Ever since Sidney Crosby played his first games in the NHL one common phrase has been repeated over and over and over and over. "Crosby needs a winger". You would think buy now the Penguins would have figured it out right? I mean. Crosby has been in the league since 2005. But nope. Here we are getting ready to start the 2014-2015 season and Sidney Crosby still doesn't have the World Class Winger he deserves. Since coming into the league in 2005, Sidney Crosby has played with a world class winger and grand total of 1 time. That was in 2008 when the Pens acquired Marian Hossa from the Atlanta Thrashers. Now. Before we go any further we want to say this is not a knock on Chris Kunitz at all. Kunitz is a damn good hickey player and has played well with Sid. But. Lets just name some people Sid has had as wingers with. Shall we? Nils Ekman. Colby Armstrong. Tyler Kennedy. Andy Hilbert. An over the hill John Leclair. The artist formally known as Ziggy Palffy who retired part way through the season. Pretty sure he had to play with Erik Christiansen once. Probably Rico Fata too. And Pascal Dupuis. Again. Not knocking Pascal Dupuis at all. We like him as much as we like Kunitz. He's just a glorified 3rd liner with inflated numbers from playing with Crosby. What we are ultimately trying to say here is that the Pens need to go out and find a really good winger to put on the line with Crosby and Kunitz. 2 things here. 1. They may have solved that problem with Kasperi Kapanen but he could be a couple years away from cracking an NHL line up. Beau Bennett might also be able to fill that role in the future. But. Sidney Crosby is in the prime of his career. He isn't going to get younger. The Pens need to finally find the right winger for Sid. Not for the future but for right now. Which leads me to my 2nd point about finding a winger for the Crosby-Kunitz line. Trade for one early this season. Don't wait til the trade deadline. Bring them in so they have the majority of the season to work with 87 and 14. I can hear what you guys are saying as you read that. "But who would the Penguins trade though!!1!!!!1111@!!!" That answer is simple. It's also one that most people won't like.
Paul Martin
Again. I know what you're all saying. "You can't trade Paul Martin!!!!!!11!!11111!! He was one of the best D Men!11!!!!11!!!". Yes. We know. But. Martin is 33, and isn't going to resign here next summer. So. Why not get something for him and not lose him for free. The Penguins have plenty of D Men that they could afford to lose Paul Martin. The Penguins are currently only a few thousand dollars under the cap so moving Martin and his 5 million dollar salary makes the most sense. Especially since we all know that no one will take Scuderi's ridiculous contract. So who would we lick to see come to Pittsburgh? We are about to tell you.
Patrick Sharp or Marian Hossa
Either of these 2 would look great on Crosby's line. Both are proven veterans and proven scorers. We would love to see Hossa come back to Pittsburgh as well. BUT. Chicago needs to shed cap so sending either of these guys would work. They just can't take on Paul Martin's contract and the Pens can't take on either of these guys contracts. So. Unfortunately. These guys are out. :(
Evander Kane
Evander Kane on a line with Sidney Crosby could be magical. He could put up great numbers with Crosby. Having Kane on a line with Crosby would be basically be like having a better version of Pascal Dupuis. Kane is fast and he can score. He makes $5,250,000 so the Pens are barely able to afford him. And the Jets are well under the cap so acquiring Paul Martin wouldn't be an issue there.
James Van Riemsdyk
This may be our favorite choice out of all of them. JVR would look great in a Penguins uniform. He goes to the net. Isn't afraid to go to dirty areas. Can score. And deflection city all day. He would be a great fit not only on the Crosby line but on the Penguins in general. Again we run into salary cap issues. JVR makes $4.25 million. Which wouldn't be a problem for the Pens to take on. However. The Leafs have less cap room than the Pens so them taking on Martin's contract wouldn't be possible unless the Pens take on another contract, which probably isn't possible or retain a little bit of Paul Martin's salary.
Matt Moulson
Matt Moulson is another player that would look great with Crosby and Kunitz. He, like Kane is fast and can score. It would again be like getting a better version of Pascal Dupuis. We like the ideas of picking up a player like Moulson or Kane because they are kind of similar to Pascal Dupuis. They are all very quick which is something you need to play on a line with Crosby and Kunitz. It seems like that line plays better when the other winger is a guy who is fast. Moulson makes $5 million in Buffalo so neither team would be in salary cap trouble. Only thing working against this trade would be Buffalo just signed Moulson so they may not be willing to trade him right away.
So. After playing around on Capgeek we calculated the trades that would work.
Martin for Evander Kane
Martin for Matt Moulson
Marin for James Van Riemsdyk (Pens would need to retain at least 10% of Martin's salary for this to work)
No comments:
Post a Comment