MVN - Most Valuable Network

Penguins’ Shero still with goose egg as free agency looms

I think it’s safe to speak for most Penguins’ fans when I say that we would’ve thought someone would have re-signed now that we’re 48 hours away from the commencement of free agency on Tuesday.

Well, I guess if you want to count the adding of the 2009 fourth (and possibly third) round draft pick in return for the negotiating rights for Ryan Malone and Gary Roberts yesterday, let’s give that partial credit.

Other than that, the Penguins’ fourteen remaining free agents (that includes Alain Nasreddine and the three “Group VI” free agents, Connor James, Nathan Smith and Ryan Lannon) are steaming towards Tuesday, appearing to explore all of their options, as they should.

Nothing has changed on the Marian Hossa front.  He’s going to look at his options and make his decision, and it’s probably going to happen quickly after free agency begins on noon Tuesday.  Put it this way, the Penguins’ involvement in Hossa’s decision will be a quick one.  Shero can’t afford to wait very long after noon if Hossa has not decided on where he wants to go, unless perhaps if it’s down to the Pens and one other team.  If Shero waits too long, not only may he lose Hossa, but he could also lose precious negotiating time with rumored replacements such as Marcus Nasland or Brian Rolston.  Fortunately for Shero, it doesn’t appear that there are that many teams who could realistically offer Hossa a contract worth what he’s going to demand.  So for better or for worse, we should know the outcome of the Hossa sweepstakes soon after noon Tuesday.

Losing Malone and Roberts has been entirely expected by the Penguins for a couple weeks now, so good on Shero for getting a decent draft pick in return, even if the Lightning can’t sign Malone.  However, the chances of signing Malone improved recently with the Lightning signing Malone’s father, Greg, as the team’s top scout.  In addition, Tampa’s new ownership group has stated repeatedly over the last week that they were going to make a splash in free agency, and they may just offer Malone the huge pay raise he’s looking for, possibly $5 million or more a year.  As for Roberts, lots of speculation that Barry Melrose really wants Roberts.  Whether he can coax Roberts to sign in sunny Florida again, rather than closer to his family in Ontario remains to be seen.

Brooks Orpik is now atop the Penguins’ radar.  The team and Orpik’s agent have been in negotiations for about a week now.  Although Orpik turned down the Penguins’ latest offer, he’s made so secret of his desire to remain in Pittsburgh.  It didn’t seem likely in my view that Oprik would stay when the season ended a few weeks ago, but it now appears that of the trio of Hossa, Malone and Orpik, Orpik looks to be the one who now has the best chance of staying.

There have also been reports that the Penguins have also made offers to Pascal Dupuis, Jarkko Ruutu, Georges Laraque and Adam Hall, but that’s all unofficial at this time.  It could very well be that someone out of this group may be the first free agent Penguin to resign.

However, I think an aspect that is being overlooked is Shero’s ability to bring in replacements to potential free agent losses.  Of course, losing Hossa will force Shero to make big pitches to scoring wings like Naslund or Rolston or several others.  A rugged power forward will be needed to offset the loss of Malone.  If Orpik leaves, simply promoting Alex Goligoski is not the answer, in my view.  Goligoski, while gifted offensively, is not the optimum replacement for Oprik.  Shero will have to bring in a hard-hitting D-man as his replacement.  The other two character players that Shero would need to offset is if they lose Laraque and/or Ruutu, as enforcer and agitator, respectively.  Laraque is the NHL’s undisputed heavyweight champion.  While he may not fight as much as Penguins fans may like, the #1 benefit of having Laraque in a Penguins sweater is that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have not gotten any cheap shots since Laraque’s arrival.  Replacing Laraque, if he doesn’t resign, may turn out to be more difficult than it seems.  Signing a “fighter” would be relatively easy, but resigning another Laraque is a different story.  A typical enforcer doesn’t have rugged defensemen like the Flyers’ Darien Hatcher running like a scared schoolgirl.  In terms of Ruutu, replacing him may turn out to be just as difficult, if they need to.  Ruutu is among the top three agitators in the NHL.  Being a great agitator like Ruutu or Sean Avery is a science, you don’t replace guys like that easily.  But if it comes to that, it’s intriguing that Darcy Tucker is going to be available.  However, I think his salary is going to be prohibitive with Shero’s tight budget.

Chances are that things will remain relatively quiet in Penguins-land until Tuesday, when they’ll be quite hectic for the foreseeable future.  We could be seeing quite a different Penguins’ roster come this time next week.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Opinion, Free Agency, Trades. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.