Aside from their goaltending, I felt that Pittsburgh was the best team in the East, and primed to make a playoff run. But their goaltending got in the way of the team. So going into next year, I've suggested that Pittsburgh goes all in, with Malkin and Letang being free agents next offseason, this could be the last hurrah for this core, and they should make it count. Firstly, you need to fix the goaltending problem, by trading Jarry and aquiring someone else, preferably a good goalie with a lower cap hit or a team willing to retain. Kuemper comes to mind as a rental, thus retaining salary is less consequential and because Arizona could use some picks/prospects and they already have Adin Hill as a goalie of the future. I had Arizona retain 2 mil here which I think is reasonable for what Pittsburgh is giving. After that, I signed Savard in free agency as he's someone who's defensively responsible and can play up and down the lineup. I also dumped Zucker in order to sign Coleman, but I signed Coleman for an actually reasonable contract because I know how valuable a player like him is. I didn't trade POJ, as I felt that this team no longer had any huge holes to address, but they still have him as a trade piece if something is clearly lacking at the deadline. As for the future for Pittsburgh, well it's going to depend on what happens this upcoming year. If they make a deep run or possibly win the cup, they'll hopefully be able to retain their plethera of upcoming free agents. If not, it might be finally time to rebuild, or at least re-tool, for Pittsburgh with Letang, Kuemper, Rust, Carter and Malkin all 2022 free agents. And if you're a franchise who's been as succesfull as Pittsburgh for the past decade or so, it's ok to fail once in a while when you go all in, or end up in a rebuild when you wish you weren't. And who knows, maybe they'll be in the Bedard/Michkov swepestakes.
You didnt have to sign coleman for that much. He get 4-5 mil. I would sign him for 4,500,000 for 3 years.
Yeah but I’m on Capfriendly a lot and like half the ACGMs I see involve signing Coleman. He’s going to have so much interest that it just makes sense to offer 5 ish and know that that will trump all other offers.
I can't believe what I just read. Horrible ideas. Wouldn't do anything.
Can I ask why? Why on earth would you care about your future if you have 2 franchise players on your team and you've won three cups with them. Pittsburgh management has already said that they're not rebuilding while Crosby and Malkin are there, so why not go fot it?
Can I ask why? Why on earth would you care about your future if you have 2 franchise players on your team and you've won three cups with them. Pittsburgh management has already said that they're not rebuilding while Crosby and Malkin are there, so why not go fot it?
Hextall said that he won't pay off Seattle to take certain player. In this case it would not be necessary. Zucker doesn't have negative value. We are not going to be moving prospects or higher draft picks.
Hextall said that he won't pay off Seattle to take certain player. In this case it would not be necessary. Zucker doesn't have negative value. We are not going to be moving prospects or higher draft picks.
In all fairness, I don't watch the Pens, so I might be missing something with Zucker, but, he only put up 18 points this year on a 5.5 million dollar deal that has two years left. He plays in the bottom six and rightfully so, that's definitely not money well spent.
In all fairness, I don't watch the Pens, so I might be missing something with Zucker, but, he only put up 18 points this year on a 5.5 million dollar deal that has two years left. He plays in the bottom six and rightfully so, that's definitely not money well spent.
I agree that he had a down year and a bad season, but that doesn't mean he's a negative value player. He actually played on second line for most part of the season.