• Q: If Sidney Crosby attains superstar status in another three or four years, do you think the NHL owners would agree to the "No Hit" policy that apparently applied to Wayne Gretzky once it was a given that Gretzky had the ability to be a cash cow for the entire league?

Allyn, Phoenix

MOLINARI: The only no-hit policy from which Gretzky benefited was issued by teammates like Dave Semenko and Marty McSorley, and it was more effective than any edict handed down by the NHL office could have been. Look cross-eyed at Gretzky, let alone touch him, and one of the guys charged with keeping him healthy and happy would be in your face, with the intention of immediately rearranging it.

(Besides, does anyone really believe the league would order other clubs to not play the body against Gretzky, let alone that all the players on those teams would go for it? The prospect of being beaten senseless by someone like McSorley or Semenko was more than enough of a deterrent for most opponents.)

And, unlike Gretzky, Crosby doesn't seem to be bothered by body contact. It's not that he enjoys absorbing a hard hit -- know anyone who does? -- but when opponents get physical with him, it seems to sharpen his focus and get even more involved in the game, if such a thing is possible. Ask the Philadelphia Flyers, who tried just about everything imaginable to intimidate Crosby when he broke into the league, how he responds to such things. Or you could just check his personal stat sheet, which shows that Crosby has 14 goals and 16 assists in 16 career games against them.

• Q: Please let me know when Ray Shero makes a good move. If you really look at the free agents and trades he has made, there is not much to brag about, is there?

Bill, Amsterdam, N.Y.

MOLINARI: If the free-agent signings of guys like Mark Eaton and Petr Sykora, the restructuring and modernization of the team's front-office and scouting operations, locking up core players like Sidney Crosby and Ryan Whitney to long-term contracts that carry beyond when they would have been eligible for unrestricted free agency and making the final call on drafting Jordan Staal and Angelo Esposito don't qualify as good moves, no, I don't think you should expect Shero to make one anytime soon.

He hasn't pulled of a Manhattan-for-$24-worth-of-beads-and-trinkets trade yet, and might never do so. He also hasn't had the resources to bring in big-ticket free agents (or players via trade, for that matter) because ownership has given him a budget significantly lower than the league's salary-cap ceiling. What's more, Shero has made a point of setting aside cap space so that he will be able to retain some of the franchise's elite young players when their current contracts expire.

That doesn't mean every personnel move since Shero was named GM 17 months ago has worked out well; Georges Laraque, for example, had little impact after being acquired from Phoenix last season and Jarkko Ruutu has been a disappointment in the year-plus since being signed as a free agent.

On balance, though, Shero has done a solid job since replacing Craig Patrick, not only in fleshing out the supporting cast for franchise's core players (most of whom he inherited) but in laying the groundwork to keep the Penguins' nucleus intact for an extended period, no small accomplishment in the salary-cap era.