Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Ron
Yet all of the successful teams spend the money on players now and still manage to find the money to pay their young players later as well.....How do they do that?
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I don't know about that. You saw the transition Pittsburgh went through from 2008 to 2009. They kept their core intact but on paper it appeared as though they downgraded their wingers when they went from Hossa, Malone and Ruutu to Satan, Fedotenko and Cooke.
They couldn't afford to retain Malone, and Malone did want to remain in Pittsburgh but the contract offers he was to get priced him out. That is a big piece they lost for nothing, but Pittsburgh had the depth to move on.
Satan turned out to be a bust and hardly made a contribution. Fedotenko turned out to pay off. So Pittsburgh hardly made a big splash in free agency and their biggest acquisition was Bill Guerin, a 38 year old winger who had a reputation of not stepping up in the playoffs.
What made the Penguins better was Malkin, Talbot, Kennedy and Staal stepping up their game. That's what we need to see from the Kings' core group.