The Penguins are reportedly seeking some defensive reinforcement prior to the March 1st trade deadline. However, as Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes, the team recently lost defensemen Justin Schultz and Olli Maatta, perhaps adding some urgency to their pursuit. General manager Jim Rutherford told Molinari that the recent injuries wouldn’t urge him to quickly make a deal.
“I don’t think it changes a whole lot,” he said. “Everybody is going to move their players at their own time. I don’t think, necessarily, that they’re going to move up the date on when they decide to move any of their players.
“We were considering a defenseman going into the trade deadline, and we’ll [still] consider doing that. Whether we’re able to pick up one or two, we’ll have to see what the market is.”
Let’s take a look at some other notes out of Pittsburgh…
- Of course, with the Penguins competing for playoff seeding, the team will still be seeking a trade. “We have a lot of games between now and [the playoffs], so we have to address that,” Rutherford said. “We have depth guys in our organization who we believe in, so we’ll just move when we feel the right trade comes along.”
- There’s still plenty of time prior to the offseason, but Rutherford is already thinking about the upcoming expansion draft. “That’s a tough call,” he told Molinari. “We have a bunch of good players at forward, and a bunch on defense. That’s something we won’t decide until after the year.” As the writer notes, teams are required to protect players with no-movement clauses, so Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Kris Letang and Marc-Andre Fleury wouldn’t be going to Vegas.
- Speaking of Fleury, there’s no guarantee that the goalie will be on the squad following the trade deadline. During Thursday’s victory, the veteran had the Pittsburgh fans chanting his name at what could have been his final home game as a Penguin. “The support I get here is always amazing,” Fleury told NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti. “You don’t know what’s coming [at the trade deadline], and that was nice, a nice feeling.”
there’s no way Pittsburgh keeps Fleury. There is absolutely no chance they leave Murray exposed in the expansion draft. They don’t care what Fleury has done for that organization, they are going to force him out.
Trading Fleury would also create cap space for the Penguins, which they desperately need. They have less than $300,000 in deadline cap space. That isn’t going to allow them to make additions. If they want to improve their defense or add a depth forward, they are going to have to move out salary.
If they trade MAF they will be making grave mistake. Murray has shown his true self lately with out defense saving him better trade Murray quickly before his value goes down an teams see it
Grave mistake? MAF is a 5.75 million backup. Pittsburgh cal ill afford to keep him. I prefer he be dealt instead of Pittsburgh doing the foolish thing in buying him out and having him on the books at over 1.5 million for the next XXX years. That kills moves down the road.
As a Caps Fan I’d love to see Murray go to Vegas.
Not like we’d get a cup even without Murray in the division so I guess it doesn’t matter anyways.
UMMM, this won’t happen. MAF will be bought out at last resort. It’s not rocket science.
I believe Cole has become the best defensive Defenseman on the team and one of the best in the league. He is also showing some offensive capabilities without leaving the D in a lurch.