Yes Zacha is our backup center. That doesn’t mean he should be. I’d try other guys out in the middle before going back to something we’ve tried again and again and again and again that has failed. It’s not like he’s a bad 3C fill in because of the role but fine as a top 6 fill in. He’s sucked as a top 6C as well because he simply is an awful center.
Also the idea that 3rd line has to be some shut down line just isn’t true. Pens won with HBK as the 3rd line and in no world is Kessel on a “shut down line”. The Goodrow-Gourde-Coleman shutdown line was TB’s 2nd line.
Bonino was a excellent shutdown center for Pittsburgh and Hagelin was even better player. Hagelin was speedy beast, he was one of their best players complimentary players. And he was plenty shutdowny .
HBK was a first Cup thing, but it was a shutdown line, with those two as Kessel wranglers, with him providing scoring and Hagelin driving play.
Kessel was with Malkin & Kunitz mostly during the 2016-17 Cup run.
They let Bonino walk in 2017, which was probably not bad move because he was fading and he got a big ole deal Nashville.
In November 2018 the Penguins were scuffling, with a 7-6-3 record, and when a 2-4 L to Devils on the 13th, which dropped them to 14th in EC, was too shameful to bear, Rutherford decided to make a “shake-up” trade.
Then Rutherford decided to trade Hagelin, which was not a good idea, and he traded him to the Kings straight up for Tanner Pearson, which turned it into a terrible f***ing idea.
Hagelin doesn’t score a lot, and he had 3 points (1G 2A) in 17 games. Just to be clear, Hagelin was playing well, driving play & with shutdown defense. He was Mike Sullivan’s favorite Swiss Army middle six forward. And Hagelin’s a good locker-room so everybody was really sad about it.
Rutherford, for no particular reason, traded him away for piece of crap. And Pearson had 1 assist in 16 games.
After 44 misbegotten games in Pittsburgh, Rutherford was unhappy with Pearson. He played with Malkin and Kessel and it’s hilariously bad.
He was dumped to the third line and then forth line.
So it’s the TDL and Rutherford feels the need to make it worse, so he trades Pearson to Vancouver for (alleged) defenseman Erik Gudbranson (who had 2 years/4m on his deal left, so his cap hit is bigger than Pearson’s 3.75m.)
He’s 6-5 and fights. And sucks. For 4m. The trade was made on Feb 25th.
This happens in San Jose on Feb 21st
Malkin, Pettersson and Crosby *grasp* all get game misconducts.
This is from the Athletic about the trade:
Two days earlier, Sidney Crosby found himself in a fight with Micheal Haley. Not ideal. According to a Penguins player, Evander Kane looked at the Penguins’ bench following the TV timeout scrum that his nosiness initiated and said, “Who on this team is going to do anything about?”
Lol at calling Crosby randomly punching people a fight with one person.
And this Tweet will tell you how their 3-4 OT to the Flyers in Stadium Series went on Feb 23rd.
Time to get a defenseman with 72 PIM. Benning must have been shocked he found GM make dumber decisions than he typically does.
Gudbranson wasn’t actually the player Rutherford originally tried to trade for at 2019 TDL, Carl Hagelin was. Yep, they tried to reacquire him from the Kings. From an 31 Thoughts:
8. In the days leading up to
Carl Hagelin’s trade to Washington, Pittsburgh tried to re-acquire the winger. Before the trade was submitted for Central Registry approval, someone noticed that the Penguins were ineligible to do it. They traded him to Los Angeles on Nov. 28 and retained salary. A team can not bring back any such player for one year after the initial move.
Oopsie!
And of course:
Over the past year-plus, controversial winger Tom Wilson has been the centerpiece of the rivalry between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals.
From an illegal hit that injured Zach Aston-Reese in last year’s playoffs to a right hand that gave Jamie Oleksiak a concussion in a fight early this season, Wilson has been a thorn in the side of the Penguins.
Erik Gudbranson is the latest player tasked with taking care of the Wilson situation, which can mean one of two things.
First, it can mean actually dropping the gloves and fighting Wilson if the situation calls for it.
The 6-foot-5, 217-pound Gudbranson is up to that challenge should it arise. He has 27 career fighting majors in the NHL, including a solid showing against Wilson in an October 2017 scrap. (OMG!)
“I’m OK with it. I’ve always been OK with it,” Gudbranson said. “I don’t particularly like talking about it. I’m certainly not going to say I’m looking for it. Never have. If the situation arises, I’ve never been one to back down. That’s sort of how I put it. I guess I can leave it at that.”
Well, The Tom Wilson Situation, my new band, and that timeless trade inspiration, is shockingly not solved by Gudbradson. They both take matching roughing penalties in the one game vs the Capitals he plays in.
Penguins dumped Gudbradson onto the Ducks on Oct 25, 2019 for an AHL contract and a 2021 7th. The trade seems mystifying for Anaheim, but Josh Manson was out for a month, they were already terrible and Ottawa gave them a 2021 5th for the big ape in Oct 2020, so no harm done.
Gudbradson will be traded one last glorious time on his 3 year/4m deal, for a 4th time, when Nashville picks him up at the 2021 trade deadline for a 2023 7th pick.
Calgary signed Gudbradson for 1 year/1.95m on Sept 10th and everyone pointed and laughed, but Treliving will likely get the last laugh when he gets a 5th or 7th pick for him, depending on how the market is for tall fighter guys who get traded a lot.
Kings flipped Hagelin for a 2019 3rd at the TDL three months after the trade.
Tanner Pearson managed to somehow score 45 points (21G 24A) in 66 games in 2019-20 while being glued to Bo Horvat’s wing (and while still kind of sucking). At age 29, he gets a 3 years/3.25m contract that’s mildly regrettable at best, which are the sorts of contracts Benning excels at.
Needless to say I lost all interest in talking about Kessel but everything about these trades were hilarious to me at the time and it still warms my heart to mock it.
Erik Gudbranson latest Penguins player to tackle Tom Wilson problem
31 Thoughts: How Golden Knights won the Mark Stone sweepstakes - Sportsnet.ca
Why Jim Rutherford traded for Erik Gudbranson and what it means for the blue line
Goodrow-Gourde-Coleman was a third line. *runs away*
