They couldn't afford to re-sign Jagr. They traded him for prospects. Obviously that didn't turn out very well. However, since he couldn't have been re-signed, what the heck else should they have done? Just let him walk away and be signed by someone else and get nothing in return? At least in the scenario that did in fact occur they got SOMETHING back for him. He would have left when his contract was up and they STILL would have been god awful, may be just one less year. So if there is ANY pick to use that line of logic about it is Fleury. Certainly not Crosby. It's ridiculous to blame this attitude on the Jagr move. Were a lot of us pissed? Yes. No doubt about it. But the underlying issue here is that the new system helps the small market teams prevent exactly this situation from happening again with respect to being able to afford one star player.
As for the others who asked for the conversation to return to the Nonis comment and away from Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is an excellent example of why the new system needed to be implemented and will work.
the penguins chose not to allocate their funds on jagr. their payroll was 31.8 million in 2001-02 and 31.2 million in 2002-03. they would've had $ 20 million remaining for players each season. they chose not to spend the money they had on him.
as for his impending ufa status two years down the road, he signed long term with washington so i have to believe he would've signed long term in pittsburgh, therefore i refute that he would've walked no matter what.
the penguins made a business decision to move jagr for relatively no value, and the team's on ice performance immediately suffered. and to put it in perspective of how bad of a return the penguins received, look what phoenix got four months earlier.
Phoenix Coyotes traded Keith Tkachuk to the St. Louis Blues for Ladislav Nagy, Michal Handzus and Jeff Taffe and a 1st round selection (Ben Eager) in 2001.
why is it ridiculous to draw a line between the trading of the league's best player for little return, and the subsequent demise of the team's on-ice play which resulted in top picks ?
the subsequent trade of kovalev in 2003 is further fuel that the pens were not seeking to get quality nhl talent in return, or patrick became the worst gm in the league suddenly. other teams were able to get solid talent back.