I'm probably saying the same thing over and over again, but let me try to lay out my concerns overall and what I would have liked JR to do.
Going into the off season it seemed pretty clear to most around here that Bonino was going to price himself out and Cullen was going to retire. With that in mind, many to most of us expected JR to make a move either at the draft or through middle of July.
As time has passed, it appears that many posters have just moved the goal posts and are trusting JR when he says he has targets he could get today. Without knowing the list of available players, I can't say whether he's right or not, but I'm a bit skeptical. Of course, I complained about Fleury half of last year and ended up being wrong, so it's reasonable to trust JR and probably fair to call me a little negative.
It was a gamble and maybe a smart gamble to wait on Cullen, but I was pretty clear all summer that Cullen wasn't coming back. Of course, I thought he was going to retire, so it's not like I was totally right.
If I were the GM, I would have given Cullen a shorter time frame to decide. I get that Cullen earned the right to take his time, but the Pens frankly didn't have time to wait this summer. Last year we had Bonino and Fehr around, so there was no risk to wait on Cullen. This year, the risk outweighed the reward IMO. Therefore, I would have pushed hard for Moore or traded for a center rather than Reaves. I know the Reaves thing was a priority, but I don't have to agree with the priority and I don't.
If you had pushed him, he would have said no. And given that Moore (the only guy I liked for the #4C role) signed on July 1st, giving him a dead line of mid July would have been meaningless.
One of the issues is we have so little cap space. Which means we couldn't afford to sign Moore and Cullen had he decided to come back here and still find a #3C. We have ~3.3m. Spending 2m of that on a pair of 4th line centers while we have a hole at #3C can't happen. I get that Rowney doesn't exactly inspire confidence given that we've had one of the best #4Cs ever the past two years... but for the most part he should be fine in that role. Certainly not near Cullen's level, but good enough not to suck - at least for now. The almost 400k in cap savings between Rowney and Moore will allow us to get someone with a cap hit of ~1.5m or so come the TD (more actually if someone goes the other way).
As for 3C, I think it makes sense to give your best offer for Duchene and then move on. Waiting it out is a bigger gamble, in my estimation, than the hopes of getting Sakic to come down to your price. You can always circle back later on if he gets desperate. I would have liked to see what Bonino's ask was from the Pens, but I'm not opposed to the term if you could get the cap hit under 4MM and without a restrictive NTC. IF you decide to move on from him, I think you need a plan in place to replace him and I'd like to see that plan acted on before the season starts.
The reason for that timeline is because of the importance of limiting Sid and Geno's ice time in the early parts of the season. I want them playing closer to 18 minutes a night. You can do that when you have Bonino and Cullen. You can't do that with Rowney, McClement, Blueger, Dea.
So if there's a deal for W. Karlsson out there today, make the deal. If it's Sheahan, ugh, I'll think about it if it's cheap enough. You can always open up cap space for a better center later on if you need to.
Some of my view is impatience, but I think some of it is being smart. You don't dick around with the center position and you need a plan in place for properly utilizing your 2 most important players.
I don't think we're waiting for Duchene. We might be, but my personal opinion is that we'll be going after someone a lot lower down on the chart. I just think that JR feels the prices are high (no surprise) and that if he's going to pay a high price for a depth player, that there's little reason to do it in late August when he can do the same thing in Oct, and hope that something changes for the better in the meantime (price comes down, better players become available, etc). I know we're impatient (myself included), but making a hasty move probably isn't the best thing here. Games do not start for another 6 weeks, and while this certainly isn't the ideal way to build a roster, I think JR who's been a very straight shooter in how transparent he's been has earned the right for us to trust him on this matter - at least for a little while.
I agree with you on trying to limit Crosby and Malkin's minutes, but again, there's no games for 6 weeks. Still lots of time to sort things out.