After acquiring defenseman Jordan Leopold and LW Alexei Ponikarovsky in separate deals with the Florida Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs, respectively, the last two days, does Penguins' GM Ray Shero have anything else up his sleeve with 4 hours to go before the 2010 trade deadline passes?
At this point, common sentiment is that Shero is done adding players. I think that's probably true, but I know Shero has been involved in discussions with a few teams about 'longer-term' deals, so I wouldn't entirely rule out that he may do something in that regard.
If he makes a move like that, it's likely to involve defenseman Alex Goligoski.
The other -- more likely -- course of events for Shero the next 4 hours is to explore trading away a player or two for draft picks or minor leaguers, simply to free up salary space.
If anyone is going to move, it's likely to be defenseman Jay McKee.
Shero is known to have discussed dealing McKee to several other teams. One of those clubs was the Chicago Blackhawks, but with their acquisition of defenseman Nick Boynton of Anaheim yesterday, they may be out of the mix.
Curiously, the Ducks are said to be shopping former Penguin Ryan Whitney around.
Anyway, McKee was a healthy scratch last night, and it's hard to say at this point what role he has with the team going forward.
One thing is for sure -- with the adding of Leopold to the Penguins top 6 and McKee out of the lineup, the Penguins have noticably less abrasiveness on the back end.
While Leopold is competent defensively, that's not the strength of his game, and having McKee out of the lineup deprives them of another stay-at-home guy to go with all of the offensive and two way rearguards they have.
In that regard, it will be interesting to see if Shero actually ships McKee off, especially after convincing Maple Leafs' GM Brian Burke to accept defenseman Martin Skoula in the Ponikarovsky deal yesterday.
Skoula, by the way, has already been dealt from Toronto to the New Jersey Devils, so maybe the Penguins haven't seen the end of him after all?
If McKee goes, the Penguins are down to 6 proven NHL defenseman, and we know both Shero and HC Dan Bylsma like to have at least 7, if not 8, around for the post-season.
On the other hand, I think they believe that Ben Lovejoy is ready to join that mix.
Lovejoy was the prospect the Columbus Blue Jackets insisted on getting in any deal for RW Raffi Torres and the fact that Shero declined that and instead chose to get his winger from Toronto in exchange for Luca Caputi instead speaks volumes about how the organization feels about Lovejoy.
Another guy whose status I'm watching curiously today is LW Ruslan Fedotenko.
Most observers seem to feel that Ponikarovsky was brought in to play with Evgeni Malkin and Rusty, but I'm not convinced that Shero won't move Feds and his 1.8 million dollar salary to free up some space before the deadline.
We'll see.
Otherwise, we may be looking just at minor league deals in the next 4 hours, if any. Again, time will tell.
I'm very interestingly watching to see what the other Eastern Conference powers do -- especially the Washington Capitals. Let's hope they don't end up with Ray Whitney. Although, even if they do, that won't address their continued deficiencies on the blueline and in goal. That's where playoff hockey is won, folks.
I'll keep everyone posted.
More soon.
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