Penguins/NHL
Latest Penguins Buzz
It’s expansion draft night and Vegas GM George McPhee hasn’t been as accommodating as so many General Manager’s envisioned he would be. The friends club was there for some but not others who were trying to strike a favorable deal.
While Vegas has worked out at least eight to 10 side deals with clubs, including the Penguins, a source described as McPhee being cut throat in some situations where some clubs are going to get hit hard with losing an important piece or two.
That didn’t happen to Pittsburgh.
Marc Andre Fleury’s tenure as a Pittsburgh Penguins will officially come to an end today.
Fleury will become a Vegas Golden Knight today and is flying to Vegas this morning to be part of the festivities.
The question with Fleury has been, is he long to stay with Vegas and what are the Penguins giving up to Vegas for them to take Fleury and avoid taking others?
1. Vegas has signaled to interested clubs in the past couple days they are keeping Fleury. Vegas owner Bill Foley wants to make him the face of the franchise for year one. He is staying put for now.
2. The sides had two different parameters of a side deal in play [hide] entering the weekend, a smaller deal with Pittsburgh sending a high draft pick/and or prospect to Vegas for taking Fleury and a bigger deal was in play at one point with Vegas taking more than just Fleury’s salary and the Penguins dealing multiple picks/prospects.
A smaller side deal has commenced. Pittsburgh will be unloading Fleury’s contract by sending a high pick to Vegas. A prospect may also be involved but it wouldn’t be anyone of significance.
To totally understand the lack of market there’s been for Fleury since last June, unloading the contract without taking back a bad contract back or keeping a dime of the cap hit, is of great value for the Penguins during this current window to win more Stanley Cups. They’ll survive with losing the draft pick.
The Penguins will enter the draft weekend with $20 million in cap space.
— Starting this coming season Marian Hossa at age 38 was scheduled to see his salary drop to $1 million per season for the next four seasons. He might really have an allergy problem with his equipment but how convenient this pops up now when there’s only $4 million left on the contract.
Hossa wins as he collected $59,300,000 of a 12 year, $63,000,000 contract that still had four seasons remaining on it and now the Blackhawks win as they get out of the cap hit ($5,275,000) because they say he has a medical issue.
Skeptics aside of what’s playing out here, Hossa will be a sure fire Hall-of-Famer and was one of the best two-way forwards of this era.
That summer of 2008 was something else where Hossa spurned the Penguins to sign with the Red Wings for one year. If you love rumors, that was a great frenzy.
If Hossa would have accepted a 7 year, $50 million offer the Penguins had on the table for him in July 2008, it would have been fascinating how the Penguins roster played out in the coming years.
Good chance the cap space would have never been there at the 2009 deadline to acquire both Chris Kunitz and Bill Guerin. Kunitz still going well, has become one of the Penguins best left wingers in team history and Guerin’s impact on that 09 team can’t be overlooked and he’s now a top hockey executive with the club.
Hossa’s 26 points in 20 playoff games during the Penguins 2008 Stanley Cup run was a career high for him and the acquisition just put the Penguins on another level that spring with other Eastern Conference teams. No one was close to them. Unfortunately that Detroit team in 08 was a machine.
Hossa and Crosby would have been great to watch together for years but at the end of the day everybody won with him spurning the Penguins in 08.
— NHL sources say the Penguins are exploring the market for Carl Hagelin to potentially open up a few things and Hagelin has garnered interest from a couple Eastern Conference teams.
I don’t get the sense the Penguins are in full-out mode to move him and are comfortable to bring him back but want to keep their options open.
A source described Hagelin getting moved as 50-50.[/hide]
