| 18 May 2010
?One of the weekly articles I link is “Rumor Roundup” from The Hockey News. It’s a good way to catch up on the latest rumors, with a nice amount BS detection via Lyle “Spector” Richardson.
The latest article caught my eye - not only because it suggested that all world center Evgeni Malkin may be shopped by Penguins GM Ray Shero, but because Richardson didn’t immediately debunk the rumor.
You think Greg Sherman would be interested Malkin? He’d be crazy if he wasn’t. So what would the Pens want for him:
A more realistic scenario would be peddling him for a couple of scoring wingers, as suggested by the Journal when it proposed a dream trade involving Oilers wingers Ales Hemsky, Dustin Penner and possibly Andrew Cogliano.
I have to say that its pretty laughable that Pens would move a Conn Smythe winner for Hemsky, Penner and Cogliano. Have you seen the rabid fans that are the thepensblog.com? They would storm Shero’s house with pitchforks and torches… well, at least gasoline, matches and bags of dog poop.
Anyway, here is the deal I would try to pull off if my name was Greg “no, I’m not in Glass” Sherman.
Colorado gets:
Malkin
Pittsburgh gets:
Stastny
and
Pick: Stewart, Mueller
And
Pick: Yip, Jones
Yes, I’m aware that all of those Avs players are good and it would be tough to see them leave. The Avs package would have to be good in order to make the deal, no question. Remember, the Avs would still keep two of those players, (probably Mueller, given his inconsistency, and Jones, given his injury history) and still have Hejduk, Galiardi and (hopefully) Stoa to play on the top lines Duchene and Malkin.
The move would signal that this team is very serious about winning immediately - not in a year or two. As long as the Avs had a healthy combo of Matty and Geno, you’d have to believe a top 4 Western Conference finish would be all but guaranteed for years to come.
The most prohibitive part of this trade would be Stastny’s contract - if the Pens move Malkin, the main driver is will be the team's lack of cap space. The Stastny / Malkin swap only saves the Pens 3.1M in cap space a year, which is only good for one more semi-quality player - you’d have to think that chances are Shero could find a similar deal somewhere else that could open up more cap space.
The only other realistic option is to send Duchene for Malkin instead of Stastny... and that’s a deal that would be tougher to swallow - maybe something like…
Colorado gets:
Malkin
Pittsburgh gets:
Duchene
and
Pick: Stewart, Mueller
…and I’m not sure I can make that trade - simply because I’m much less sure that a combo of Malkin and Stastny would bring a dynasty with it, so how can I justify moving Duchene?
What do you think, Avs fans? Would you make either of these deals?
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