defenseman Rob Scuderi signed a 5-year contract with the Los Angeles
Kings.
Terms of the deal have not been released yet, but the contract is
believed to be around, or in excess of, 15 million dollars in total.
Pittsburgh's last -- and perhaps best -- offer for Scuderi was said to
be 8.2 million for 4 seasons.
Clearly, that wasn't enough to keep "The Piece", even with him being
willing to take a 'hometown' discount -- something which, by all
accounts, Scuderi was willing to take.
The Penguins will obviously miss their best penalty killer and while it
would have been great if Scuds decided to stay, I believe they have the
depth on defense to sustain losing #4. They have strong prospects in
the pipeline and just signed a guy who is said to have a lot of
similarities in his game to Scuderi -- BU defensive defenseman Brian
Strait. Strait signed a 3-year entry level deal yesterday and while
he's unlikely to play with the big club this year, his game is
patterned after the way Scuds played. The Pens' have a lot of other
good defense prospects in their system, as well.
Now that both Scuderi and Gill have signed elsewhere, will Pittsburgh
look to sign a defenseman from another team now? Will they look to
bring Philippe Boucher back? Time will tell.
Still waiting to see what happens with Ruslan Fedotenko . .
More news as it breaks.
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