for Game 1 through 4 of the second round against Montreal. After contributing virtually nothing, he was benched for the final three games. The Penguins would lose the series, 4-3.
In 145 regular season games with the Penguins, Fedotenko scored 69 points, 104th-most in franchise history. In 30 postseason games, he scored 14 points.
This summer, after going unsigned, Fedotenko accepted a tryout offer to attend the Rangers training camp.
(Photos: First-Chris McGrath/Getty Images; Second and third-Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)