Inside The Penalty Box 03.03.08: Penguins Stock Up At Deadline

Posted by Neil Borenstein on 03.03.2008

The Pittsburgh Penguins made the biggest splash of trade deadline day when they landed the hottest winger on the market, Marian Hossa. But they also got a little bit grittier on defense with the addition of Hal Gill, which might be a bigger benefit down the stretch and in the playoffs. In this week’s Inside The Penalty Box, Neil Borenstein examines the deals made by the Penguins last Tuesday, and how they will affect the team going forward.

Penguins Bolster Offense, Defense At DeadlineHossa, Gill Added For Playoffs

Photo Credit: Yahoo! Sports/AP/Getty ImagesThe Penguins landed the hottest winger on the trade market, Marian Hossa, on deadline day.

efore the institution of the new collective bargaining agreement in the summer of 2005, the Pittsburgh Penguins were not known for their willingness to bring in – or hold onto – top-notch talent worth a lot of money. Based on supposed financial restrictions, the team was very hesitant to make that big move or spend a ton of money. With former Penguins' star Mario Lemieux at the helm as owner, they believed they couldn't afford to play with the big boys hailing from the league's best markets.

The Penguins sold their best stars, including Jaromir Jagr, Robert Lang, Alexei Kovalev and Ron Francis. More often than not, these players were basically given away for absolutely nothing. Pittsburgh was forced to spend years in rebuilding mode, sometimes with no end of that phase in sight. Pittsburgh was a perennial basement team.

Failure brought a lot of high draft selections to Pittsburgh, however. The 2002 NHL Entry Draft saw the Penguins select defenseman Ryan Whitney with the fifth overall pick. They were able to land goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in the first overall spot of the 2003 draft, thanks to a trade with the Florida Panthers. In 2004, the Penguins grabbed the second best player in the draft with the No. 2 pick, Evgeni Malkin. Though the 2005 draft wasn't based on season standings because of the lockout, the Penguins were one of the teams with the most ping-pong balls in the lottery. They won that lottery and the first pick in the draft considered the Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes, who was selected by the Penguins and immediately granted the label of savior. And in 2006, after a season that didn't turn out to be the rebound season many thought would finally come to Pittsburgh, the team grabbed the third Staal brother to come to the NHL in Jordan with the second overall selection.

Those five players formed the next generation of Penguin stars. They are the foundation of everything this team is going to be for the next several years. Following the lockout, the Penguins also picked up some high-end players through free agency and trades, including Zigmund Palffy, Sergei Gonchar, Mark Recchi (who was actually signed in the summer of 2004), John LeClair and Gary Roberts. But none of them have impacted the team quite like the crop of new stars.

Together, these players were able to land the Penguins their first postseason appearance since the 2001 season last year, finishing fifth in Eastern Conference for a first round matchup against the eventual Eastern Conference Champion Ottawa Senators. This year, the team currently leads the Atlantic Division and occupies the second seed in the Eastern Conference.

The Penguins are no longer that team from earlier on in the decade that couldn't "afford" to hang with the big clubs. And they are not just showing that in performance, but in the willingness to go after players that they previously would not have prior to the locked-out 2004-05 season.

This year, the Penguins came out of nowhere to make the biggest splash during one of the most anticipated days of the entire NHL season – the trade deadline. At 2:58 p.m., it was announced that the Penguins were victorious in landing the hottest commodity on the trade market, Marian Hossa, from the Atlanta Thrashers. While certainly in the mix the whole way, the Penguins were merely a dark horse to the likes of the Montreal Canadiens, San Jose Sharks and Boston Bruins prior to the official announcement of the deal. But by dealing a good heart and soul player in Colby Armstrong, a solid prospect in the 20th overall selection in 2007, Angelo Esposito, the expendable Erik Christensen and the team's first round pick in this year's draft, the Penguins shocked the world and picked up another offensive force in Hossa, as well as role player Pascal Dupuis.

Hossa wound up suffering an MCL sprain in his Penguins debut on Thursday. He was only able to skate 13 shifts before colliding with Glen Murray of the Boston Bruins. Hossa is expected to miss a week of action. But once he and Crosby return from their injuries (Crosby should be back in about a week, as well), it's hard to imagine a more potent offense than the one in Pittsburgh.

Photo Credit: www.columbuswired.netOnce he returns from injury in about a week, Sidney Crosby will have Marian Hossa on his wing.

Hossa is a five-time All Star, including this season, with 296 goals and 342 assists for 638 points in 690 career games. He began his career with the Ottawa Senators, the team that drafted him in the first round, 12th overall, back in 1997. He spent six years in Ottawa, posting a then-career best 80 points in 2003-04 between 45 goals and 35 assists. Over the summer of 2005, Hossa was sent to Atlanta along with defenseman Greg de Vries in exchange for Dany Heatley, who needed a change of scenery after being behind the wheel in the car that killed his good friend and teammate, Dan Snyder. In his first season with the Thrashers, Hossa found immediate success with Ilya Kovalchuk and Marc Savard. He tallied 92 points and 39 goals, and scored a still-career high 44 points on the man advantage. In 2006-07, Hossa hit the 100-point mark for the first time in his career, and scored over 40 goals (43) for the second time. He was an intrical part of the franchise's first playoff appearance.

In 60 games with the Thrashers this season, Hossa was once again a force on offense. He tallied 26 goals and 30 assists for 56 points, which ranks him four points ahead of Gonchar for third place on the Penguins' scoring list. He also becomes the second highest goal scorer in Pittsburgh, which had to play a big role in general manager Ray Shero becoming interested in him since he had been looking for a goal-scoring winger to play alongside Crosby for quite some time.

Undoubtedly, Hossa's addition will help the Penguins become a more dynamic offense that can scare the living crap out of any of the other 29 teams around the league. But one must question the necessity of such a trade.

First, while some will say the Penguins didn't give up all that much, I think Armstrong played an important role with the team. Losing a first round draft pick is always a big sacrifice. Esposito is also a big loss; especially given the history of this new era in Pittsburgh that's based around the talents of the team's first round draft picks over the past six years. So the Penguins didn't get Hossa for nothing.

Also, this seems like an all-or-nothing move for the Penguins. Hossa is eligible to become a free agent on July 1. And considering the amount of money he probably turned down in Atlanta and is going to command on the open market, the Penguins just don't have that full spending philosophy nor the available cap space to ink Hossa to a long-term deal. After all, even though Crosby and Whitney are signed for at least the next five years, Malkin, Fleury and Staal need long-term deals. Fleury is actually scheduled to become a restricted free agent this summer, while Malkin and Staal have one more year remaining on their rookie contracts. All of those deals, as well as the ones the team should offer to Ryan Malone and Brooks Orpik (both UFAs this summer), are going to cost the team a pretty penny – a pretty penny they can't afford to dish out to Hossa over the summer.

With that in mind, Hossa really is a pure rental player. If he doesn't help deliver the Stanley Cup to the Penguins this year, the trade was hardly worthy it, especially when offense wasn't an area of great necessity.

The real area of the Penguins' game that needed the most focus was defense. The Penguins give up a ton of shots and really rely on their ability to outscore opponents en route to victories. And as I'm sure the Penguins will remember from last season, you can get to the playoffs with that strategy. But once the puck drops on the postseason, it's a whole other ballgame, where top-notch goaltending and defense are crucial to a team's success, as well.

Photo Credit: Yahoo! Sports/Getty ImagesHal Gill will add some grit to the Penguins' defense.

An overlooked deal the Penguins made seven minutes prior to the Hossa trade involved the acquisition of Hal Gill from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for a second round pick in this year's draft and a fifth rounder in 2009. It might not be the headline trade like that of the Hossa deal, but I think this trade might actually impact the Penguins a bit more come playoff time.

Gill is by no means a superstar in the NHL. But he's going to give the Penguins a bit more of an edge in the defensive zone. He can use his 6'7", 250-pound frame to play a physical game against opposing offenses. And he's going to be a big help in front of whatever goalie is net for the Penguins on a particular night, whether it is Fleury or Ty Conklin.

Gill can also add just a tad on the offensive end, as well. He's not up to the level of Gonchar or Whitney when it comes to point production. But he can grab some helpers and a goal or two along the way.

Regardless of that little side note, though, make no mistake about the reason the Penguins acquired Gill. He is there to play defense. And I think because of that, he is going to be the bigger addition to this club when the season is all said and done. His grit and defensive play is going to be much more important when the playoffs roll around than the extra offense Hossa contributes along the way.

What the Penguins need to do now is get completely healthy. They need to get Crosby and Hossa back into the lineup and really find the line combinations on offense and defense that are going to provide the best chemistry and overall production. The Penguins also need to get Fleury back so it can be decided what goalie the team is going to run with for the rest of the season and the playoffs. Conklin has played well in Fleury's absence. He's had a few games along the way that he may have single-handedly grabbed the Penguins a win. But his ability to be hot and consistent over the course of the remainder of the season and in the playoffs is something I question. Fleury needs to get the starting nod once he comes back and begin gearing up for a rebound appearance in the 2008 postseason.

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Until next week, you have just been Inside The Penalty Box!

~ Neil Borenstein