Guins Win!!! Now that the hangover from the Penguins Stanley Cup victory is starting to wane, it is time to start looking at what changes will be made this off-season if they plan to repeat. The situation they have right now is like going to the strip club and having an awesome time, then waking up to see your credit cards statement for the hummer in the back room. They bill has come in for the Stanley Cup Championship (well worth it). There are several different issues they are facing, mainly in free agent losses. The 2 biggest FA signings they need to make are 1) Rob Scuderi and 2) Tyler Kennedy. They made 712K and 541K last year respectively. Scuderi could sign something along the lines of 3 years $6M. Kennedy maybe 3yrs $4.5M. After that there is Ruslan Fedotenko. He made $2.25M this year and would be expecting the same. Guerin had a $4.5M contract with the Islanders that expired after this year. Assuming Guerin does not retire, we would probably need to take a pay-cut to stay in Pittsburgh. Personally, I think this was his last run as an NHL player. Other FA's include Miroslav Satan (best name in sports ever), Hal Gill, Petr Sykora and Craig Adams. Out of the 4 of those, only Adams would be work keeping.
The Salary Cap for 2009/2010 is expected to drop down to around $55M. With the current salary commitments for next year, they Pens are looking at close to $49M dollars withing resigning anyone. If they sign Kennedy and Scuderi to the contracts above, along with re-signing Adams to be the 4th line center at around $1M, that would put them somewhere around $53.5M for next year. They still need to sign a RW to play with Crosby and a LW to play with Malkin. The easiest solution is either A) Crosby and Malkin take a pay cut or B) they find a way to get rid of Kunitz's $3.7M contract. They would have to trade him away, and I don't think anyone will pay that much for a LW that scores once every 30 games. Sadly, the only other option would to send him down to the minors to get his contact off the books. You hate to be paying that kinda money for someone in the minors.
If they can find a way to trade for Danny Heatley, they would be the favorite for the cup next year. He is too big of a cap hit to get though. They will have to search the FA market or bring someone up from minors. So far, the lines could look like this.
unsigned free agent
LW/ C / RW
Kunitz/Crosby/?
?/Malkin/Talbot
Cooke/Stahl/Kennedy
Goodard/Adams/Dupuis
D/ D
Gonchar/Orpik
Scuderi/Gologoski
Eaton/Letang
There are many questions left to be asked. Other players they could look at include trading to bring back RW Ryan Malone, $4.4M, or LW Jarkko Ruutu, $1.3M. Malkin and Crosby need help, there is no question about that. I think they will have to trade away Kunitz, AND Gino and the Kid will need to take some type of salary cut.
The Salary Cap for 2009/2010 is expected to drop down to around $55M. With the current salary commitments for next year, they Pens are looking at close to $49M dollars withing resigning anyone. If they sign Kennedy and Scuderi to the contracts above, along with re-signing Adams to be the 4th line center at around $1M, that would put them somewhere around $53.5M for next year. They still need to sign a RW to play with Crosby and a LW to play with Malkin. The easiest solution is either A) Crosby and Malkin take a pay cut or B) they find a way to get rid of Kunitz's $3.7M contract. They would have to trade him away, and I don't think anyone will pay that much for a LW that scores once every 30 games. Sadly, the only other option would to send him down to the minors to get his contact off the books. You hate to be paying that kinda money for someone in the minors.
If they can find a way to trade for Danny Heatley, they would be the favorite for the cup next year. He is too big of a cap hit to get though. They will have to search the FA market or bring someone up from minors. So far, the lines could look like this.
unsigned free agent
LW/ C / RW
Kunitz/Crosby/?
?/Malkin/Talbot
Cooke/Stahl/Kennedy
Goodard/Adams/Dupuis
D/ D
Gonchar/Orpik
Scuderi/Gologoski
Eaton/Letang
There are many questions left to be asked. Other players they could look at include trading to bring back RW Ryan Malone, $4.4M, or LW Jarkko Ruutu, $1.3M. Malkin and Crosby need help, there is no question about that. I think they will have to trade away Kunitz, AND Gino and the Kid will need to take some type of salary cut.
To sum up, unless Ray Shero has some more magic up his sleeve, the credit card statement is going to ruin the weekend.
More analysis to come in the future.
More analysis to come in the future.
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