With Nearly 3 Hours To Go ....

At this point, within hours of free agency, it seems that the Penguins are still trying to get Marion Hossa to sign before noon. If they don't, the Penguins will still be in the mix, but their likelihood of inking him will go down signficiantly because they'll be competing with a handful of teams who I believe will be in a meaingful position to sign him --- Montreal, Vancouver, New Jersey and Chicago, primarily. Boston reportedly is very interested, but their cap sits at around 50 million so they'll have a hard time signing him. I've even heard rumblings about Detroit and even Edmonton interested.

If Hossa doesn't stay, I expect the Penguins to sign at least one free agent winger. If I have my say, it's Radim Vrbata, a two-way guy with upside who scored 27 playing with someone in Phoenix who wasn't Crosby or Malkin. If not him, I'd love to see Brian Rolston in a Penguin uniform, although the jury is still out on whether he's going to accept Tampa's offer before noon today.

One other bizarre (and hopefully untrue) story that’s been circulating for a few weeks now (and which has been heating up more recently) is that the Penguins have signed former Penguin defenseman Joe Melichar to come back from Europe, and that it will be announced today. If there's one move I couldn’t figure out, that would be it. He’d be no better than the #8 defenseman in the organization – and that’s being generous.

I’ll just about lose it if Shero brings him back. Shero wasn’t even here when Melichar played with us and looked bad doing it. If Hossa goes elsewhere, we don't sign a replacement, and sign Melichar, I’ll come out and declare free agency a complete disaster.

Short of that, I'll update and post as soon as I hear relevant news.