say goodbye to an old friend. . .

In part two of our reconciliation series, we have to open the wound we didn't want to open, the one that probably shouldn't even be there. Not to say that there isn't a perfectly reasonable and altogether necessary explanation for why this all has happened. But we have to treat our disease of longing before it spreads, you see.

Welp.
As with anyone in the nation of Penguins fans that is going to miss Max Talbot, our attachment to the poor man is largely mythical and philosophical. All Game 7 heroics aside, he's pretty much always been a legend in our eyes. Not for anything he did on the ice, of course. No. It'd be the out-of-nowhere comments about how 25 is the age at which he arbitrarily decided that good decision-making skills are important. The almost-vehicular-homicide of fans when he decided to try to break the sound barrier on Centre Avenue in his stupid convertible after the game. The general inability to skate properly or stickhandle which somehow led to a bizarre number of memorable goals, probably memorable because he scored so few of them at all. Wraparounds. Top shelf (you know, like on Cam Ward). Short side snipejob while some fat goalie was looking for crackers (meaning it wasn't a snipejob, just bad goaltending, but we all SAW it go in off of Max Talbot's stick, god damn it).


Max Talbot's rights have only ever been earned by the Penguins in the NHL. He was drafted ridiculously late (like 8000th or some shit) in 2002. There is a very sad article about this somewhere, about how his mom was crying and he became increasingly crestfallen, until someone up at that podium in Toronto called his name and he put on a presumably very blank Penguins jersey. Nobody expected we'd get Max Talbot. But he worked his ass off, to the point that he eventually became the proud owner of some hideous monstrosity on South 16th Street so he'd never be more than 20 steps from Diesel. Everyone loved him. Pittsburgh hipsters, that unapproachable lot, would wear his jerseys on Carson Street on game days while smoking American Spirits. He was a grinder who achieved a sort of celebrity through the sheer power of being an attention whore and kind of a skeez. But a lovable one. And a 100% genuine one.
Still, Max's last season with the Penguins was basically a season of nothing at all. We remember guys like Mark Letestu coming up clutch, but not Max Talbot. Not remembering a player doing jack shit for 82 games is never a good sign, even if his signed glamor shot rookie card is in a keepsake box on your dresser. (We remember very little in general about the 2009-10 season; it should probably be burned.) He definitely had to either earn his keep or get the fuck out. Seeing as he didn't earn his keep. . .well. . .

The other caveat to this is OMG HE PICKED PHILADELPHIA!!!!!
With the Penguins having the rare opportunity in their developmental ranks to construct four lines that have a bit of grit along with a bit of skill, Max's days were definitely numbered.
Where else could he go where his teammates and organization would put up with his shit? Moreover, where else could he go where he'd be at least sort of guaranteed to have more hockey sense than someone on the team--where he'd be valuable as more than just a locker room asset? And what other general manager in the NHL would give him such an absurd contract length? The rationale has not been explained, really, but clearly Philadelphia fits the bill. Seeing as they just gutted most of their actual talent from the roster, it's basically a shoe-in team if you need some fresh motivation fueled by absurdity. Which is, by the way, Max Talbot's specialty. Every possible memorable moment from his career proves this.
And we'll always have the memories.




Even if we basically have to declare you dead to us, you still have a special place in our hearts, lined with rum ganache and silk button-downs. Also, it has a fishtank.

We would also like to interject that the discussion going on about his departure on the girlfriend boards is articulate beyond our ability to express.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

We miss you already.
But everything's going to be okay.

Go Pens.