Gameday Poop: Pittsburgh Penguins vs Toronto Maple Leafs

The Penguins are taking on the red hot Toronto Maple Leafs this afternoon or this evening which ever one of those 5pm falls under and nothing is really at stake. If the Pens win it could mathematically eliminate the Leafs that are in last place, a place that they were so entrenched in that going 8-2 in the last 10 games hasn’t removed them from it.

The big news is the cool stuff the Penguins are doing for the final regular season game at the Civic Arena. They will have have a commemorative ticket and at least 50 players from Civic Arena’s ghosts of hockey past there. This is include Paul Coffey, Mario Lemieux, Larry Murphy and many others, mainly Penguins but maybe some Pittsburgh Hornets also. I would love to see one of my all-time favorite players Mike Bullard. 

Pittsburgh has won more Art Ross Trophy’s than any other NHL city and for sure Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby & Evgeni Malkin will be there but a giant coo would be if they can land 5 time winner Jaromir Jagr. Two other top players in NHL history that may be missing is Ron Francis and Mark Recchi as they both have games that night with their respective teams. 

The Pens have also had more of the top 15 all time top scorers play for them than any other NHL team. 

04 Ron Francis        1798
07 Mario Lemieux    1723
09 Jaromir Jagr       1599 
12 Paul Coffey        1531
14 Mark Recchi       1442
15 Bryan Trottier    1425

Pittsburgh has an incredible hockey history including one of the earliest NHL teams and quite possibly the first professional players. I usually don’t have a lot of required reading, but if you want to truly enjoy the final game and all the hoopla you must read today’s required reading.

This is on of the best Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey sites: “Pittsburgh Hockey History”

Gametime is 5PM and can be seen in HD at the Igloo or on FSN Pittsburgh

* The “Gameday Poop” is provided to give you enough information to sound intelligent while talking about hockey for 10 minutes. Anything after that and your on your own.

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Jaromir Jagr a Penguin next year anyone?

Jaromir Jagr’s agent Jaroslav Zidek was just quoted as saying the Jaromir Jagr will be free as a bird come summer. The struggling KHL has made mandatory across the board cuts of 30% to the salaries of all KHL players.

The Avangard Omsk (Jagr’s team) is having major financial difficulties and is most likely going to have to dump Jagr at the end of the season, if there is still a KHL next year anyway. The mandatory cut that the KHL has made, virtually makes all of the players contracts useless.

In a previous post “read it here: Jaromir Jagr returning to the Penguins?” 37 year old Jagr claimed that he would come to the Penguins for league minimum. While this is not actually possible under the collective bargaining agreement, he could still come in at a very cheap price. After July 1st Jaromir doesn’t have to clear waivers either.

This summer the Penguins have a lot of unrestricted free agents and a lot of restricted free agents. (they are listed here: “Miroslav Satan put on Waivers“) The key offensive players the Penguins have as unrestricted free agents are: 38 year old Billy Guerin & 32 year old Petr Sykora .

Billy Guerin is currently making $4.5 million and I do not see any way possible that the Penguins resign him next season, at least not for that amount of money.  Sykora, who was benched at the end of the game against Florida for some reason (possible the upper body ailment that almost made his miss the Dallas game), is making $2.5 million. At $2.5 million I would take him in a heartbeat, but the coaches don’t apparently see it that way, even though he has 13 power play goals, they still don’t give him much time on it.

While the free agent market this summer should be a good one, unless the salary cap goes up, I’m afraid the Penguins are going to be watching it from outside. Evgeni Malkin’s salary almost doubles against the cap and we have a lot of defensemen and a backup goaltender to sign.

Jagr is ripping it up in the KHL and has done pretty well in the NHL the last few years. In 2006 he had 54 goals and 123 overall points, only 2 points behind the Art Ross Trophy. His talent, while not what it used to be, is still at a very high level. The ability of Jagr to teach Malkin & Crosby on and off the ice would be immeasurable, similar to what Lemieux has done for him.

Jaromir Jagr coming in at the right price could really help. There are rumors around that Edmonton is courting Jagr and is willing to pay $7 million.  If that is true, Jagr needs to decide whether he wants to take the money and run or try for one more Stanley Cup before he retires. I will say it again: I would love to see Jagr retire here and have his shirt retired to the rafters to it’s rightful place, beside Lemieuxs.

Some day down the road, having banners in the rafters that read Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby & Malkin would be quite something.