Jim Rutherford would love nothing more than to trade Marc-Andre Fleury right now, get a great return, and move on with the season with Matt Murray starting in goal. He all but came right out and said that several times already this season, as Murray has now solidified his job as the number one starting goalie.
As we get closer to the playoffs, there becomes less of a need to have a #1 and #1a, despite the way things played out last season, the Pens would be better served to eliminate any possible distractions when Murray has the occasional — and inevitable — bad game. Would having two very, very good goaltenders in stock be a good thing? Of course. But given the Pens injury situation lately, adding a left winger and/or defenseman to the mix may prove to be more beneficial to the teams chances of winning another Stanley Cup.
As it stands, there are only two teams with a realistic shot at making something work with the Pens: St. Louis and Dallas.
St. Louis still has a plethora of defensemen who would immediately fit right into the mold of what the Pens look for on the blueline, especially Kevin Shattenkirk, and Dallas has two goaltenders who should not be starters anywhere, but would serve to be competent backups to Murray, along with Patrick Eaves, who can play multiple forward positions at a fairly high level.
Calgary has hung around in the standings and is still in play, too, but it seems unlikely when you look at what Calgary has to offer in return. They aren’t a deep team and giving up any of the depth they have to add a goaltender doesn’t exactly make sense for a team that’s already on the fringe. Even if they make the playoffs, Marc-Andre Fleury isn’t going to steal them a series, and despite most General Managers in the NHL being generally dumb, especially Brian Burke, that much seems obvious.
Let’s go back to Dallas for a second because that is the team everyone has been talking about since Pierre Lebrun said this Wednesday on Toronto’s TSN 1050:
“As much as they say it [in Dallas -ed], can they really go forward with this goaltending?”
“They can’t,” answered NHL Insider Pierre LeBrun when asked the question Wednesday afternoon.
“I’m told that there at least been a very preliminary discussion between Pittsburgh and Dallas regarding Marc-Andre Fleury, but I stress preliminary because I don’t think there’s anything there at this point. But certainly there’s been contact and sometimes you just do that so that if you have to circle back at the last moment, you know that you’ve at least established contact. We’ll see.
“Certainly Fleury with two more years on his deal and a championship resume, I think we all agree would be an upgrade. But either way, whoever it is, they can’t go into next year – and it’s not all on the two goalies, but the team save percentage speaks fairly loudly. They need saves. I mean, you can’t be chasing all night long like they have been most nights.”
*- Thanks to Pensburgh for the original transcript.
Dallas is seven points out of a playoff spot and sinking fast. They’re 3-5-1 in their last ten, losers of three straight. If they want Marc-Andre Fleury, why would they give anything up to obtain him now? They know the Penguins can’t and won’t keep both Murray and Fleury, why wouldn’t they just wait until the offseason when the Pens inevitably buyout Fleury. It makes too much sense. Like Calgary, a decent goaltender will help them, sure, but their issues run much deeper than goaltending. This trade becomes less and less likely the further Dallas drops in the standings.
Full disclosure: Unless GMJR can pull off a grand larceny on a desperate Jim Nill and somehow make it all work under the cap, which, we can’t put anything past him, however I feel like there is absolutely no chance this trade happens. Rutherford would rather have Fleury as his backup over either Kari Lehtonen or Anti Niemi eleven days out of ten. And again, it just doesn’t make sense at all for the Stars to mortgage any of their future when they could just wait until the offseason to try to acquire Fleury — if he is who they are targeting.
That leads us to St. Louis. It turns out that Jake Allen sucks. The Blues have a good enough team despite the firing of Ken Hitchcock and everything else that has been transpiring there lately — they’re still currently holding the top wild card spot and one of the best home records in the NHL. They are the team who should be desperate for a goaltender. They’re the team that could really benefit from adding Fleury.
But not so fast…
There’s another goalie who recently hit the market and, oh by the way, just won a Vezina: Ben Bishop.
Tampa is last in the East. Bishop is a unrestricted free agent this offseason. They’re going to do everything they can to try to get something, anything back in return. Also, Bishop is currently trending upwards after a rough start — he’s coming off a shutout of LA Tuesday night. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before the Bolts deal Bishop.
If you’re St. Louis, you have to have Bishop ranked above Fleury. Simply put, Bishop is the better goalie, with better stats, and a comparable salary. Plus, the Bolts will be infinity more inclined to trade Bishop, as opposed to what the Penguins will be asking for Fleury.
If St. Louis does in fact trade for Bishop, it almost assuredly will mean that Fleury will remain a Penguin until the end of the season. It’s not the worst possible scenario for the Penguins, just the most realistic. Unless Rutherford is willing to concede less of a return to move Fleury out, he likely won’t be a bargaining chip for any team the Penguins make a deal with ahead of the March 1 trade deadline. The most likely scenario, still, is Fleury finishing this season in Pittsburgh, with the Pens buying him out of his contract before the expansion draft to secure Murray.
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