Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Sak
You gotta think they will trade a defensemen sooner or later for a winger.
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Sure they'll move one. But what are they going to get in return.
Whitney played an AHL game last night, and is scheduled to play the 23rd vs Tampa. That leaves them with 8 guys:
Whitney, Letang, Orpik, Scuderi, Eaton, Boucher, Goligoski and Gill
Gill hasn't played in about 2 weeks, but it doesn't seem to be a severe injury.
Orpik is the one guy they won't move, he's the only physical D they have.
Boucher, Scuderi, Eaton or Gill wouldn't net much in return, unless packaged with someone/thing else.
That leaves Whitney, Goligoski and Letang. Of the 3, I say Letang is untouchable. He's not in the league of guys like Phaneuf or Weber, but he's a 21 year old RH D, and has been playing against opponent's top lines the majority of the season. And he's still on his rookie deal. Whatever the Penguins get, probably isn't good enough to give him up.
Whitney would make the most sense, as he's signed long term, and coming off a "bad" year where he still reached 40 pts. For those same reasons, I don't see him going anywhere.
That leaves Goligoski. He's been better than Letang at points offensively, but while he's OK in his own end, he's doing that against teams 3rd lines. At 5'10" about 185 (he's been compared to Rafalski) he will probably never be a top pairing guy, and on a team without Gonchar, Whitney and Letang are.
It's about 2-3 weeks until Tyler Kennedy returns, and he should get a shot on the top 2 lines when he returns. The 3rd line has found some consistency keeping Cookie-Staal- RW of the day, so he doesn't need to be put back in that spot.
The other option that will keep coming up is move Staal for a similar aged winger, but I don't see that happening either. For it to make sense for Pittsburgh, the winger needs to be a top 6 type, signed somewhat long term, and preferably young enough to be in his prime along with Crosby/Malkin. Teams that have that guy don't trade him. Plus, Staal will be an RFA. The team giving up the young winger would want him coming in the a deal already signed.
So Goligoski + a pick + someone like Satan or Fedotenko possibly (to dump salary as well as replace the forward for the trading partner).
Who is that getting me?