The Penguins Offseason Moves

With the news of the Penguins signing their top defenseman in waiting, Alex Goligoski, to a three year deal, I think it's time to address the Penguins' offseason potential and practical moves.

On his radio show yesterday, Mark Madden did a decent job at evaluating Pittsburgh's needs, and I agree with him on some things.

Goligoski is definitely going to start next year, and that will be in place of either Hal Gill or Rob Scuderi. The way this top line produced this past year, one of them will be getting overpaid by another team, and honestly, we have the talent in Goligoski to fill one of their spots.

As much as I love Scuderi AKA "The Piece", I think he's most likely to go elsewhere because of his performance in the postseason. Even as a stay-at-home defenseman, he found a way to make it on the big screen with big plays almost every game. Other GMs were watching, and there are a lot of teams that would love to see him on their roster. I could see him going to the Capitals, because they recently lost two of their top players in Sergei Federov and Victor Kozlov to the Russians, and have the cap room to afford such a defensive presence that we all observed them in need of this past season. But hey, maybe Scuds is Pittsburgh tried and true, and will take a drastic drop in pay to stay for another chance at the cup. All we can do is wait.

I think Goligoski and Gill will end up playing together, and Letang will move up to play with Mark Eaton. These will still be some great pairings.

Philip Boucher is not worth keeping. Although he helped us this season, especially during our 7-man defensive rotation days, he's not worth the price especially if he isn't starting every day.

On to the offense. Because of their lack of production in the season, Sykora and Satan are not worth keeping. They've proven that they've hit a wall, and unlike Guerin, are not refreshed by playing with top players; Crosby just makes them look worse.

Fedetenko stays. He's been a great help, especially in the postseason, but he also proved that he can be consistent in the regular season. He also makes Malkin even better, and has the speed to keep up with him. Every time Malkin drops a fancy puck between his legs, Fedetenko is there to slap it through the net. Plus his baby-face is just too cute-what? Fedex will continue to deliver,

Guerin is a guy that i'm really shaky on. Will he take a one year deal, will Shero give him two years, or will we let him go? The fact that he hasn't bought a house in Pittsburgh, and has been living away from home this entire half of the season, i'm not sure if he's sold on staying here. He's such a great asset, so I think Shero might be tempted to give him those two years. Who knows, maybe we'll stick the one year out there, and he'll take it. I'm trying not to get attached, but it's oh so hard.

I think Luca Caputi and Janne Pessonen have chances to start this upcoming season. They're both attractive prospects that could have breakout years.

So our top lines are looking like

Crosby-Kunitz-Guerin?
Malkin-Fedetenko-Talbot
Staal-Kennedy-Cooke
Dupuis-Caputi-Pessonen
maybe Zigomanis

with defensive pairings
Gonchar-Orpik
Letang-Eaton
Gill-Goligoski

who else is excited?

champs