Fifth Avenue Forum

On what **** planet should Kapanen ever wear a Penguins jersey again?

Yeah, I'm done with him. He was just horrendous tonight...

In an alternate universe…..If the Pens had stunk this year and been way out of playoff contention it would have been very interesting to see what they would have done with expiring contracts/pending UFAs. The returns in some of those trades (prospects and picks) might have really set the organization up for the future.

Well, unfortunately, we played way over our heads all season. Made the playoffs with 100+ points and got another competitive year out of our core...

It would have been sweet to add another Poulin and a 2nd round pick for Rust in December...but, unfortunately, it was another 45+ win season in a conference with 8 or 9 of the best 10 teams in the league or whatever it is...

Sucks, I know...but we'll have to wait to be miserable again.

I didn’t say I would have preferred the alternative universe. I said it would have been interesting to see how the front office would have handled that situation.

It's not usually interesting. It's usually a hellscape with no clear end...

On what **** planet should Kapanen ever wear a Penguins jersey again?

Yeah, I'm done with him. He was just horrendous tonight...

GMJR really did a number on this team at the end of his tenure. Zucker, Kapanen, JJ and now his dead cap hit, Pettersson. He did ok with Matheson but that was about it

I mean, it's tough, right? Like, the players that you can get, are the players that are available...he was in a hurry because grim death is right around the corner for him...one slip in the shower, and that's it. So, he was out there dealing green bananas for tapioca pudding cups because he didn't think he could afford to wait...

Kapanen's reputation as a person/player (I don't know how to frame it really) was known. He took a chance that this coach staff - which has fixed many broken d-men somehow - could fix a forward. Didn't work. He traded the 15th pick for what he thought was something between Rust and Kennedy, he also got Rodrigues (which some stat guys could look at a positive), and a 2nd round pick in 2018.

So, what if you squint and liquidate it. He traded down from 15 to 58 and added a 20 goal NHL player. I get it. It takes some of the talent evaluation out of it, but one could reason, if he was a better talent evaluator, we wouldn't have the revolving door that we did...

Zucker, again, he's a player you can acquire and you hope the old thing...Zucker was a 30 goal guy. So Zucker with Crosby = 50 goal guy. He's probably at a 25 goal pace as a Penguin...it might not even be a pace, he's probably scored about 25 goals in 82 games as a Penguin. The trouble with it is that those 82 games have been over the course of an entire decade. But, did anyone really see that coming? He had played 240+ games in the previous three seasons.

Johnson, well...yeah, that was doomed from the start. But I really get the trades...I don't love them, but I do get them...they're aging poorly though, you're right about that...

Really could have used one more goal in this game, by anyone...

Sullivan would have challenged it anyway

Good stuff mikey. I appreciate the optimism

I mean, I'm not sure if it's optimism...it's just "experience", for lack of a better word. Eyeballing it, I've watched about 1500 consecutive Penguins games at this point, sometimes you just need to take a step back and get some context...context of how long a regular season is, context of your opponent, context of your cumulative fatigue (4 games in 6 days, 3 games in 4 days), context of your game day roster, etc.

Same thing with deals. Everyone that sucks likes to point out, "We traded a 3rd round pick for Dan Focht, and you know what, that 3rd round pick became Santa Claus!" It's like, that's not how it works...you aren't assigned players when you draft, you pick the one you want. But we traded #15 to Toronto for what ended up being 30 goals and 70 points AND a 2nd round pick. The guy that Toronto got at 15 may never play again.

And I don't even really subscribe to that, right? Who Toronto got at 15 is irrelevant. 30 goals and 70 points for like $4 million is a rough framing of this. 2nd round picks from two years prior that generally appreciate in value.

The reality is: Kapanen has been a bust and is getting worse. Crotch is not an NHL player. Hallander may never be. But that's what we know now. Same thing with Zucker...we thought or he thought this is speed and shooting and work ethic and 20-30 goals playing with no one - at the cost of what?

Instead of 20-30 goals, we get 20-30 relatively feckless games a year from a guy who was basically Tyler Kennedy+...it sucks, but sometimes you're the dog and sometimes you're the hydrant.

There are teams out there that aren't trying and just going down with the ship...look at Chicago. We could be Chicago, minus the pro-diddling culture or whatever...

Chicago won the Cup in 2015. They haven't won a series since. Three playoff appearances in that time.

Since then:
Saad for Anisimov, Dano, Tropp, J.Morin -> Anisimov for Z.Smith a couple years later
Sharp and Johns for Daley -> Daley for Scuderi just a couple months later
Dano and a 1 for Andrew Ladd
Danault and a 2 for Fleischmann and Weise
Teravainen for a 2 and a 3
Shaw for two 2s
A 3 for Jurco
Hjalmarsson for C.Murphy and Dauphin
Panarin and Motte for Saad -> Saad for Zadorov a year or so later -> Zadorov for a 3 a year later
Kruger for nothing
Kempny for a 3
Hartman for a 1 (this is actually pretty good value, to be fair)
Schmaltz for Strome and Perlini
Forsling for de Haan
Jokiharju for A.Nylander -> Nylander for Sam Lafferty two years later
Gustafsson for a 3
Lehner for M.Subban and a 2 -> Subban for free
Maatta for free
Janmark for free

I mean, we're worried about trading a 1st for a young 20 goal scorer on a good contract...? The only other success of the decade has lost about 25 straight deals until they dealt Fleury for a 2...

I mean, look at that...Panarin for Saad, Saad for Zadorov, Zadorov for a 3rd. That's like giving a (way) better version of Guentzel in 2019 and having a 3rd round pick for it right now.

Jokiharju for Nylander; Nylander for Lafferty is like us trading John Marino for ****** Aaron Asham right now.

We're coming off of 7-2 and 4-0 wins within a goldfish's reach...we're a 100 point team where we were missing Crosby for basically a quarter of the year, missing Malkin for a ton of time, missing a top six forward in Zucker all year, not having an NHL backup...blah blah blah, I know everyone's got problems, but the fact that we're relevant is insane. A month ago, we were working ourselves over under the table about what a threat we are...and now, that's it, now we're hooped...? Just as a small group, we can be better than a slight breeze I think...

Can you miss Zucker if you never had him?

All of this assumes that kapanen was the best option for that 1st though

Also I didn't remember there being a 2nd coming back so I checked. There wasnt.. and we sent Erod and Hallander there. Both came back for McCann

Traded by the Toronto Maple Leafs with Pontus Aberg and Jesper Lindgren to the Pittsburgh Penguins for 1st round draft pick in 2020 , Filip Hallander, Evan Rodrigues and David Warsofsky.

The 2nd was in the other kapanen trade.

Kapanen, Harrington, spaling, 1st, 3rd

For

Phil, Biggs, erixon, 2nd

Sorry, good call. I forgot all about McCann for Hallander...

All of this assumes that kapanen was the best option for that 1st though

It doesn't. It doesn't view it as anything but what it could have looked like at the time.

Obviously, you never know what could be gotten out there...maybe we could have drafted Dawson Mercer (the lone reasonable forward taken after 15 that is playing in the NHL)...?

Looks like one other young forward was dealt for a pick around that time...
Lias Andersson went for #60. He has one point in 19 NHL games this year in LA.

So not a lot of data points to go off...

My lines for the playoffs:

Guentzel - Crosby - Rakell
Guentzel - Crosby - Rakell
Guentzel - Crosby - Rakell
McGinn - Blueger - Rust

Defense:

Matheson - Letang

Goal:

Let’s roll baby