Pens win the sweepstakes, add big man!

[Goffie]

After trading away elite sniper Alex Ovechkin a couple weeks ago, the Pens have made it no surprise that they are going to do what it takes to build a winning team this season. That trend continued on Tuesday when the Pens won the bidding sweepstakes for big defenseman Zdeno Chara. The Pens sent away top shutdown defenseman Bryan Allen, along with 3 top prospects and former 1st rounders in Michael Grabner, Colton Gillies and Ryan Mcdonagh to win the services of Chara.

Chara fills a void on the Pens blueline and gives them one of the top blueline corps in the CPHL.

Markov-Chara
Kubina-Spacek
Vlasic-Zanon
Erksine

Combine this with the combo of Henrik Lundqvist and Carey Price in net and the Pens should be hard to score on if all goes as planned.

Pens still shopping for a veteran winger
The only weakness that the Pens have left to address this offseason is the addition of another top 6 winger. Mike Richards has clicked well with David Backes and Alexander Frolov, but the 2nd unit is yet to find success. Mike Cammalleri was brought in to play alongside Peter Stastny, but GM Goffie has made it known that he would prefer to add a veteran winger to that line. The main obstacle to adding this player is the lack of cheese space available. The Pens currently have 1.56 in space that they can take on so they need to find a winger who can join the team without adding to much cap. If there are any teams shopping such wingers please PM me or catch me on msn!

[Sylvanfan]

Well Columbus does get a lot of players back for Chara, but I don't know if the quality is there for them. A lot is going to depend on how McDonagh and Grabner eventually pan out. For a team like Pittsburgh who is well stocked with high end type young playes it's a good move to bring in a guy like Chara and not send out any of the real top end guys.

[Superflyer]

There were seven teams bidding on Chara, some were good some were not and some were great.
It really was hard to pick which way to go as three teams have amazing offers on the table. I eventually went with Goffie because of the prospects.

With the loss of Chara our defense took a big hit so I thought that it was best to take a shut down defenseman to help and Allen filled that hole very well.
As for the trio of Michael Grabner, Colton Gillies and Ryan Mcdonagh, they are all young studs who will help me in my rebuild.

[simmer2]

I was one team that had an offer in for Chara and I won't discuss what we had going, I'll only comment on this deal here. I tend to agree with Chad on this one; none of the prospects are real high-end guys and it really depends how they eventually pan out. There's no stud in that group and I would have thought that instead of Allen, the deal should have included a younger d-men with similar OVR ratings. To me that would have made this deal closer. Because there wasn't, this is a clear win for Pittsburgh in my mind.

[OILFAN #81]

Love this deal for the Penguins. Chara is a stud. Allen is good but nothing close to Chara. The prospects.........Gillies got sent down yesterday and is having a tough time making the NHL lineup, Grabner/McDonagh are good players but aren't locks to have good careers/be good players. I think a sure bet needed to be in there for a prospect.

[Sylvanfan]

I remember when I dealt Scott Niedermayer who did have some retirement concern at the time for Joni Pitkanen and the known number one pick in the 2007 draft where I took Patrick Kane. Even today getting what looked like a younger defenceman who played 22+ minutes a night and a high end prospect I still don't think that was enough, even though Kane is a top line winger and Pitkanen as much as I hate him is the Canes number one defenceman now. The Jackets get two extra pieces here, but as I said earlier I don't see the top end roster quality here that I think that team needs.

My opinion.

[Flickered Flame]

Good deal for the Pens. The Flames are disappointed in losing out as I felt I put forth a fairly solid offer.

[MJK]

For a minute there I thought Brad Vaders was joining your team.