mikey's Thread of Penguin Randomness

[meow]

Have the Pens ever gotten any success out of these types of signings? I can’t recall

[Dickie Dunn]

Have the Pens ever gotten any success out of these types of signings? I can’t recall

Are you saying he’s Euro trash or insinuating that all Euros are trash?

[mikey]

Does Sheary qualify? Or are you talking mystery Euros?

[pens_ct]

I would think the success rate with undrafted Euros is really low not just with the Penguins but league wide as well. I can't recall anyone making that jump in recent memory.

[mikey]

Panarin

[pens_ct]

I guess I really whiffed by forgetting Panarin. Beyond him there hasn't really been many, There was the Swedish guy who went to the Red Wings, Brunnstrum, but the overall success rate is really small.

[mikey]

Brunnstrom was a failure (despite hat trick in first game)...

Sergei Bobrovsky, Antti Raanta...hell, Antti Niemi won a Cup if that qualifies...Nikita Zaitsev and Mats Zuccarello belong...Ville Leino was a success I'd say...but I think I'm running out of steam, because my next name is Brian Rafalski...

I don't know what the total signings are, but I came up with a fistful of names and while it's not exhaustive, I probably covered a good ten years of offseasons...so yes, I can't imagine the success rate is very high...

[pens_ct]

Ville Leino, he made a decent amount of money in the NHL for basically putting up numbers in only one season.

[mikey]

He had a whale of a 2010 playoffs too...though, that was probably in the same season you were talking about haha

[Dickie Dunn]

Did Brunnstrom ever score again after that hat trick?

[mikey]

I don't believe so, no.

Quick little tale about me...I was writing about the Dallas Stars prospects at the time, this was around 2008 or so maybe...Brunnstrom was all over the news, all over the hockey community...teams were falling all over themselves to get Brunnstrom who had been playing at a lower level for a while and then came up during that season or whatever...so everyone's all hot and bothered about Brunnstrom, compared him to Hossa and all this noise...

So, I get some game tape of Brunnstrom because I want to be prepared...and I'm going in with high expectations, because the hype got to me before the player did...so I get my popcorn out and I start going over the tape...and after a few minutes, I'm thinking "this guy sucks..." and give it a few more minutes and then I stand up and throw my popcorn out...

So I'm putting together my Stars top prospect list...I post it to my editors for review and I get raked across the coals on this because I had him below Ivan Vishnevisky, James Neal and my pet project...Jamie Benn...a fifth round pick who I was absolutely crazy about, despite him being the Stars second fifth round pick of three in the round if memory serves...I saw him play for Kelowna and was like "woah, this could be a player..."

So I get the business for not putting him at #1...I had him around 6 or 7 with some Belarussian or Ukrainian I think whose name escapes me right now...I back my position and get some ground but they told me "you're absolutely not putting him below some random 5th rounder who is probably too high on your list anyhow..."

I finally take the compromise and I put Brunnstrom below James Neal and just a spot above a little-known Jamie Benn...when the article goes up, I get slammed...of course...hype machine n'at...

So what does f***** Brunnstrom do? He comes out in first game and just shoots the lights out against Nashville...

So I get all the hate mail and "I told you so's" and I'm like "you gotta be kidding me"...

Anyway, we know how it ends...Brunntsrom scores a good 6 or 7 tucks in his first 10 games or whatever and never scores again...next year, Dallas was going through an ownership change and traded him for a player that they had no knowledge of, just to save a few pennies...and he's out of the league just like that...

[pens_ct]

He had 17 goals in his first season with the Stars but did little thereafter.

[meow]

Brunntsrom was the guy that couldn’t stop the one way, no?

[mikey]

Oh, I always picture David Jones when that gets said...but maybe...

[Dickie Dunn]

That was Luis Mendoza.

[Beveridge]

That was Luis Mendoza.

Tops

[meow]

He couldn’t stop at all. Come on guys. These are NHL players. They can all stop - some of them both ways!

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

he had a better baseball career anyway

[willeyeam]

@mikey what happened to that Benn guy

[MR25]

I heard he likes to bunch mox

[mikey]

@mikey what happened to that Benn guy

Not much, to be real, he developed fat kid hands and terrorized men's leagues and I think he took a couple of laps in the cheese-toast league...

[willeyeam]

Lol

[Gaucho]

Jesse Marshall asks on twitter: What's your offer to Jamie Oleksiak if you're Jim Rutherford? Assuming you'd want him to make an offer at all.

One reply: $2.5 million per year for 3 years.

[Lemon Berry Lobster]

I'd be okay with 3 to 3.5 total over 3 years.

[mikey]

1 yr, $1.5 mil