If a team finishes in last their attendance shows it and they don’t make any money. No team wants that.

To say that any team, let alone the Penguins (who have gone out and signed all of these high priced free agents) is just STUPID.

Let’s assume that you would say you’d opt for Cujo for $900,000 or so. I personally have been a huge Cujo fan since his St. Louis days…but would anyone on Earth have predicted his play this year would be at the same level as it is in Phoenix if he was playing behind the Pens’ defense? I’m guessing no. Has Joseph ever won anything when he didn’t play for hands down the best team in the league? No. He’s also going to turn 39 on April 29. Since my understanding is that the Pens were looking for a guy who could be viable for about two years, a 39 year old would have been a gamble. Who else was available? Would Sean Burke have been an upgrade? Also bear in mind that he’s actually older than Cujo is. Would Khabibulin have been worth the $7 million or so price tag? I think everyone in Chicago would scream “no” right now.

LeClair I do think was an error, but only in hindsight. Petr Bondra would have been a much better choice if you go by stats, and was significantly cheaper at only $505,000. Teemu Selanne is making significantly less than LeClair at $1 million…but there were grave doubts about his ability to produce after a miserable showing in Colorado. But then…you also have to remember that at the time, the Pens were under the impression that they’d have speed and skill up front (bear in mind that they still thought Malkin would be available this year at the time), and were really in the market for a power forward in case Ryan Malone turned out to not be the player they thought he was. So really the field of other candidates for the LeClair signing are more like Jason Allison and Eric Lindros, and at the time there was no guarantee that either of them would have the ability to play a meaningful number of games this year. Incidentally, anyone who says Atlanta is trying to bring in decent players at affordable prices needs to be slapped…paying Bobby Holik $12.75 million over three years might be the most nonsensical thing I’ve seen a GM do in recent memory.

Palffy I have no complaints about whatseover. He’s been one of the Pens’ best players, and he and Crosby appear to have developed some chemistry.

Now we come to Gonchar. When he was signed, Foote was already off the board, as were Aucoin (the guy I actually was hoping the Pens would sign), Hatcher, Rathje, Therien, Zhitnik, and Malik. They could have had Brian Leetch…although Leetch is actually outearning Gonchar this year, and he’s going to turn 38 in March. They could have had Bryan Berard, who’s only making $2 million this year, but I don’t think anyone would have taken Berard over Gonchar at the time. They could have had Brisebois, but he turns 35 next month and I don’t know that anyone foresaw him being better than Gonchar at the time, either. They perhaps could have had Niedermayer, but that’s just shy of $7 million a year, and there’s no guarantee that he ever really wanted to come to Pittsburgh. They perhaps could have had Rafalski, but he’s also outearning Gonchar this year. Now…if you want to say that philosophically signing a guy like Gonchar was a bad idea, you may have a point. In hindsight, they absolutely would have been better off picking up a more responsible defensive player. But also bear in mind that, at the time, nobody knew what Tarnstrom was going to get in arbitration, nor did anyone know whether Jackman was really a point per game defenseman, so they may very well have felt that they needed an insurance policy on the point. With all of that in the background, I don’t know that I can fault Patrick for the Gonchar signing.

The one that I can fault Patrick for, however, is Andre Roy. Maybe when he’s back from his injury he’ll show me something that he hasn’t so far, but at this point it looks like $1 million for three years on on him is nothing short of insane. You could have had Selanne…or Bondra with $500,000 left over to put towards a competent defenseman instead.

Bottom line…you can look at decisions made by any GM who’s been around for a while in hindsight and say that some of them were stupid and/or irresponsible. But none of them can see the future when they make personnel moves, so the real way of evaluating a GM is to think about whether the moves made some sort of sense at the time. In this particular case, it looks to me like most of them did.

P.S. Nobody is tanking in December, if you’re good enough to play in the NHL you’re pretty used to winning and do not enjoy losing, nobody’s thinking about draft picks or anything but each game at this point in the season.

I think a Mike Bab***** type is what what you’re saying NJ needs. Lemaire was another fiery one – someone along those lines.

What’s Jacques Demers doing these days other than trying to learn how to read?