Martin Open To Extension

[penguins2946*]

Maatta, Letang, Despres, Bortuzzo are proven by next year. That leaves Harrington and Pouliot as inexperienced D. I'm not saying it isn't a risk, but for the millionth time, if you draft all these guys, you have to have a plan to use them or trade them.

If they move Dumoulin for a forward and bring in a veteran D for the bottom pair, I would be absolutely fine with having both Pouliot and Harrington on the roster. I just don't want to have half of our D for next year to not have played 10 games in the NHL.

 

[cheesedanish87]

I think the pens will probably trade one of these young def this year, Lebrun mentioned DP Harrington and Domoulin as players the pens could trade for a top 6 winger this year.

 

[Night Shift]

what do you mean a "puck mover".? that's a guy that makes a good first pass he's already there.

And what I'm saying is that's not nor should be his primary game. Of course he has to show some element of that in this new system but as I said his game is more defensive something we lack.. asking Letang and Erhoff to play a defensive d man's game is like asking Bort to QB our powerplay. It's not going to work

 

[Shady Machine]

I think the pens will probably trade one of these young def this year, Lebrun mentioned DP Harrington and Domoulin as players the pens could trade for a top 6 winger this year.

He is just stating the obvious. I'd much rather move Martin and keep DP and Harry. Dumo can go but I doubt he has enough value to matter much right now.

 

[cheesedanish87]

He is just stating the obvious. I'd much rather move Martin and keep DP and Harry. Dumo can go but I doubt he has enough value to matter much right now.

Yeah he is, teams that are selling don't want Martin, they are going to want young def like Harrington and DP.

 

[Shady Machine]

If they move Dumoulin for a forward and bring in a veteran D for the bottom pair, I would be absolutely fine with having both Pouliot and Harrington on the roster. I just don't want to have half of our D for next year to not have played 10 games in the NHL.

We already have a veteran D for the bottom pair. His name is Rob Scuderi.

Maatta-Letang
Harry-Despres
Pouliot-Scuderi
Bortuzzo-Dumoulin

Those are balanced pairs and has Bortuzzo sitting in the press box. That's still plenty of depth.

 

[Shady Machine]

Yeah he is, teams that are selling don't want Martin, they are going to want young def like Harrington and DP.

It depends on the team. LA is about to sign Jamie McBain, Colorado is on the verge of losing a season because their D sucks, same with Dallas. Those are 3 playoff/potential playoff teams that could use Martin.

Maybe they are only willing to give up futures. Cool. Then let's use those futures to get the winger we need.

 

[penguins2946*]

We already have a veteran D for the bottom pair. His name is Rob Scuderi.

Maatta-Letang
Harry-Despres
Pouliot-Scuderi
Bortuzzo-Dumoulin

Those are balanced pairs and has Bortuzzo sitting in the press box. That's still plenty of depth.

Then we would have to move Dumoulin, since I don't think we could afford to run with 8 D on the roster. I wouldn't lose much sleep if we would move him tbh, though I would like to see how he does in the NHL.

 

[vikingGoalie]

We already have a veteran D for the bottom pair. His name is Rob Scuderi.

Maatta-Letang
Harry-Despres
Pouliot-Scuderi
Bortuzzo-Dumoulin

Those are balanced pairs and has Bortuzzo sitting in the press box. That's still plenty of depth.

I'd be good with that myself. Martin will get paid and it won't be us.

Erhoff is underwhelming, so I'd be totally fine with both walking.

If you can get something helpful for Martin you get it. Otherwise keep him for the playoff run. Stinks but it is what it is.

 

[BeautiPhil]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The Pens will only be re-signing either Ehrhoff or Martin, and I'm not really sure which one of those 2 I want.

Seriously, they've both been painfully average at best. I think I'd rather keep Ehrhoff, but I have no idea why I feel that way.

I'm not opposed to both being on the way out. Next year Maatta will be in his 3rd pro season (we need to stop looking at him as a "rookie" or "kid", despite his age), Despres will have played parts of several seasons and one entire one under his belt. Letang and Scuderi for the "veteran presence". Then toss in Bort, who has some experience, and some other rook (Harrington, Dumoulin, Pouliot, et. al). I don't see why we need to maintain some old guy quota on our defense.

 

[Shady Machine]

Seriously, they've both been painfully average at best. I think I'd rather keep Ehrhoff, but I have no idea why I feel that way.

I'm not opposed to both being on the way out. Next year Maatta will be in his 3rd pro season (we need to stop looking at him as a "rookie" or "kid", despite his age), Despres will have played parts of several seasons and one entire one under his belt. Letang and Scuderi for the "veteran presence". Then toss in Bort, who has some experience, and some other rook (Harrington, Dumoulin, Pouliot, et. al). I don't see why we need to maintain some old guy quota on our defense.

Painfully average is a an exaggeration. Look at the GA stats with them on the ice. They've been very good defensively. They are replaceable though.

 

[Will Hunting]

Then we would have to move Dumoulin, since I don't think we could afford to run with 8 D on the roster. I wouldn't lose much sleep if we would move him tbh, though I would like to see how he does in the NHL.

So, we move Dumo. That´s absolutely not a problem to do. I would be still fine with that defense. Letang & Maatta are legit 1st pair dmen, Borts is really good and so is Despres. You have 4 proven Dmen RIGHT there, that´s fine. You can rotate Scuderi, Pouliot and Harrington on the 3rd pair and still be fine. That defense would be solid & EXTREMELY CHEAP which would allow us to bring a serious winger for Malkin.

So conclusion is that we don´t need Dumoulin and we don´t need to re-sign Martin and Ehrhoff. In case we move Scuds, we would have to re-sign one of them (solid scenario, I guess).

Bringing up a stopgap like 39 years old Zidlicky makes no sense, that´s my point.

 

[Ziggyjoe21]

I'm one of the few in the "don't trade Martin" camp, but I don't think it would be wise to re-sign Martin to what he presumably would be asking for.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be too opposed to re-signing PM if it meant getting rid of Scuderi and his awful contract.

Martin $6m > Scuderi $3.7m

 

[Coastal Kev]

Soo, you would prefer Zidlicky (3.5M) over Pouliot´s ELC in the next season?? It doesn´t make sense to me at all. Pouliot needs this season in the AHL, but he should be perfectly ready next year. He would be playing in 50% of the NHL teams RIGHT NOW. Zidlicky makes zero sense for us and yeah, we have to be careful with Ehrhoff/Martin extensions as well.

Salary cap could still go either way, even 70M would help.

I agree with this. It's about time people start having faith in the cheaper young guys rather than crusty vets

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

What happens with Martin, Ehrhoff, and Scuderi will go a long way in determining whether the new regime is any different than the old. We saw that one of the flaws of the Shero regime was their unwillingness to get rid of veterans to make room for youngsters. If JR re-signs Martin or Ehrhoff and also keeps Scuderi around, he'll be following a similar blueprint that Shero did.

IMO, *at most*, only one of Martin, Scuderi, or Ehrhoff should be back next season. Ideally, all three should probably be moved on. But realistically, at most one of them should be retained and the other two moved/let walk. Otherwise, we'll see the same thing we saw under Shero. Youngsters stuck behind aging veterans with no place in the lineup.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

I will lose my &^%$ if they trade any young D-man other than Brian Dumoulin before dumping Paul Martin. They could move Scuderi, obviously, and moving Ehrhoff too makes more sense than trading Harrington, Pouliot et al.

We have the makings of a beautiful, dominant young blueline. I wouldn't deal any of Maatta, Despres, Bortuzzo, Harrington or Pouliot. Then have one veteran around to complete the group. I assume that veteran would be Letang.

Any other D scenario is less appealing.

 

[Shady Machine]

We can't trade Ehrhoff. He has a NMC. That's why he signed a one year deal at only 4 mil.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

We can't trade Ehrhoff. He has a NMC. That's why he signed a one year deal at only 4 mil.

That just gives him the power to control his destiny. If he's not in the team's future plans (and at this point I'd say that's still a toss-up), maybe JR goes up to him and says "where do you want me to move you to?"

If Ehrhoff doesn't want to go anywhere, that's OK too. I like the Ehrhoff-Bortuzzo pairing, but I want Pouliot-Bortuzzo starting next year.

 

[Burgs]

I don't see why we would even consider re-signing Martin. He brings no particular skill that our younger D-men couldn't provide, except for experience. And the latter they can only get by actually playing. Martin has never been the difference on a playoff team, he's actually been fairly inconsistent as a Penguin. Also he is not a young and healthy guy anymore. He'll be looking for the security of another big contract and it would be extremely idiotic that he'd get it from us, considering our gaping holes at forward. Trade him for as much as you can get, then play the kids and spend the money up front.

 

[Fordy]

I will lose my &^%$ if they trade any young D-man other than Brian Dumoulin before dumping Paul Martin. They could move Scuderi, obviously, and moving Ehrhoff too makes more sense than trading Harrington, Pouliot et al.

We have the makings of a beautiful, dominant young blueline. I wouldn't deal any of Maatta, Despres, Bortuzzo, Harrington or Pouliot. Then have one veteran around to complete the group. I assume that veteran would be Letang.

Any other D scenario is less appealing.

ding ding ding

in three years you cannot construct a better d corps than

maatta/harrington-letang
despres/pouliot-maatta/harrington
bortuzzo-pouliot/despres

or literally any other arrangement. you can't go wrong. keep these five players unless you're hitting a home run. shero tried his hardest to squander his ****ing treasure trove of prospects, let's not do it for him

 

[Jag68Sid87]

I don't see why we would even consider re-signing Martin. He brings no particular skill that our younger D-men couldn't provide, except for experience. And the latter they can only get by actually playing. Martin has never been the difference on a playoff team, he's actually been fairly inconsistent as a Penguin. Also he is not a young and healthy guy anymore. He'll be looking for the security of another big contract and it would be extremely idiotic that he'd get it from us, considering our gaping holes at forward. Trade him for as much as you can get, then play the kids and spend the money up front.

Not to mention this team will become instantly grittier as soon as Martin is dropped from the roster.

He epitomizes how soff we became under the old regime.

 

[Artie Party]

ding ding ding

in three years you cannot construct a better d corps than

maatta/harrington-letang
despres/pouliot-maatta/harrington
bortuzzo-pouliot/despres

or literally any other arrangement. you can't go wrong. keep these five players unless you're hitting a home run. shero tried his hardest to squander his ****ing treasure trove of prospects, let's not do it for him

Not to mention that D corps will only cost you about 12 million next season...

 

[wgknestrick]

I don't see why we would even consider re-signing Martin. He brings no particular skill that our younger D-men couldn't provide, except for experience. And the latter they can only get by actually playing. Martin has never been the difference on a playoff team, he's actually been fairly inconsistent as a Penguin. Also he is not a young and healthy guy anymore. He'll be looking for the security of another big contract and it would be extremely idiotic that he'd get it from us, considering our gaping holes at forward. Trade him for as much as you can get, then play the kids and spend the money up front.

Sub MAF's name in for Martin and travel back in time 1 week. We're all there with you on this, but then reality makes us angry.

 

[Gurglesons]

And what I'm saying is that's not nor should be his primary game. Of course he has to show some element of that in this new system but as I said his game is more defensive something we lack.. asking Letang and Erhoff to play a defensive d man's game is like asking Bort to QB our powerplay. It's not going to work

Letang being given a bigger role on the PK has been one of the main reasons our PK has gone without a goal during this stretch.

 

[IcedCapp]

In the immortal words of mikhail prokhorov, "don't let the door hit you.... Where the good lord.... Split you. He he he"