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Pens need to make a move
By Dagger | January 9, 2009
No need to re-invent the wheel here. Mark Madden summed up the situation a week or two ago in this write-up. The Penguins just signed C Jordan Staal for a 4 year $16 million dollar contract yesterday and many Pens fans are unhappy with the deal. I don’t see how you can afford to pay a 3rd liner $4 mil per year when you have other issues on the team that need to be addressed (1st line sniper, leadership/character grinder, etc…)
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Monday Madden: Pens have some bait in trade for winger
By Mark Madden, Special to The Times
Published: Sunday, December 28, 2008 11:53 PM EST
A third-line center with the raw talent of Jordan Staal is a luxury. Three good young puck-handling defensemen — Alex Goligoski, Kris Letang and Ryan Whitney — are a luxury.
Wingers that can score are a necessity. Don’t believe me? Ask Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.
It’s time for the Penguins to use their luxuries to acquire necessities.
This is hardly a new theme. But the dismal performance of the Penguins’ wingers — especially those deployed with Crosby — makes the situation a bit more urgent every day.
Miroslav Satan gets his share of right-place, right-time goals, but Crosby has to drag him through the neutral zone like an anchor. Ruslan Fedotenko and Pascal Dupuis have put in some lively performances recently, but they’re strictly third-line material. Only Petr Sykora has been even remotely consistent. But if Sykora is your top wing, that’s not good enough.
Staal is a great third-line center. But Max Talbot would be more than adequate in that role.
It’s nice having a trio of youthful defensemen with the hands, rink sense and vision of Goligoski, Letang and Whitney. But you don’t need all three, especially when you factor in the veteran presence of Sergei Gonchar and Philippe Boucher, both cut from the same cloth.
No one wants to trade a personable young player, especially a potential star. No one wanted the Penguins to swap emerging defenseman Zarley Zalapski in 1991, but the mood seemed to lighten when Ron Francis was handing the Stanley Cup to Ulf Samuelsson. The Penguins’ two Stanley Cup winners were built by trading players who were drafted high for proven commodities still in their primes. That’s how they got Tom Barrasso and Paul Coffey.
In the NHL salary cap era, franchises often pay big money to a goaltender, a center, a winger and two defensemen (or a defenseman and two wingers).
That’s the basic model. If a team doesn’t have a top goalie, it might double up at another position.
In Marc-Andre Fleury, the Penguins have the goalie. Crosby and Malkin are both centers, both making huge coin. You can’t triple up at center by paying Staal, especially when Gonchar and Whitney both make good dough on defense and you have no wings.
Third-line center just isn’t that important, not with the cap diluting every team’s depth. And the jury is still out on Staal’s productivity, though it’s important to remember that he’s only 20.
Anyone who thinks the Penguins can win the Stanley Cup as currently constructed is a cockeyed optimist. Crosby is the best playmaker in hockey. Malkin isn’t far behind. But they need wingers to help cash in all that creativity. The Penguins leave a lot of goals out there.
The Penguins don’t need the best third-line center in hockey. They don’t need five offensive defensemen. Trade luxuries for necessities.
The Penguins plight at wing could have been avoided had GM Ray Shero drafted right wing Phil Kessel instead of Staal in 2006 and/or retained Marian Hossa this past off-season.
Few clamored for the former move, and Staal (chosen second overall in ’06) will likely be a better all-around player than Kessel (chosen fourth). But Kessel can score (21 goals in 35 games with Boston this season) and would look great on a line with Crosby or Malkin. Sometimes it’s not about the best player available. Sometimes it’s about the best fit.
As for Hossa, there’s little doubt he reneged on a verbal agreement to return. There’s also little doubt Shero had no Plan B. Shero needs to have his ducks in a row this coming summer, because Fedotenko, Satan and Sykora are all scheduled to be unrestricted free agents.
I’ve been told the Penguins won’t trade Staal. But Staal is scheduled to become a restricted free agent at season’s end. If he doesn’t ink an extension soon, how can Shero not trade him? You can’t let Staal sign an offer sheet elsewhere. Four first-round draft picks as compensation wouldn’t help. Despite their youth, the Penguins’ future is now.
Mark Madden hosts a radio show 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WXDX-FM (105.9).
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