When Jim Rutherford took over as Penguins general manager, his main focus should've been rebuilding the team's third and fourth lines while using whatever cap space he could swing.That seems to have been the case.MORE: |Pittsburgh on Wednesday signed winger Steve Downie, who split last season between Colorado and Philadelphia, to a one-year, one-million contract. Part of the reason Downie came on the cheap was out of his control he dealt with a concu sion last season (4G, 20A in 62 games) and tore his ACL in the second game of 2013. That has to
Jabari Parker Jersey be a consideration.At the end of it all, though, Downie is worth more than the deal he signed and certainly worth more to a team that played fourth-liners on the third line and AHL players on the fourth line for most of last season. Even if he, at 26, has lost something because of those injuries, he still put up 14 goals and 27 a sists during his last full season (2011-12), which he split between Tampa Bay and Colorado.He positively impacted po se sion along the way, too percent of all shot attempts while he was on the ice at even-strength, and he
Matthew Dellavedova Jersey made his teammates better in that area, too.Maybe he's not a 2.00-plus-points per 60 minutes guy, as he was in Tampa while playing for Penguins a sistant Rick Tocchet. There's no reason to think, though, that he won't bring some sort of point production and the right puck-po se sion approach to Pittsburgh's third line. They lacked that last year Pittsburgh's third tier of forwards controlled of all shot attempts. Players like Craig Adams (40.8 percent) and Tanner Gla s (39.3 percent) saw regular shifts, usually, on the fourth line, and the rotating cast of call-ups and waiver-wire pickups weren't much better.They didn't produce points, either; Brandon Sutter led the bottom six in five-on-five scoring with six goals and nine a sists.At the trade deadline, Ray Shero tried to course-correct, adding Lee Stempniak and Marcel Goc to the mix, but that alone wasn't enough, particularly after Goc was injured Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin ran into a rough patch during the playoffs, and the supporting cast wasn't good enough to help. With Ju si Jokinen moving on, and the ineffectivene s of the rest of Pittsburgh'sdepth forwards,Rutherford needed to figure something out. Through the NHL draft and two days of free agency, he may have managed it.We talked about Downie's effectivene s; Sutter's an open book, but hedeserves to play with some actual
Thon Maker Jersey third-liners; Nick Spaling, acquired as part of the James Neal-Patric Hornqvist trade, is going to be a little expensive (he's an RFA coming off a 13-goal season), but is still a decent-enough option; Goc, a defensively solidplay-driver with Nashville and Florida, is back to center the fourth line;
Milwaukee Bucks Jersey Blake Comeau, signed as a fourth-line winger, also drove play with the Blue Jackets overall (53 percent Corsi For) and relative to his teammates (plus 4.7 percent Corsi Rel).If you're a more visual person, here's ausage chart ()for Pittsburgh's most regular bottom-six forwards last season with Goc, Spaling, Downie and Comeau added in.The bluer a bubble, the more positively a player impacted shot attempts and, thus, puck po se sion. The redder a bubble, the more negative theimpact. The larger the bubble, the more minutes he played. The higher the bubble, the tougher competition he faced. The farther the bubble moves right, the more offensive-zone starts he sees, which leads to more shots.In short, you want blue bubbles. Gue s which guys on this chart have blue bubbles.Beau Bennett is blue, but he's likely to spend more of his time with Malkin or Crosby in the fall. Other than that, it's the new guys, with Spaling as the outlier. The only other player on the chart who will start the season with aregular shift is Sutter. That's an upgrade.A suming Crosby, Malkin, Chris Kunitz, Pascal Dupuis, Hornqvist and Bennett make up the top six, Pittsburgh has one spot open on the fourth line. That
Chris Copeland Jersey said,Spaling-Sutter-Downie as a third line and Comeau-Goc-TBD as a fourth isgood enough to help, if nothing else and that's more than Pittsburgh could say last year.
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