If Jim Rutherford believed Riley Sheahan was the Penguins clear answer as their third line center, he wouldn’t have been so active over the last two months in looking for an upgrade at the position nor being so public in that the Penguins needed a third line center.

Sheahan’s surge in play over the last couple weeks has now brought a narrative that the Penguins shouldn’t be trying to acquire a third line center.

If you have believed as Penguin management has that Pittsburgh has needed to upgrade the third line center position for 2-3 months, should they let a 2-3 week strong stretch from Sheahan change that stance?

Jim Rutherford has been around long enough where I don’t believe he’s going to call General Manager’s this week and suddenly take the team out of the mix for a bottom-6 center.

What Sheahan’s improved play, though, has done is make the Penguins much less desperate to overpay for a fringe 3rd line center/4th line center type player (Mark Letestu, Matt Cullen, David Desharnais, Tomas Plekanec) but I wouldn’t look for the Penguins to move on from their small group of third line center targets they’ve been in trade talks for leading up the deadline like O[hide]ttawa’s Derick Brassard where talks have heated up a bit with the Penguins.

The wish list hasn’t changed in trying to add an impact third line center that would bump Sheahan to 4th line center duty which would be a pretty good problem to have, especially if Sheahan’s level of play is sustainable.

— As mentioned here in the past, the Penguins have known the Senators asking price on Derick Brassard for quite a while.

What has changed recently is the Senators have started to be much more aggressive in entertaining the possibility of trading him.

Teams rarely get their asking price for non-star players, but the Senators have been pretty adamant with clubs they won’t move Brassard without receiving a first rounder. Ottawa willing to take on some of the cap hit is what they believe warrants their current asking price, per a source. [/hide]

— The Penguins have been heavily scouting the Sabres over the last little while. Most will obviously try to connect that to Evander Kane…..

I’m hearing otherwise.

The Penguins have not crossed Kane off their trade board after failed trade talks in early January, but as one source close to the situation says — To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”! and Pittsburgh’s scouting focus has been To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

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