Penguins face tough decision with free agency
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Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent July 1.
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Sometimes, things just don't make any sense ...
After the 2007-08 NHL season, the Penguins lost good friend Marian Hossa, Jarkko Ruutu and Adam Hall to free agency and would have lost Ryan Malone if they hadn't traded him to the Tampa Bay Lightning first. The losses hurt the team so much that it won the Stanley Cup the next season.
Crazy.
After that Cup year, the Penguins lost Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill. This time, the losses stung more than hardly anyone could have imagined; the team was eliminated in seven games by the Montreal Canadiens in the second round of the playoffs.
Who saw that coming?
Which leads to another pertinent question:
What impact will the Penguins' free-agent losses this summer have on the team next season?
Not much, I'm thinking.
That isn't to say it wouldn't be wonderful to keep winger Matt Cooke and defenseman Mark Eaton. But the rest? No Sergei Gonchar? No Bill Guerin? No Alexei Ponikarovsky? No Ruslan Fedotenko? No Jordan Leopold? No Jay McKee?
No problem.
I hear you screaming, Gonchar fans. Sorry. It's time to part ways. Gonchar is 36. It's hard to say he's indispensable on the power play when it ranked 19th in the league this season and 20th last season, when it struggled so badly against the Canadiens, going 4 for 25 in the final six games, including 0 for 6 in Game 7. It might be different if Gonchar would take a one-year deal. But he wants more. The Penguins should thank him for five fine, fun years here and move on.
Guerin also deserves a big thank you for his role in winning the Cup. Another contract is another matter. He will hit 40 in November. You know what they say, right? Time stops for no one. Guerin is terrific in the dressing room -- captain Sidney Crosby adores him -- but he shouldn't have a place on the Penguins' 2010-11 roster.
Nor should Ponikarovsky and Fedotenko.
When the Penguins traded high-end prospect Luca Caputi to Toronto to get Ponikarovsky in March, they did so with every expectation of trying to do a new contract with him. That thinking had to change when Ponikarovsky showed them little in 16 regular-season games (two goals) and less in 11 playoff games (one goal). He was so bad that he was scratched for Games 5 and 6 against the Canadiens.
First Published May 21, 2010 12:00 am
