February 27, 2007

Meet your new Pens!

There's nothing like trade deadline day in the NHL to get the blood flowing. The Penguins were arguably the most active team and for once weren't just dumping salaries. Here's the breakdown...

We got:
  • Gary Roberts - LW
    • EDIT: Gary Roberts is going to be wearing number 10... JERK!!
  • "Big" Georges Laraque!!! - LW/Muscle
  • Nolan Schaefer - G
  • Joel Kwiatkowski - D
  • Minnesota's 2007 3rd round pick
We gave up:
  • Dominic Moore - C
  • Danny Carcillo - W/undersized goon
  • Noah Welch - D
  • 2007 4th round pick
  • 2007 7th round pick
  • 2008 3rd round pick
My commentary:
  • I'm not a big Gary Roberts guy, but if he can produce in the playoffs (assuming we make it) then I will be okay with him. He allegedly agreed to re-sign for next season too. I do think it was too early to give up on Welch, but we shall see.
  • Losing Dom Moore hurts a little, but the other acquisitions gave us too many forwards plain and simple. Something had to give.
  • I think Schaefer could end up being a huge get. I expect him to take over the backup role from Thibault next season and run with it. Just give us 15-20 quality starts.
  • Freaking Georges Laraque!!! This makes it all worth it! I personally was not a part of the evergrowing group of people that felt the Pens needed an enforcer. But if you can bring in arguably the toughest guy in the NHL and he can actually play... I'm all for it.
  • I was hoping for a top 4 defenseman and got nothing. I think that will come back to haunt us in the postseason. But if you told me in September that that would be my biggest complaint this season I would have taken that gladly.
Here's a little BGL in action:



Let's go Pens!

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