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Q: Do you think the Penguins will try to re-sign Jay McKee after this season?

Skip Dawson, McCandless

MOLINARI: Bringing in McKee, who had the final season of his four-year, $16 million contract bought out by St. Louis at a discounted price, was another shrewd move by general manager Ray Shero. The Penguins were in the market for someone to replace the defensive presence provided by Rob Scuderi, and McKee's game might have been the best fit out there -- especially at the reduced salary McKee was willing to accept because of the buyout money he was getting from the Blues.

It's too early to say with any certainty what the Penguins will try to do with free agents -- their own, as well as those from other clubs -- after this season because so many things can change between now and then, but it's possible that the Penguins won't have the salary-cap space to accommodate McKee, at least if he is adamant about securing a deal that reflects his market value.

The Penguins do have some defensemen on their farm team in Wilkes-Barre who could challenge for spots in the NHL in 2010-11 -- Ben Lovejoy, for example, seems ready to make the jump, and even first-year pro Brian Strait might be ready by next autumn -- and that could influence their thinking on McKee. Based on what's happened so far this season, though, it's hard to believe they would let him walk because they weren't happy with his performance.

Going into last night's games, McKee ranked fourth in the NHL with 69 blocked shots, despite missing six games because of an infected finger, and has done a nice job of filling the void created by Scuderi's departure. That's particularly true when the Penguins are shorthanded, as McKee is averaging just under three minutes per game of penalty-killing work.

Q: Why do you think a fight can swing momentum from one team to another?

Kevin Jacobsen, Canonsburg

MOLINARI: Wow. Every now and then, a question arrives that probably is better-suited to the Psychology Q&A, and there might be no better example of the genre than this one.

Even current and former players surveyed couldn't offer a conclusive explanation although, to a man, no one came close to disputing the premise of your question.

The very much uneducated guess here is that the surge a team often gets after one of its players defeats someone from the other club in a fight has its roots in the primal reaction to seeing a member of one's tribe beat a member of a rival one.

That, of course, does not explain why the Penguins got such an enormous lift from Max Talbot trading punches with Daniel Carcillo of Philadelphia during Game 6 of the first round of the playoffs this spring. Carcillo got the better of the fight, and the Flyers already had a 3-0 lead and were playing at home. If the paragraph above were an unwavering truth, Philadelphia should have blown the game open at that point.

Instead, Talbot's fight was an example of a team getting a lift from seeing one of its members risk bodily harm, simply to make the point that he wasn't going to settle for the way the game was playing out. Basically, setting an example of sacrifice and asking his teammates to follow it.

Penguins broadcaster Phil Bourque pointed to a similar incident during Round 2 of the 1989 playoffs, when he voluntarily dropped the gloves with Philadelphia enforcer Craig Berube during Game 3 at the Spectrum. Bourque knew all too well that it was a fight he wasn't likely to win, but figured that would be a good way to spark his team. Hard to argue, too, since the Penguins won in overtime. On a game-winner by Bourque, no less.

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