Peat
Registered User
- Jun 14, 2016
- 29,288
- 25,206
Since I screwed up the last thread title, I'm putting it right here. Probably too late considering the situation. I for one welcome our old overlords Jarry and DeSmith.
Here's some posts
Here's some posts
The only moves this off-season that made me think "damn, I wish we would have done that" were:
1. Signing Saad for $4.5 million, even though him getting a NMC is disgusting.
2. Signing Haakanpa for $1.5 million
3. Trading a 3rd liner and a 2nd for Buchnevich
4. Signing Grubauer for $5.9 million
5. Fleury for nothing
But realistically, how many of those could the Penguins have done? 1 is definitely doable had they flipped Zucker, which I completely think they could have done based on the contracts handed out in UFA. Even if you had to retain a bit on him, you could easily justify it with that Saad contract. 2 wasn't possible because Haakanpa picked Dallas because of the amount of Finns the Stars had. 3 wasn't possible because there's no way NY would have sent him in the Metro (although I do have questions about Drury's sanity after some of these moves). 4 was possible but I think a lot of people here wouldn't have liked that. 5 didn't work with the cap, although I don't think that door is officially closed yet.
If there was something obvious, then yeah, I wanted them to do it. But so far, I've just seen a bunch of stupid contracts in free agency and stupid trades. I don't really mind Hextall replacing Tanev and going with a lottery ticket 3rd liner this off-season, just because there wasn't really any good things happening this off-season.
You really have to wait until the moment is right to make trades… try to cap dump right before ufa or the deadline and you are paying premium prices to do that
There should be a sweet spot right around seasons start when teams don’t know if they are contenders or not and have perceived holes to fill where they might take a petts or Zucker and pay to do so
To add, the Penguins also got what looks like a downright elite goalie prospect in Lindberg to sign on day 1 of free agency as well. I don't want to hype him up that much, but you don't put up those kind of numbers in the NCAA without being a legit goalie. I can't think of a goalie who put up those kind of numbers only to not pan out in the pros.
Hell, even go back to his junior days and his numbers are still great. I genuinely have no clue how this guy was only drafted as a 7th rounder at age 20. I don't want to get too excited about a prospect, but I just genuinely don't understand it. He was putting up around a .930 save% in the Finnish U18 league for 2 years and a .925 in the Finnish U20 league for one year, and then came over to North America and put up a .935 in the NCAA for one year. Only then he was drafted.
With geno on lti we could be in that rare group of teams that will be both sellers and buyers at the trade deadline.
You know the answer.
But why complain about the bottom 6 then when it's not the problem, unless you think it's radically inferior to Tampa's? Like, I know you're unhappy that we're spending money on it that could be spent on the top 6, but it's not like we're cheaping out on our top 6 or spending some insane amount on our bottom 6.
Unless you think we should be constructing a bottom 6 that can cover for the playoff misfires we've seen from Crosby and Malkin, but I think you know that's impossible.
All the talk of getting bigger and tougher went out the window. Not sure any moves can be made that address that. With very few RD left although I wouldn't mind Gudbranson if that is a move that is somewhat left in the barrel. With Angelo and Lafferty one way contracts now, I give both a good chance to play on the 4th line. Pens can still be a team that can play a physical game with the three names above. But how many posts have been made to move Petts for picks or prospects to have cap room. I think Hextall will move someone like Petts when he can but really that was needed weeks ago before the ED and the draft as well.
I bring up Zucker because of fit, rather than being a higher tier player.
Rust is a right shot. He shouldn't be on the right wall. And I can think of no one better on our team to play net-front on the PP than Sid. He's strong, he'll screen, he'll win rebounds, he'll deflect pucks. So that leaves the right wall open, which we need a left shot for, for one-timer compatibility.
Zucker's shot is much harder than Guentzel's. He can score from the wall.
The Tampa model works. Two powerful shooters on each wing with handedness facing the middle of the ice. It opens up options.
And then as for Matheson, that's only a case of not having anyone else to play the point with Malkin out.
Kapanen? His slapshot's underrated but I feel he'd be awkward there. It's not gonna be Rust. He doesn't even one-time pucks on the PP when in wing position.
Marino was awful on PP2. Pettersson is meh. Dumoulin has no offensive talent. POJ? Who else?
It can only be Matheson.
Wasn't that an extremely small sample size with Sid?
That's not good enough. There's a limited number of those types of players available. Every available player like that, people balk at here. So no, if you're going to complain to the extent that you are, you can at least propose something...ANYTHING...of what you believe could actually be done. And retreating into something like "Durrr...we can't cuz JR n stuff" is low IQ shit.
I think it’s more the difference between NHL talent and a player that had 10 good games in between missing out on around 80+ with no injury.
But, the money we are spending on our bottom six does not add up to a Kucherov, Hedman or Vasi.
So this point makes no sense. You can’t acquire these players in trade and if they are being moved the cap difference we need to add will easily be made available.
Also not being as close to the cap as possible significantly handicaps us this year because of Malkin being LTIR’d.