MVN - Most Valuable Network

Penguins sign Matt Cooke, in talks with Finnish winger

It was pretty much a given that the Penguins would lose at least a few pieces of their puzzle as they headed into free agency this past Tuesday.

Well, five days into it, GM Ray Shero and his staff have done quite a good job in replacing their various components who’ve moved onto other NHL teams.

Shero re-filled the “agitator” role filled admirably by Jarkko Ruutu today with the two-year signing of forward Matt Cooke.  Cooke played with both Vancouver and Washington last season.

Also, the Penguins are finalizing contract details on a one-year deal with Finnish winger Janne Pesonen.  Pesonen led the Finnish league last season with 34 goals and 78 points and was second in the league with 44 assists.

Penguins sign Satan and Fedotenko

Per RDS, the Penguins have signed forwards Miroslav Satan and Ruslan Redotenko.

Hossa departure shocks Penguins and their fans

Marian Hossa wants to hoist the Stanley Cup, just like every other hockey player.

He had said that since his arrival in Pittsburgh after his trade from Atlanta and he repeated that as he informed Penguins’ management that he would explore free agency.

In that respect, you simply cannot fault Marian Hossa for signing with the defending Cup champs, the Detroit Red Wings.  I mean, who wouldn’t.  The Wings only had two main unrestricted free agents, Andreas Lilja and Brad Stuart, and they both quickly re-signed.  As they showed in the Cup Finals, their two-way game is very tough to beat, and adding Hossa to that mix will only make them more dangerous.

So if the primary objective for Hossa was kissing the Cup, it’s tough to go wrong with electing to sign with Detroit today with a one-year deal worth 7.4 million dollars.

It’s just the way that he did it.

GM Ray Shero and Penguins management reportedly offered Hossa a seven-year deal worth $7 million annually.  A chance to be a long-time, major contributor to the team that he helped advance to the Cup Finals and will be Cup contenders for the foreseeable future, those still quite young Penguins.  A chance for the Slovakian sniper to be regularly fed pucks from the best playmaker in the NHL, Sidney Crosby.

But Hossa ultimately decided today to disregard what his future could have been with the Penguins, and instead chose to select the here and now success with the Detroit Red Wings.  Not only did Hossa reject the seven-year offer from the Penguins, but he agreed to only a one-year deal with the Red Wings. 

The Red Wings could not offer Hossa a long-term deal, they have big money deals they must prepare for next season with beast forward Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen.  Wings’ GM Ken Holland admitted that he freely thought the Wings didn’t have a chance to sign Hossa.  But it was Hossa’s agent, Rich Winter, who is not Mr. Popular in Pittsburgh either now, who approached the Wings about offering a short-team deal for Hossa.  It was only after that conversation that the one-year deal for Hossa was consummated.

I am not personally upset, per se, at Hossa, even though I freely admit that I was dead wrong in predicting he’d re-sign with the Penguins.  However, I will say that Hossa fed Penguins fans with some pretty optimistic remarks after the Cup Finals ended, saying that he loved playing with the Pens in their Cup run, he’d didn’t need a huge deal and that he just wanted to play for a Cup contender.

And it’s for that reason that Hossa will soon realize that Pittsburgh sports fans don’t take kindly to their professional athletes leaving on other than honorable circumstances.  Ask Barry Bonds.  Ask Jaromir Jagr.  You soon may even ask Ryan Malone.  Hossa may have become a fan favorite in his short time in Pittsburgh, but that’s ancient history now.

Hossa had the opportunity to be a Penguin for a good portion of the remainder of his NHL career.  He still might, who knows what could happen in this wacky NHL.  He may very well be a free agent again this time next year, although if Shero does his job over the next couple of days there probably won’t be available cap room.

If Hossa kisses the Cup next year, I suppose it’ll all be worth it.  But if he doesn’t, and even worse, if he gets injured, he may regret the decision he made today.

Free Agency Day Two: Brooks Orpik re-signed for six years

UPDATE 5:08 PM:  Brooks Orpik re-signs with the Pens for six years, 22.5 million, announced on GM Ray Shero’s press conference. 

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UPDATE 3:11 PM:  Per TSN, Jarkko Ruutu signed with Ottawa for a three-year deal. 

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UPDATE 12:33 PM:  Per the PG, Marian Hossa has signed a short term deal with the Detroit Red Wings. 

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Well, I guess it could be worse.  Much worse, if you think about it.

After the frenetic first day of free agency, the Penguins fared pretty well for a team that has so much of their roster up for grabs.

They did lose a couple of fairly significant cogs Tuesday, when stalwart backup goaltender Ty Conklin signed with the Red Wings and Adam Hall signed with the Lightning.  Losing Conklin was expected, especially after Conklin’s heroic effort after Marc-Andre Fleury’s high ankle sprain in December.  Hall probably earned his payraise with a pretty decent performance in the Cup Finals.

Penguins’ GM Ray Shero did re-sign two of his own yesterday, with recent acquisition Pascal Dupuis and unlucky defenseman Mark Eaton resigning for three and two years, respectively.  Dupuis was definitely an asset this past year, especially on the penalty kill.  I’m not so sure he’s going to be on Sidney Crosby’s wing next season, but his re-signing was a good move.  Eaton has had terrible luck the past two seasons, and it appears from what I’m reading that Pens fans don’t remember just how good of a defenseman this guy is.  Another quality signing, and for the 2 year/4 million price, fairly cheap for a quality defenseman.

Shero added his first new piece of the Penguins’ puzzle yesterday afternoon, signing enforcer Eric Godard, late of the Flames.  That bids adieu to fan favorite Georges Laraque.  Lots of interesting talk about this acquisition.  Laraque is the champ, no question about it.  However, Georges doesn’t have that frenetic personality when situations happen on the ice that warrant an immediate and physical response.  I did a bunch of Youtube searches on Godard fights.  This guy’s nuts, folks, and I like the signing.

In terms of the other still-pending free agents, here goes;

• Marian Hossa - Just a little bit of talk about this one, huh ??  Geezus, I won’t even attempt to list all of the speculation about Hossa.  Let’s just put it this way, it appears as of this morning that it’s down to the Penguins, Red Wings, Canadiens, and Oilers.  All of the talk about Boston making a big offer was squashed when they signed Michael Ryder.  It doesn’t appear that the Red Wings are going to offer enough cash.  Many are speculating that Hossa won’t want to play in western Canada, but who knows.  I know this much, the longer Hossa is available, the better the chances for the Penguins.
• Brooks Orpik - While Orpik’s salary demands are about half of what Hossa’s will be, Orpik has been rumored to just about everyone.  One of the rumored teams that was interested in Orpik, his hometown Sabres, have said they’re out of the running.  Orpik has said all along that he wants to stay with the Penguins, so just like Hossa, the longer he’s unsigned the better the chances for the Penguins.
• Jarkko Ruutu - Reports are that he wants a three year deal, the Pens are only offering two.  Lots of other interest in him, though.

Updates as I see them……..