You Take The Good, You Take The Bad

...you take them both and there you have the facts of life...

(Haha, just so you know, my Inbox is blowing up as I type this.)

First, we're starting with awesome news: GENO IS OURS FOR 5 MORE YEARS!!!!!!!!!! Suck on that, Russian hockey team willing to pay him more money than God! Rumor has it that Geno's deal mirror's Sid's deal. :) :) :) :) :) This is a HUGE relief considering that over the past 24 hours, it almost seemed like ALL the players were looking for work elsewhere.

YYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Haha, last year we were so worried that the Pens would be moving to Kansas City that we didn't see it coming this year when they moved to Tampa Bay! :P Let's review: scout Greg Malone, his son Ryan Malone, Gary Roberts, and Adam Hall made deals with the Lightning, Jarkko Ruutu is now an Ottawa Senator (borrows line from Michelle: Et tu, Ruutu???), while Ty Conklin and Marian Hossa signed contracts with the Detroit Red Wings.

Robs is now playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Bugsy's also now a Bolt - an overpaid Bolt, but a Bolt nonetheless.

Hall is one more flightless bird headed south for the winter.

Ruuuuuuuu, however, is northern bound.

Sid is shown at a practice with Conks, who's going to Detroit with Hossa.

Okay, so Marian Hossa is no longer a Penguin. That's bad enough, but the fact that he's now going to be sporting the logo of the team that handed us our first Stanley Cup Finals loss is just unreal. I realize that the NHL is a business, but this move cuts like a knife. What bothers me most about this is that he proclaimed his allegiance to the Pens and made statements to the press that he'd take less money to play for a good team, only to take a one year $7.4 million deal with the Wings. Well, now I have one more reason to hope that Detroit doesn't win the Stanley Cup next season.

Get used to seeing him in a red shirt. (>_<)

Who knows what's going to happen in the next couple of days, but GM Ray Shero has got some serious work cut out for him. Losing Malone, Roberts, Hall, Ruutu, and Conklin might have stung a little less if Hossa had decided to sign on the dotted line. But now, well, this leaves Shero with some serious gaps to fill.

The most pressing issue now is that, without Malone and Hossa, Sid is in desperate need of a winger. Pascal Dupuis worked well on Sid and Hossa's line, but the majority of the production from that line came from Sid and Hossa. One name that has been tossed around in the past two days to fill that now vacant spot is Jaromir Jagr. There's no doubt he would be a skilled candidate able to capitalize on the Saint's mad play-making skills, BUT Double J comes with more baggage than Pittsburgh International. It goes without saying that a lot of Pens fans are still smarting from that "I feel like I'm dying alive" fiasco. Though, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the fans think about a player - if he is the best fit for the group, he should be brought into the organization.

When Jags was a Pen, he was all business in the front, but all party in the back.

With that said, this is also the guy that called our captain a whiner and a diver. Could Sid get past that and be able to develop chemistry and play well with someone who attacked him in the press? Could Jagr swallow his pride and relinquish his position as captain to be second banana to someone whom he clearly doesn't respect? It's definitely an intriguing idea, though I don't know how likely it is to happen.

On the plus side, IFHSA™ is not a Penguin! He has signed a 4 year, $15.5 million deal with the Dallas Stars. Haha, sorry, Stephanie S.!!! You have all of our condolences. ;) Well now the Pens should be able to offer Brooks Orpik and Marc-Andre Fleury a little more money to get them to stay. And the Pens picked up forward Eric Godard to a 3 year deal worth $2.25 million.

DON'T GO, BROOKSIE!!!

Flower's arbitration hearing will be coming soon unless [*fingers crossed*] they can work out a deal.

We're just going to have to take a deep breath and wait. Ultimately, I still believe the Pens will be okay. We've got Sid until 2013, and now Geno until 2014. We're super lucky to have not just one elite player willing to sacrifice for the sake of his team, but two. Shero should have no trouble building a great team around them. :)