My own feeling tends to be that you build your forwards and your D through the draft, but you build your goalies (at least at the NHL level) through free agency or trades. Let the rest of the NHL in effect be your farm system for goalies…that way you always get more or less known and proven commodities in net (although you’ll overpay for them). If you draft a kid that turns into the next Nabokov (i.e. a lower choice that pans out), it’s a nice bonus, but you basically draft goalies for your AHL team. Because of that, I’m not too terribly put off by the Pens’ lack of top flight goaltending prospects…at least not long term.

Short term, though, the Pens are a team that has a disproportinately high need to at least be competitive and make the playoffs, if they want to stay in Pittsburgh. The playoff buzz…the attendance at the arena…the bar and restaurant sales…none of that has happened while any of the current top level city and county elected officials have been in office. Something like that would give the team at least a little more leverage than it currently has (which is virtually none) in its quest for a new facility. If a couple of personnel tweaks can get this team into the playoffs, they might very well have the motivation to do it.

So once again, the question kind of comes down to “does even a proven #1 NHL goaltender make the Pens into a playoff team?” I don’t think that he does. The defense is still, um, suspect (not that I’m a gigantic Barry Melrose fan, but he more or less summed it up on ESPN last night when he said “the Pens’ defense acts like it thinks ‘checking’ is a city in China”). They lack a true big time finisher. They’re incredibly young. The list of things that they don’t have is pretty long…and in my opinion still far outweighs the list of what they do have (spectacular potential at center).

My thinking is that, unless a spectacularly great deal falls into Shero’s lap, the Pens will view this season as a means to an end…literally time that they just have to get through while maybe developing some young players and seeing what they really have to work with…before next year’s free agent class. If they’re going to make a move toward rapid, drastic improvement, though, I don’t think it’ll happen before summer of 2007…and that suggests to me that their goaltending for this year is kind of going to be whatever it is, as currently constituted.

Personally i would not trade Fleury based on pre-season games since i think he can be sent down without having to clear waivers and called up if one falters or gets injured. I’m not sure what teams are willing to give for Fleury but it would have to be a very good deal for me to trade him.