Ryan Malone - a little pissed

PKC wrote:We had this discussion quite often pre-free agency. All those Penguins fans who were tooting their own horn talking about how they'd keep everyone and make a run again. I even said that it would be even worse for them the following year in terms of signings for UFAs and RFAs. They are in a deep pile of Dung in terms of having money to have depth on the team. I couldn't even tell you right now who the other player on Crosby's wing is, or who Jordan Staal's two linemates are, or whether they even have a fourth line. They are so shallow up front, that it's laughable.

rooneypoo wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:
Unbelievable! Wow! I can't believe how dumb they are over there. Did they not have room to sign him at $4? I don't really understand what happened here, but if you have a guy who's a great player and has as much heart as he does, you do not let him go, period. If he were to be asking for 5.5 to 6 I would see why they let him go, but at $4...just plain silliness...I can't wait to see him play against his old team this year, he'll rip them a new one for sure.

Welcome to the salary cap world.

PIT had lots of re-signing to do. Malkin, Fleury, and Orpik were first in line. Sign Malone this year for $4+ mil / yr long term and, OK, maybe you look smart today, but then you lose, say, Jordan Staal next year because you don't have any more cap space. And then you look really dumb.

Consider this: PIT has only got 5 forwards locked up for next year (Crosby, Malkin, Depuis, Godard, and Cooke), but they have $42 mil in salaries committed. They will have a whopping 5 RFAs (Staal, Kennedy, Thomas, Talbot, and Goligoski) to deal with -- and Staal, Talbot, and probably Goligoski will be in line for decent raises. They'll have pay Staal ($5 mil?) and then fill up the 5-6 remaining spots on their forward ranks with the money they have left over (Sykora? Satan?), plus pick up a backup goalie and possibly a defensive D -- and to do all that, they'll only have about $12 mil (presuming that Staal signs for something like $5 mil, that the cap hits about $60 mil next year, and that PIT management likes have a $1-2 mil in breathing room). That's pretty tight.

The fact is that a team like PIT has been amassing good players for so long because they're team was bad for so long, but in cap world, there's just no way that you can keep them all together for very long. There just isn't enough money to go around. Malone got lost in the numbers. Between him and Staal, I think they made the right choice. Between him and Orpik, however, I won't comment other than to say that they don't really have any other good defensive D on that team, so perhaps that gave him the higher priority.