Ray Shero was signed to a 5-year extension as GM. Can't argue with this move. Aside from Ponikorovsky, the man has hardly made a mistake.
He had the balls to trade the farm for Hossa; that led to a trip to the finals.
Was fooled by Hossa into thinking a long term deal was coming, and when Hossa left for the Wings, Shero didn't panic. He solidfied the "core": Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, Orpik and Staal.
He brought in guys like Billy G., Chris Kunitz and Craig Adams; those guys helped bring Lord Stanley back to Pittsburgh. Not to mention being able to not only get Kunitz, but also Eric Tangradi, for human-road-cone Ryan Whitney.
His only mistake, in hindsight, was the Ponikorovsky trade. At the time it was heralded. We needed a winger, Poni was out there, and Shero made the deal. Poni sucked, we lost Caputi, but neither one would have been able to make up for our defensive deficiences.
Ray realized we needed to strengthen up our D. After letting Scuds and Hal Gill go, last offseason, our defense was nowhere nearly as formiddable in front of own net. He knew we couldn't resign Gonch, so he did the next best thing, traded for Hamhuis' rights, when signing the former Predator wasn't going to happen, Shero dove in head first into the defensive free agent pool and pulled out two champions in Martin and Michalek. Giddie up.
Other news out of camp. Derek Engelland is supposively hitting everything that moves. He got some quality time with the Pens early in the season last year, and played some good hockey. A little long in the tooth for a minor leaguer, but a strong camp could garner the coveted 7th defender spot on the roster.
Tangradi is skating with Mr. Duff and Geno. All is supposively going well for the Pens' top prospect. Mr. Duff had this to say,
“He [Tangradi] is a big kid,” Comrie said. “He’s young and he’s a guy who goes hard to the net. He is going to open up space for us. We only scrimmaged for 40 minutes, but we did a great job of cycling. Sometimes we get caught watching Geno stickhandling because he does that so well, but if Eric can go to the net and create space that will make our line successful.”
17 days til the puck officially drops at Consol.
Don't really have much to say about the Steelers so I'll keep it short and in a list.
Who would have thought Chuck Batch would be the actual QB? 3 weeks ago he was being fitted for a headset and clipboard.
The D is good. I mean, without Hampton, they held the best runner in the league to 34 yards. 34 yards. The guy ran for 100 yards in 12-straight games. Pretty impressive.
Troy Polamalu. The new father had a pick in the endzone and then this ridiculousness.
Dennis Dixon vs. Vince Young - Has there ever been a lower combined IQ for starting QBs in NFL history?
I think Omar Epps was finally out-fashioned by Jeff Fisher's gold plated sunglasses. Speaking of Tomlin, he's looking a little chubby these days. Just saying.
Less spins by Mendenhall, that was nice.
Tony Hills? Really? Batch and Leftwich aren't very mobile, this can only mean good things to come.
Oh yeah, Leftwich was resigned today, and may start on Sunday.
Actually have a chance to go 3-0 with a win in Tampa. Tampa is also a surprising 2-0, but Josh Freeman hasn't faced a D like this.
I guess after seeing kickoff returners torch their coverage teams enough times something positive rubbed off. I'm not going to lie, I was bitching out loud as to why Mewelde Moore was the deep man.
Anyone else miss getting first downs?
2 games til Ben
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