Less Is More
Pens Not Likely to Make Significant Changes
By Bob Grove

The National Hockey League summer has a rhythm all its own. The marathon that is the Stanley Cup playoffs ends in early June, followed closely by a backwards glance courtesy the league's annual awards ceremony and a long look into the future by all 30 teams at the Entry Draft.

Then, on July 1, it's the sprint to free agency nirvana. . . if you've got the money, the cap room and the need to reshape your team. The Penguins have the first two but not necessarily the latter.

"We made a lot of changes last year, so I'm not sure how much we want to change," second-year general manager Ray Shero said last month. "We want to add in certain areas if possible - ideally, we'd like to add to our defense or our forward group if possible - but you have to be a little careful in terms of (altering) our leadership and character."

On draft day, after Pittsburgh surprisingly landed center Angelo Esposito with the 20th pick just hours after re-signing prospective unrestricted free agents Gary Roberts and Mark Recchi to one-year contracts, coach Michel Therrien put it this way: "We don't want to change too much the chemistry of our team."

It's no surprise that Pittsburgh management places a high value on preserving the chemistry that played such a critical role in the team's surge back into the playoffs in 2007. Along with the return of veterans Roberts and Recchi, it portends a relatively quiet off-season.

That's fine with the 41-year-old Roberts, because he, too, believes less might be more this summer for the Penguins.

"I really believe we're close," he said. "There's an opportunity to play one or two more years and win a Cup in Pittsburgh. Of the possible (free agent) opportunities for me, I think Pittsburgh was the best chance to win in the next couple years."

Last summer, Shero drafted Jordan Staal in June and then in July signed free agents Mark Eaton, Jarkko Ruutu, Ronald Petrovicky and Recchi while trading for Nils Ekman. He got Evgeni Malkin's name on a contract later in the summer and added Chris Thorburn days before the start of the season.

While the Penguins don't seem destined for that much activity, they will be shopping. This time around, Shero's focus is likely to be on adding a physical, stay-at-home presence on defense and another top six forward.

He may be able to do so through trades, as player movement devoted to clearing salary cap space - even with the cap expected to grow from $44 million to $48-50 million next season - was a theme of June transactions around the league.

Nashville purged Tomas Vokoun (to Florida), Scott Hartnell and Kimmo Timonen (both to Philadelphia), while San Jose moved underachieving Mark Bell to Toronto and Chicago sent big-ticket defenseman Adrian Aucoin to Calgary. Boston was trying to move Glen Murray and Phoenix Nick Boynton, just a sampling of a significant number of teams attempting to lose salaries.

The Pittsburgh payroll came in around $36 million last season, $8 million under the cap, and ownership has indicated that level of commitment won't be reduced. The Penguins will get themselves another $2 million if, after trading Chris Thorburn to Atlanta for a third-round draft pick last month, they do not offer contracts to potential unrestricted free agents Ekman and Petrovicky. Defensemen Rob Scuderi, Josef Melichar and Alain Nasreddine were also slated for unrestricted free agency along with backup goaltender Jocelyn Thibault.

The number of desirable players on the free agent market was expected to dwindle in a hurry again this month; last July, Pavel Kubina, Hal Gill, Marc Savard, Zdeno Chara, Ed Jovanovski, Matt Cullen, Willie Mitchell, Rob Blake, Kim Johnsson, Mark Parrish, Jay McKee, Jason Arnott, Doug Weight, Aaron Ward and Jason Witt were all gone in the first three days.

Among available free agent defensemen that may interest the Penguins were Danny Markov, 31, who earned $2.5 million last season in Detroit; Brad Lukowich (30, $1 million in New Jersey); Andy Sutton (32, $2 million in Atlanta); Vitaly Vishnevsky (27, $1.5 million in Atlanta); Scott Hannan (28, $2.2 million in San Jose); and Aaron Miller (35, $2.2 million in Los Angeles).

The Penguins' defense figures next season to include Christopher Letang, a right-handed shot who played well in seven games with the Penguins and was outstanding in the World Junior Championships and with Val d'Or in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League last season. "We'll see with a guy like Chris Letang how he fits next year," Shero said. "He'll really be pushing for a job with us, and hopefully he can do it."

Among free agent forwards who could interest the Penguins are Nashville's Paul Kariya (32, $4.5 million) and the New York Islanders' Rob Blake (33, $1.5 million), although the Islanders are expected to make a major push to re-sign him.

Of course, Shero's payroll will also bear the burden of keeping critical players on the roster. Penguins who entered the summer as restricted free agents in search of contracts included Ryan Whitney, Colby Armstrong, Maxime Talbot, Michel Ouellet and Erik Christensen. Armstrong and Ouellet played all of last season with the Penguins, while Talbot and Christensen became regulars after being recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton early in the season.

Whitney, in particular, will be in line for a major upgrade on his $900,000 salary after finishing sixth among NHL defensemen in scoring. "Whitney made tremendous progress, and he's a big part of our future," Shero said.

But the return of Roberts and Recchi seem to signal the Penguins' forward lineup may not look much different this fall. "Those two players could have gone other places, and they came back for the right reasons," Shero said. "They believe we have something special here."

It's special enough, anyway, to keep Shero from spending every waking hour on the phone over the next two months.