Click here to submit your question

Note: You can follow the Penguins on the Penguins Plus blog at PG-Plus. Membership in that site is only $3.99 per month or $36 per year.

Because of the strong response to Bill Ratay's Mellon Arena memories printed in the Q&A recently, similar submissions from other readers interested in sharing their recollections will be posted in the Penguins area of PG-Plus. Those pieces can be sent via the Q&A submission form or to DMolinari@Post-Gazette.com

Q: Hal Gill wasn't great, but he sure is being missed right now. The Penguins miss that big guy taking up space, limiting the amount of puck space for the other team to create plays.

Ed, North Hills

MOLINARI: Gill was an under-appreciated asset in many quarters when he was with the Penguins, although offering him the kind of contract he got from Montreal (two years, $4.5 million total) as a free agent in July wouldn't have been prudent for a team with limited salary-cap space.

He fills a pretty narrow niche but, as you noted, is quite a presence around the net, which is much of the reason he's an effective penalty-killer. While the post-lockout NHL hardly is tailored to his slow-footed game, Gill knows how to take full advantage of his 6 foot 7, 241-pound body, and the exceptional reach that goes with it.

Still, while the Penguins could use some more muscle on their blue line and that's something Gill can provide, losing him should not be a lethal blow to their chances of competing for another Stanley Cup.

Q: The power play, with how bad it's been, why not finally switch and create two units, with Evgeni Malkin on one and Sidney Crosby on the other? They get outworked every time anymore because it seems like certain guys are out there to long.

Randy Susick, Arlington Heights, Ill.

MOLINARI: That's an idea that was touted, loudly and often, in this space two winters ago, although the departure of players like Ryan Malone during the summer of 2008 made it less attractive during the season that followed.

Considering how miserably the Penguins' power play has performed for most of 2009-10, it's hard to imagine many things -- up to and including using goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Brent Johnson on the points, with Jay McKee, Brooks Orpik and Eric Godard up front -- that could make them less productive when they have the extra man.

When the Penguins are healthy, they have three defensemen with significant offensive skills (Sergei Gonchar, Kris Letang and Alex Goligoski) and one (Mark Eaton) capable of being, at the very least, a caretaker point man. Up front, they could have Crosby and Malkin on separate units, with Bill Guerin and Jordan Staal (or even Mike Rupp) providing the net-front presence and the third forwards coming from a group featuring the likes of Tyler Kennedy, Matt Cooke and Ruslan Fedotenko.

It should be pointed out that, if a sampling of people who have played the game at a high level provides an accurate barometer, the idea of spreading top-notch talent over two units is about as popular as a tax audit. The prevailing wisdom among those people seems to be that teams should concentrate their most skilled players on the No. 1 unit, then deploy whoever is left on the second group.

Also, as the Penguins have discovered, simply having a manpower advantage and some world-class talent doesn't assure anything if a power play is going to be outworked, and the Penguins have lost far too many one-on-one battles. Without hard work and good movement of players and the puck -- and, no, passing the puck harmlessly around the perimeter doesn't qualify as good movement -- the best a power play can hope for probably is that it doesn't give up a goal.

Penguins Plus, a blog by Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson, is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.