Building through the draft is a thing of the past
The Pittsburgh Penguins have unveiled the secret to building a good team: play horrible hockey for five years, and build through the draft. But now, in the salary cap era, that plan is bound to be a lost art.
Over the last five years, the Pens have used their first round picks to draft Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury, Jordan Staal and Ryan Whitney. Let’s just say the Pittsburgh fans had to put up with a little more than their share of losses.
But now with two first overall picks, two second overall picks and a fifth overall, Pittsburgh is one of the best teams in the league, especially with their top centre Sidney Crosby being the favourite to win the Hart Trophy, as he has amounted 108 points in 70 games.
But the Penguins are in more trouble than it looks. When contracts start to come up and Crosby, Malkin, Fleury and Staal will all want close to top dollar, meaning around $6.5 million each, and about $8 million for Sid, it’s going to be tough to keep this team of young guns together.
As of right now the Penguins are around $10 million under the cap, but giving those players what they want, along with other youngsters such as Whitney who will want around $2.5 million and Ryan Malone who will want about $1 million, it’s going to be tough to dress a roster with much secondary scoring, core defence and back-up goaltending.
Even if Penguins’ GM Ray Shero can figure out a way to keep all of these players and keep it under the cap, add all of that to the Penguins’ new stadium in the works, and it’s going to be tough to talk ownership into signing all of these top-dollar players.
With all of the superstars the Penguins have, they better win a cup soon, or those five years of horrible hockey to try to build a good team will go to waste.
March 22, 2007 at 12:03 am
True story
-Dan
March 21, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Funny that you ask how long it will last. Pretty sure it won’t last long. Obviously Malkin is Crosby’s Jaromir Jagr and will expect Crosby money and that will be the end of it. Along with the other guys, of course.
March 22, 2007 at 4:02 pm
However, you need to draft strong to have a good team since the cap prevents you from signing huge amounts of superstars. Therefore, you always need young rookies to step up and give you a major contribution.
March 22, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Yes, but finishing last every year and drafting TOO well will just hurt you in the future, to keep a good team going it is more suitable to take the route that Detroit takes and hire the best scouts possible to pick up good players in the late rounds, who haven’t been raised as gods and won’t be asking for 7 million a year as soon as their rookie contracts are up. Pittsburgh is basically screwed in the next couple years.