Steve Downie was a unique cat, and I don’t think you’ll see another quite like him in a very long time. He also was a barely hinged madman (and I say that lovingly with all due respect) who flipped out over the most minor of issues and had no bedside manner around referees - causing him to often ring up totally avoidable misconduct penalties because of his crazed actions. Downie had moments of being a good, physical winger. That was the idea and selling point- Tocchet as assistant coach would reign in the wild man, keep him focused, and Downie would be a positive contributor for the Pens. Once scored 22 goals and 46 points in a season with Rick Tocchet in Tampa. 72 games, 14 goals, 14 assists, 28 points, 237 PIMs.ĭownie was actually a pretty useful player between the whistles. This is a minor signing that really just amuses me, but Downie has one of the funniest (and perhaps most forgotten gems) type of seasons of the past 5-10 years with the Pens. #5 Steve Downie: July 2nd 2014, one year, $1,000,000 Photo by Daniel Kubus/Getty Images The five best Pens’ contracts of the decade Ditto the extensions to Crosby and Malkin and Letang, while surely worthy of some of the best and most valuable contracts the team has signed, they didn’t technically sign them as “free agents”, so for this exercise it wasn’t considered. So Ray Shero signing Chris Kunitz or Pascal Dupuis while they still had term on their contracts isn’t going to count here. Most 4-5-6 year deals given to non-franchise-centerpiece type players ends in headaches and are probably best avoided.įor our purposes here, we’re only going to judge open market, unrestricted free agent signings. Which perhaps makes the times the Pens did delve into the free agents waters all the more frustrating. So they didn’t have the room to often swing for big free agent pickups. Pittsburgh has invested a ton of their salary cap space on their core players like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Marc-Andre Fleury at the early part of the decade and these few players were taking up the majority of the cap. This is more a function of the way the team is built, rather than being super-savvy. Really, the Pens have been largely inactive on July 1st, the annual day when NHL teams bend over backwards to hand out big money and term to players who are bound to disappoint. After recently looking at the ten best (and ten worst) trades that the Pittsburgh Penguins have made in the 2010’s, the natural next ask would be.what about free agent signings?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |