Morning Pens Buzz: Penguins to announce Sidney Crosby has the mumps, fail to acquire Morin

LATEST PENGUINS BUZZ

— The Penguins will be providing an update on Sidney Crosby at 11:30 a.m. as GM Jim Rutherford and Dr. Vyas will meet with reporters. To know surprise the team is expected to announce that Sidney Crosby has the mumps, per Bob McKenzie — What a fail by the organization to have him around on Friday with the way he looked.

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— Ray Shero took the fall, others got promotions and raises. That’s how things have played out since the Penguins canned Shero last May.

The three closest associates to Shero at the NHL level, Jason Botterill, Bill Guerin, Tom Fitzgerald all got promotions and bumps in the pay, a significant one for Botterill, Guerin, and it’s trickled down to others with no major changes to the amateur scouting staff, including Jay Heinbuck staying put in his same position as co-director of amateur scouting, to now the team making John Hynes one of the highest paid coaches in the American Hockey League with a new two year extension that keeps him under contract through 2017.

The Penguins have kept a lot of good hockey people around, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but not everyday so many close associates to a fired GM in sports all stick around and grow into more significant roles in the organization.

— With their surplus of young defenseman, the Penguins have a prospect system where an ideal trade to look at is instead of always looking for that home run type trade for a proven top-6 winger, is to move a mid to top tier defenseman for a potential high end forward prospect who has a first/second round pedigree.

NHL sources confirmed the Penguins in the past couple weeks had made their interest known to the Chicago Blackhawks for 2009 second round pick Jeremy Morin but Morin today was dealt this morning to Columbus for defenseman Tim Erixon, which according to one NHL source would be equivalent to the Penguins moving Brian Dumoulin for Morin. The Penguins balked at moving a top-5 defenseman in their system.

Another young forward the Penguins have looked into is Tampa Bay forward Brent Connolly.

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